Hmm, I am sure I read that, but yes, now he is saying Nope. Maybe it was an OpEd thing that said that after Joe said “I will not pardon Hunter”.
Thanks. I wuz wrong.
Of course, IMHO he should, but.
I agree with you that he undeniably has that right and should exercise it if the sentence is grossly unfair (as he should with any grossly unfair federal sentence). It just pinged my antennae that he would say something like that so I poked around. All good.
What he actually said,
“I understand it pretty well, because I’ve had it with people who have it in their family.It’s a very tough thing. It’s a very tough situation for a father; it’s a very tough situation for a brother or sister; and it goes on, and it’s not stopping, whether it’s alcohol or drugs or whatever it may be. It’s a tough thing, and so that’s a tough moment for the family. It’s a tough moment for any family involved in that.”
I know it’s illegal to say anything that might be seen as positive to Trump but the fact is his initial reaction after the verdict was to show sympathy in an interview. Maybe in the heat of the moment during the debate he will lash out but that wasn’t his reaction when it happened. It won’t stop his supporters and foreign bots from trying to exploit the story.
Convict Donald thinks he somehow outsmarted CNN by agreeing to debate, which would be an odd thing to boast about if he planned on chickening out.
It is odd. Perhaps it is purely because of his own legal problems.
Indeed, another data point. I am becoming more confused about his thinking. I still think he won’t do it.
No one is all good or all bad. IMHO, unwillingness to acknowledge that is a mistake.
However, Donald Trump is a shameless flip flopper. So he may take back whatever was positive.
If his actual thinking is as deranged as his quotes suggest, and he’s actually the one making the decision he could do anything for any reason or no reason: his mind has become a Magic 8-ball built of meat. It’s a fool’s errand to predict that.
OTOH, if somebody else on his team is driving, then he’ll do it. For good or ill to his own electoral prospects.
Or, as Dave Barry once said of Lyndon LaRouche: “Where you or I have a brain, he has a Whack-a-Mole game.”
I’ve heard he was greatly affected by his brother’s alcoholism and early death. It could be nothing more than that. It could be more calculated.
Of course it is, and not odd at all. It would be ridiculous for Trump to say – even to his idiot low-information acolytes – “Biden can’t be trusted because his son is a convicted felon”! 
I really don’t see why it would. If you believe the lie that the system is rigged against him (Trump), the conviction against Trump counts for nothing. But, man, that even Hunter got convicted in a system favorable to him, he must have been guilty as sin! I don’t see any reason why a MAGA would equate Biden’s conviction with Trump’s, nor see or care about the supposed hypocrisy. Trump is being stifled, he is being treated unfairly, the shadow government wants him down, yet he fights on, loyal American soldier that he is! Unstopped by the taint of a false conviction.
Seriously. Why would they care?
You nailed it there @pulykamell.
The Right has succeeded in all but delegitimizing the very notion of honest government. Which of course ushers in the very dishonest government they can hardy wait to impose on everyone, even their erstwhile supporters. At least those of them who are not uber-rich folks.
Fundamentally, government is power. That’s been true for just about as long as we’ve had governments. What made liberal democracies like the US different from earlier governments was the idea that there should be limits on that power. There should be rules that apply to everyone, and individuals should be able to appeal to the courts when they think the government has overstepped the bounds of those limits.
But what we’ve seen of the GOP in the last decade or more is an open rejection of the idea that there should be limits on their use of the power of government. The day they blocked Obama’s Supreme Court appointee was the day I called it. From then on, the only limit on what they would do is, “Do we have the power to do it?”
The GOP will do anything they want to do, so long as there is no one else with the power to stop them, who is willing to stop them.
Agreed.
As various folks here have said many times (probably quoting some recognized pundit / author), and I’m going butcher the quote but probably express the idea well enough to be recognized:
If the Right finds that Democracy will not deliver their goals, they’ll abandon Democracy before they abandon their goals.
David Frum in the Atlantic. “If Conservatives become convinced they can’t win democratically, they won’t abandon conservatism. They’ll abandon democracy.”
And of course, on that note, I think we’re already past that stage. According to Republicans, only elections where they’ve won are fair, and all others are cheats and frauds.
For that matter, even if they won, they’ve won by less than they should due to said cheats and frauds.
And that’s entirely leaving out the states that are seriously considering and/or working to actively overturn the will of the voters (AZ and OH I’m eyeballing you the most right now) because the people in power know best, and you can’t be changing that will your popular vote and all!
According to Trump, not even that. He won the Electoral College in 2016, but still claimed fraud.
Worth noting here that Frum is himself a conservative. His observation is about what Republicans have become under the label of conservatism. They’re not conservatives any more; they’re authoritarian power-hungry radicals with a fascist agenda.
@Toxgoddess: Thank you. That’s it exactly.
@wolfpup: That’s also it exactly.
Bastards.