My memory ain't what it once was-- and for someone in the middle of writing a memoir that is painful-- but one thing I do very much recall was how, on election night 2020, virtually all the reporting that mentioned Giuliani noted that he was drunk-- drunk and giving Trump very bad, ultimate-toady advice. And yesterday it became the big-- absurdly disputed-- takeaway from the Select Committee's findings.
Why is Giuliani's election night inebriation worth thinking about? Judd Legum turned it around on "My Kevin" McCarthy and the Republican leaders who are still kissing up to Trump by insisting on the veracity of the Big Lie that is tearing the U.S. apart. While the White Houses's and the campaign's "Team Normal" was telling Trump he lost the election, a drunken, boot-licking Giuliani was still currying favor from Trump by telling him what he wanted to hear... and all the hanger-on nutcases, from Sydney Powell, Peter Navarro, Michael Flynn, QAnon, John Eastman and Jenna Ellis to Kelli Ward, Trumpanzee Jr. and the Gang-Greene were all along for the ride. And, after a moment's hesitation-- and calculation-- so was Kevin McCarthy.
"What's astounding," wrote Legum, "is that 19 months later-- after numerous lawsuits and audits failed to uncover any evidence of meaningful fraud-- the leadership of the Republican Party is still on Giuliani's side. Top Republicans refuse to acknowledge that Trump and Giuliani's claims of fraud were baseless. Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who many believe will be the next House Speaker, refused to acknowledge that Biden's election was legitimate last week. Under questioning from ABC News' Jon Karl on Thursday, McCarthy repeatedly refused to say whether Trump was wrong about the election being stolen and said there were 'a lot of problems with the election process.'"
He also noted that "McCarthy was subpoenaed by the January 6 Committee but refuses to comply. He claims that the Committee, which is investigating an attack on the United States Capitol inspired by Trump's lies about election fraud, is 'not exercising a valid or lawful use of Congress’ subpoena power.' McCarthy, through his attorney, describes the entire investigation as an 'attempt to use the full force of the federal government to attack perceived political rivals.' Nevertheless, McCarthy-- who voted to overturn the election on January 6-- continues to receive financial support from corporations that claimed to be deeply disturbed by the January 6 attack."
Those financiers of treason include Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, American Airlines, Comcast, Ford, FedEx, HomeDepot, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Procter & Gamble, Truist, USAA, Walmart...
And largely because of incredibly bad leadership at the top-levels of the House Republican Conference, all but a small handful of Republican lawmakers-- not just the certifiably insane ones like Boebert, Gohmert, Traitor Greene, Cawthorn, Gaetz, Biggs, Gosar-- are playing right along with the dangerous game, as though it was just more inane DC tit-for-tat instead of an existential threat to the United States of America. As Ron Brownstein reported for CNN this morning, with the powerful case it has assembled against Trump, the select committee "may provide the clearest-- and potentially most ominous-- measure yet available of how completely red and blue America have separated into divergent information bubbles that no longer share even the most rudimentary agreement on the basic facts of American life... For months, polls have consistently found large numbers of Republicans expressing agreement with propositions that have no basis in fact, including the beliefs that systemic fraud stole the 2020 election from Trump and the January 6 assault was carried out by leftist agitators and Black protesters, not White supremacist groups and Trump supporters. About half or more of GOP voters have described the invasion of the US Capitol in positive terms, such as patriotism or defending freedom, and only a tiny percentage have said Trump deserves blame for the attack."
