FBI/INTELLIGENCE/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump unloaded a baffling cargo of words Wednesday [6-12-19] after George Stephanopoulos asked him whether his son Donald Jr. should have contacted the FBI in June 2016 when a gang of Russians offered him ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton. Not necessarily, Trump implied in his first answer. Asked about his own FBI director’s assertion that of course a campaign should contact the FBI, Trump went full-tilt adamant…The exchange detonated on cable news and Twitter like the mother of all truth bombs. Trump kept hedging and twisting around—implying you might both take the dirt and call the FBI—flummoxing normally voluble critics like former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. ‘I’ve run out of adjectives,’ he said. ‘Unfit to be President’ is a gross understatement,’ tweeted former CIA Director John Brennan in equal exasperation. The leading Democratic candidates for president—Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and even the undercard candidates—torched him as a danger to the electoral process. What was he thinking? Was he thinking? In a normal politician, the moment might have been what used to be politely called a ‘gaffe,’ and more accurately called a career-ending self-own.”
–Jack Shafer, “Trump’s Mother of All Truth Bombs,” Politico, June 13, 2019