22 June 2020

Flopped

In recent weeks, Donald Trump heavily hyped the return of his rally spectacles. The first was scheduled for this past weekend in Oklahoma.

The breathy hubris about the promised event was intense. Between eight hundred thousand and a million people were expected to show, according to the President. The event would be so large, he promised, that he and his surrogates would have to make appearances at a huge satellite overflow rally outside the main event. Oklahoma, after all, was deep red Trump campaign country and a world record turnout was promised.

In reality, the event on Saturday turned out to be a colossal flop (details here and here). Rather than a million people, only a little over six thousand showed. The arena was 70 percent empty. The promised overflow rally was scrapped.

And Trump was furious at the abysmal turnout (details here and here). He blamed everyone except, of course, himself.

Yet he was the sole reason people failed to show. They don't believe his bullshit about the coronavirus crisis being over. And his badly sagging poll numbers show that his base has radically shrunk.

Good. Let him stew in his own misery.

* * *

And an update about the showdown between the Trump administration and the chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan who was refusing to leave his post even after the White House insisted he had been fired. Sadly, the prosecutor relented and has now left his position (details here).

Nonetheless, per the linked article, by holding out, the prosecutor was able to force the Justice Department to name his deputy to fill his slot and not the White House's hand-picked replacement. "The move was viewed as a win for SDNY, where prosecutors had become uneasy over the prospect of a new leader viewed as loyal to [the administration]," the piece notes.

The departing prosecutor was invited to appear before the House Judiciary Committee this week. Hopefully he will be able to attend and shed much more light on this matter.

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