Backstab: Trump officials take each other down - Another Day - Brian Tyler Cohen

[TexasTowelie]

BTC: Trump filled his White House with a bunch of vipers. It didn't take long for them to start strangling each other. This is just another day.

Over the last month, we've watched tensions escalate between federal law enforcement and the people of Minnesota. Civilians have been terrorized, 5-year-olds have been rounded up, and two innocent Minnesotans have been murdered. Finally, yesterday, as if the empathy light in his brain had suddenly switched on after 79 years on the fritz, the president seemingly started to give a shit.

(cut to video on WH lawn)
Trump: Well, I'm looking at that whole situation. I loved everybody. I love all of our people. I love his family. Uh, and it's a very sad situation.

(cut to video on The Will Cain Show)
Trump: The bottom line, it was terrible. Both of them were terrible. The other was terrible, too. And I'm not sure about his parents, but I know her parents were big Trump fans. Makes me feel bad anyway, but I mean, I guess you could say even worse. They were tremendous Trump people. Trump Trump fans.

(cut to studio)
BTC: Even worse. Ah, yes. For so it is written in the Bible, all human life is a precious gift from God. But if your parents are tremendous Trump fans, your life is like extra super precious. I believe that's from the Book of Donald.

But now that Trump has decided to do his best impression of a person with a soul by slightly acknowledging the incompetence and violence caused by his own administration, it seems inevitable that the head of someone who works for him is going to have to roll. And if a head's going to roll, might as well be the one made of plastic, you know, so it doesn't break.

(cut to video – CBS Morning News)
Host: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is facing bipartisan criticism so far.

(cut to video – NewsNation)
Host: Democrats and even some Republicans, like I said, though, are calling for the removal of no one as Secretary. An impeachment plan on Capitol Hill as more than 145 Democrats signed on. Others say President Trump should fire her.

(cut to studio)
BTC: Of course, Trump has to fire Noem. What's the alternative? Fire himself? Who would finish remodeling the ballroom? You think JD Vance can be trusted to pick the right curtain fabric? You think he's going to get us the best deals on crown molding? Face it, without Donald Trump's eye for design, this nation would fall apart.

Still, while it's no surprise that Democrats want Noem fired, Republicans are usually extremely reluctant to speak out against anyone who has Trump's backing. So, you know, things are looking bad for Noem when she's catching this kind of GOP shade.

(cut to video – CBS Morning News)
Sen. Lisa Murkowski: I've lost confidence in her. I think we would be we would be better served um with new leadership in the department.

Sen. Thom Tillis: She has taken this administration into the ground on an issue that we should own. We should own the issue of border security and immigration. But they have destroyed that for Republicans. Something that got the president elected. They have destroyed it through their incompetence.

(cut to studio)
BTC: That's right. The American people elected Donald Trump because they wanted competent cruelty. They wanted a militarized police force that looked cool rounding up old people and kids. They wanted this {inset video of J6 riot at the Capitol], okay, not this {inset video of ICE agent slipping}. This just makes us look stupid.

Nevertheless, everyone seemed pretty cool with letting Kristi Noem take the fall for how the Republican party's agenda of inhumanity has played out in Minneapolis. Everyone, that is except Kristi Noem.

(cut to video – ABC Evening News}
David Muir: We have learned Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requested a meeting at the White House last night. Sources telling ABC News President Trump met with Secretary Noem for two hours in the Oval Office.

(cut to video – CBS Morning News)
Host: She seems to indicate that everything that she's done, in other words, people are pressuring her. She's getting that bipartisan pressure, but everything that she's done has been carried out on the orders of either Steven Miller or the President of the United States.

(cut to studio)
BTC: Kristi Juvéderm Dome, I am surprised at you. Who knew that you were hiding such a Machiavellian mind beneath that synthetic weave, that such cunning words could spill from those faux Bella lips? Don't play innocent now by batting that blepharoplasty at me. See, some might interpret her claim that she was only following orders as your standard Nuremberg defense. And sure, it's that, too. But I also heard her say, "Stephen, Donald, you know I've got receipts for all the crazy shit you've asked of me. So, fuck around and find out.”

The buck got passed to Noem, and now she's passing it right back to Donald Trump and Steven Miller. And not just that, she is threatening them. She's saying, "Fire me, and I'll tell the world all the other illegal you had me do." Honestly, this was so predictable. I never saw it coming.

Trump filled his administration with the most venomous snakes that he could find. And now that the shit is hitting the fan, they're eating each other. Because guess what? That's what snakes do.

Honestly, I don't think Trump could make Kristi know him the fall guy, even if he wanted to. But even though powerful people in his party are calling for it, it doesn't really sound like he does.

