So last week, the media went absolutely off the chains when President Donald Trump “self-impeached” by answering a question about what he would like to see Ukrainians do about the Democratic frontrunner and his shady history of overseas corruption.
“If they were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the Bidens,” Trump said. “Likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens. Because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.”
You could hear the fainting from Washington to Honolulu.
“This is an impeachable offense,” said the perpetually-outraged Matt Ford.
“I’ve lived in China & covered it for decades,” tweeted CNN’s Jim Sciutto. “It is an authoritarian country with no credible rule of law which imprisons & kills political opponents. For a US president to call on such a country to investigate an American is incredible. Will Republicans who know this object?”
“Publicly engaging in criminal behavior now,” wrote someone named Bradley P. Moss.
Even Sen. Ben Sasse got in on the action, taking Sciutto’s cue to remind us all that China’s not a very nice place. Thanks, Ben. Guess what? We already knew that.
In all of Washington, only Sen. Marco Rubio – himself not really one of Trump’s biggest fans – who seemed to understand what the president was doing.
“I don’t know if that’s a real request or him just needling the press, knowing that you guys are going to get outraged by it. He’s pretty good at getting everybody fired up, and he’s been doing that for a while, and the media responded right on task,” Rubio said Friday. “I don’t think it’s a real request. Again, I think he did it to get you guys. I think he did it to provoke you to ask me and others and get outraged by it. He plays it like a violin, and everybody falls right into it. That’s not a real request.”
Can it really be that after four years of Trump doing this kind of trolling that there’s only one guy in all of elected politics who sees it for what it is? Is our political class filled with so many one-dimensional dullards that this simple observation is beyond them? Well, consider that most people still think Trump actually asked Russia to hack into Hillary’s emails and we guess you have your answer. It’s like everyone in the Beltway is afflicted with some mild version of autism that makes them unable to comprehend anything that isn’t 100% literal.
Marco never really struck us as the smartest guy on the Hill, but damn…he might actually be.
