MIKEY SMITH: 8 unhinged Donald Trump moments as he scrambles to distract from Epstein scandal
Donald Trump continued his scramble to get people to talk about literally anything but his former friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
He's not even hiding it. He flat out ordered Republicans to do the pivot from one subject to another in a televised speech last night.
Meanwhile, Obama hit back at Trump's threat to jail him over a bunch of made up nonsense.
Trump had some real trouble with what I believe Americans call "math".
And if you weren't sure whether America is creeping slowly towards being an old school dictatorship, Republicans are in the process of naming an Opera House after the great leader's wife.
Here's everything that's happened in Trump World in the last 24 hours that you need to know about.
1. Trump teaches Republicans to pivot from Epstein to 'Obama did it'
At a reception for Republican members of congress, Trump went on a long detour, during which he coached those present, if asked about the Epstein files, to pivot to "Obama did it"
"Remember this, Obama cheated on the election," Trump said.
There is no evidence to support this claim.
"You should mention that every time they give you a question that's not appropriate, just say 'by the way, Obama cheated on the election.' You'll watch the camera turn off almost instantly."
2. He claimed his poll numbers are up 5 points since the Epstein letter. They're obviously not
Trump claimed at the reception: "They're the best numbers I've ever had. And with this made up hoax that they're talking about, my numbers have gone up for and five points."
This is, of course, untrue.
According to the most recent polling - by YouGov for the Economist - Trump's numbers are somewhere south of the gutter.
He's at 55% disapprove, 40% approve, 4% not sure.
His net approval is -15% - down 1.2 points since last week.
For a while the only President who had worse numbers at this point in his presidency was himself eight years ago.
According to the Economist poll, the has breached this threshold.
3. Pam Bondi did her own little Watergate-style purge
A group of US judges last night voted to replace Trump's pick for New Jersey's top federal prosecutor - who just happens to be one of his former personal lawyers.
Alina Habba defended Trump in a series of legal cases, but has no experience as a prosecutor in criminal law.
Nevertheless she was given the job on an interim basis, and officially nominated for the position.
So when judges rejected her as prosecutor - a rare move - at the end of her 120 post, it was expected her deputy, career prosecutor Desiree Leigh Grace, would take over.
That made Bondi mad, so she fired the deputy, giving no reason for the decision.
"This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges - especially when they threaten the President's core Article II powers," Bondi said on Twitter after the move.
Bondi, it's said, plans to reinstall Habba in the post, but it's unclear how.
4. Can we just return to how the President is casually accusing his predecessor of treason and threatening to jail him?
Because that seems like kind of a big deal, and it's not really being treated as one.
If any previous President had done this it would be a huge scandal. Like, grounds for impeachment huge.
Even the line where he accuses Obama of trying to instigate a coup, when Trump himself tried to instigate a coup four years ago, feels like a throwaway detail.
5. Obama has had enough of this nonsense
"Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response," the former President said in a statement.
"But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.
"Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.
"These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio."
As we've written previously, Trump, Gabbard and the people who go out to bat for them on TV either don't know the difference between "Russia hacked the vote tallies" and "Russia ran a propaganda campaign, some of which included hacking and leaking people's emails" - or they're lying.
Bottom line is, Obama's right - the documents don't say what they say they say.
6. And yet, Gabbard keeps declassifying meaningless documents
Last night Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard added another meaningless document to her crazy wall of conspiracy theories.
This time the red wool leads the reader to a 44-page report prepared by Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee - without input from their Democrat counterparts - from 2020.
The previously secret document spends a long time quibbling about whether the Intelligence community's view that Vladimir Putin had a "clear preference" for Donald Trump winning the election was based on good intelligence.
The Republicans, shockingly, decided was not.
It's notable though that the document itself doesn't say Putin didn't want Trump to win - only that in their view the source of that claim from back in 2016 was sketchy.
It also doesn't say Putin didn't try to influence the result by attacking Hillary Clinton's campaign - just that in their view the motivation was to sow discontent, rather than influence the outcome.
It's really incredible how many previously classified files a government can release while it's trying not to release other ones, isn't it?
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7. For a businessman, Trump has a hard time with percentages
Discussing his plan to reduce drug prices, Trump said he was going to cut them by "numbers that are not even thought to be achievable."
"This is somebody nobody else can do. I can get the drug prices down… 1000% 600% 500% 1500%. Numbers that are not even thought to be achievable."
Given all of those reductions would result in drug companies giving money to patients to use their drugs, no Donald, they're not even thought to be achievable.
Stay in school, kids.
8. They might be renaming an opera house after Melania
Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee have voted to adopt an amendment that would re-name the second largest auditorium in the Kennedy Center after Melania Trump.
It isn't currently named after anyone.
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