(cut to video – CBS Morning News)
Reporter: Based on the reporting that that CBS News has done, uh we're told she is unlikely to lose her job.

Uh this president, especially in his second term, has been really reluctant uh to let anyone go because it creates the impression that um that there are mistakes being made in this administration. He's someone who often doesn't like to uh to admit that.

(cut to studio)
BTC: Oh, is he? Is Donald Trump someone who doesn't like to admit when he was wrong? I had noticed that about him. Can you even give me an example? {series of headlines appear in inset box}. Okay, but that was one time, two times.

(cut to video – CBS News)
Reporter: President Trump is refusing to back down on his claims that the election was stolen from him. The president released a new video on Tuesday in which he said there was a plot to deny him a second term, but he presented no proof.

(cut to studio)
BTC: Okay, I'm starting to notice a bit of a trend here. But the funny thing is, making Kristi Noem Secretary of Homeland Security isn't the mistake Trump needs to admit to. The situation in Minnesota isn't violent and untenable because Noem went rogue. It is a gruesome show because that is what Trump promised us. Do you remember how Trump pitched to end property crime on the campaign trail?

(cut to video)
Trump: But they have to be taught. Now if you had one really violent day like a guy like Mike Kelly put him in charge. Congressman Kelly put him in charge for one day.

One rough hour. And I mean real rough. The word will get out and it will end immediately.

(cut to studio)
BTC: He promised us one violent day. He's given us a whole year. Trump just comped us 364 extra days of carnage. No wonder he's a titan of the service industry. The man knows how to spoil his customers.

And violence wasn't just his answer to property crime. He explicitly told us it was his fix for immigration. And when shit first started to get violent, he said it wasn't violent enough.

(cut to video from 60 Minutes)
Reporter: More recently, Americans have been watching videos of ICE tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far?

Trump: No, I think they haven't gone far enough because we've been held back by the by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama.

Reporter: You're okay with those tactics?

Trump: Yeah, because you have to get the people out.

(cut to studio)
BTC: You got to get them out. What choice do you have but violent ICE raids? In fact, that's Trump's solution to getting everything out. You should see it when he can't get the ketchup out of the bottle.

I mean, hell, how did we not expect this? This is what the White House tweeted on January 13th. “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING AND RETRIBUTION IS COMING.”

Look, I'd like to use the old when someone tells you who they are, believe them cliche. But all this tough guy toxically masculine bullshit doesn't seem to square with how he reacts when his strategic violence plays itself out, right? He doesn't pump his fist. He says this,

(cut to video on WH lawn)
Trump: “Well, I'm looking at that whole situation. I love everybody. I love all of our people. I love his family. Uh, and it's a very sad situation."

(cut to studio)
BTC: In fact, he doesn't just call the violence sad. He disavows it. He denies it. He deflects it.

(cut to video of Will Cain interview)
Will Cain: Commander Bovino is supposedly leaving Minneapolis along with some CBP agents. Is this a pullback?

Trump: I don't think it's a pullback. It's a little bit of a change. Everybody in this room that has a business, you know, you make little changes, you know, Bovino is very good, but he's a pretty out there kind of a guy. And in some cases, that's good. Maybe it wasn't good here. .

(cut to video on ABC News)
Rachel Scott: Do you agree with the assessment from some of your own officials that Alex Pretti is a domestic terrorist or an assassin?

Trump: Well, I haven't heard that, but uh…

(cut to video interview with Will Cain)
Trump: We have Tom Homan in there now. We put him in there. He's great. And they met with the governor, the mayor, everybody else. And we'll we're going to deescalate a little bit.

(cut to studio)
BTC: Wow. All it took was two people getting shot to turn Mr. One Day of Violence into a deescalation beta bitch.

Look, I don't think it's a sign of Trump's weakness to want to turn down the temperature in Minneapolis. What is weak is pretending that's what you want. What's weak is saying one thing and doing another. What's weak is being too scared to show your face when you're brutalizing communities or refusing to take responsibility for the harm that you cause.

If the tactics ICE is using on the ground in Minneapolis seem familiar, it's because they are the same tactics Trump uses from the Oval Office. In fact, look at the way Trump asked to be introduced in Iowa today.

(cut to video)
Female speaker: You know, they're playing this song, “Macho Man." Every hardworking woman deserves a macho man. And I see a whole lot of them all around me. But the number one macho man you're going to hear from in a little while.

(cut to studio)
BTC: Dude, that's a song about gay culture. But how absolutely fitting. Trump really wants you to think he's a macho man, but he honestly doesn't even know what it is. A macho man admits when he's created a dangerous, chaotic climate of fear and does what he can to fix it. Did you know that?

(cut to video)
Trump: Well, I haven't heard that.

(cut to studio)
BTC: I figured.