Mwalimu-G
Elder Lister
January 5, 2021 Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu 'No one wants to be around anymore' 
Lordy, there are tapes. The stunning and possibly criminal telephone conversation in which US President Donald Trump asked a Republican official in Georgia to find votes to change the election result is far from the first time his loose tongue has gotten him into trouble. In fact, his entire presidency can be charted in revelations from taped calls, transcripts and accounts of outlandish conversations, all telling an endless tale of manipulating presidential power for personal gain. Even before he was elected in 2016, we got a glimpse of Trump’s idea of power in leaked “Access Hollywood” tapes, in which he boasted that his fame meant he could get away with grabbing women by their genitals. Contemporaneous notes by about-to-be-fired James Comey later revealed Trump’s Mafia-don-like behavior when he leaned on the FBI director for personal loyalty. A leaked call with Australia’s then-PM Malcom Turnbull revealed Trump complaining that honoring a preexisting refugee deal made him “look bad.” And even White House insiders were stunned by his indiscretion in calls taped by journalist Bob Woodward — which proved Trump knew Covid-19 was “deadly stuff” even as he downplayed it in public. A written summary of another conversation, with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, showed Trump asking for a probe into his then-election opponent Joe Biden -- which got him into his worst scrape, leading to his impeachment. But in a sign of how his hold on Republican voters intimidates fellow GOP politicians, every Republican senator apart from Mitt Romney let the flagrant abuse of power slide. It’s long been clear that Trump’s escape then led him to conclude that nothing could stop the complete merger of his presidency and his pursuit of personal, political and business goals on the taxpayer dime. Each of the bombshells listed above would have doomed a less bulletproof politician -- and they’re just the ones we know about |
