No, it never was.
If he thinks saying that will somehow save his political future, he should really think again. See also Sessions, Jeff. It’s like they just can’t learn from someone else’s experience.
Remember Cleta Mitchell, the lawyer who was with Trump during this phone call trying to shake down and threaten Brad Raffensperger unless he could “find” enough votes for Trump to win Georgia? In the aftermath, it appears she was forced to resign (or possibly fired outright) from her longtime law firm, which wanted nothing further to do with her.
She blamed “leftist groups” for her personal troubles. No, Cleta, you should blame the fact that everything that Trump touches turns to shit, and many of his co-conspirators end up in jail.
Meanwhile, another lawyer trying to help Trump overturn the election may face disciplinary action:
Which is exactly what Raffensperger and Germany didn’t do.
This post has made me realise something. I sat through the whole hour of that woeful tape; I haven’t seen the point highlighted upthread - apologies if I have missed it - but Raffensperger and Germany were extremely passive during the call. I don’t know why they were, but the effect of their passivity is to nullify potential accusations that they in some way led someone to say this or that. They did no leading.
The net effect is that the potential for a distracting argument is removed.
j
I noticed that they were both very, very good about not rising to any of Trump’s bait: “right?” “you know that” etc.
It’s part of his (and others) style to always get you to agree with them; it’s really obnoxious.
The reason they were “passive” is because the more you engage with a crazy person, the more it encourages them to keep the crazy going. Consider Trump’s calls to Fox and Friends - when they quickly devolve from “friendly banter” to “rambling insanity”, you can watch the hosts shift into passive mode hoping that Trump will wind down and go away. I expect the same thing applies here.
Oh that’s “talking” they’re doing!
I also suspect that they wanted to be very careful that nothing they said could be misconstrued. If they asked “What do you want me to do?” that could easily be interpreted as them going along with Trump’s demands. With something this important they probably took the position that the less said the better.
Og, yes, that IS obnoxious and I have encountered far too many (as in more than 0) people in my own experience who basically work on the basis of “I am right, of course, right?” A strategy to take advantage of people conditioned to that you don’t just throw a flat “no” or a flat “not true” at a Figure of Respect’s face when Others Are Listening, so as to not make them lose face, and then that can be used to later say “hey, you agreed” or “hey YOU are the one who gave a weaselwords answer rather than directly say yes or no”.
This, exactly. “What do you want me to do?” could be interpreted as participating in a conspiracy. They handled the call well. (I, too, gave up an hour of my life to listen to that pathetic, corrupt, unhinged discussion.)
How about, “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”
LOL, for how much longer did you want that call to go on?
If it was the FBI on that discussion and not fellow Republicans – even Republicans who now hate him and understand he is a crazy man – I would have expected a question such as you posed.
It’s a risk/reward analysis by Raffensperger: can he skirt the line of getting Trump to hang himself without Raffensperger looking complicit? Trump is a moron but he has somehow learned to be ambiguous enough in his demands that he can’t be pinned down. The possible reward just wasn’t worth any risk.
That would be a better phrasing.
Remember three days ago when this was Trump’s worst attack on democracy?
Like the old DJ said, the Hits just keep coming.
In this case I’d put an ‘s’ before ‘hits.’
Wow. Astounding. I’d forgotten how obsessed I was by this, just 48 hours ago! And then by the Georgia senate races!
I can’t wait for the boring to begin.
We are certainly living in interesting times.
I think Trump’s attack on Georgia’s EV indirectly led to the election of the new Georgian Dem Senators.