A Stubbornly Naive Group of GOP Senators
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For many observers of American politics, the past few years have been disillusioning, knocking down hopeful beliefs about what the people of the United States will support or tolerate.
Even some of Donald Trump’s backers have become disaffected .
Yet somehow, a small caucus of non-MAGA Republican senators has managed to remain preciously naive about the president and the administration he runs.
No matter how many times Trump or his aides show who they are and how they operate, these senators seem flabbergasted and saddened.
No case illustrates the ease with which they are fooled like the confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general.
Blanche was confirmed last week on a 50–49 vote, but only after GOP Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn extracted a written assurance from Blanche that a $1.8 billion fund for payouts to Trump allies would not proceed.
Senator Bill Cassidy also wavered, but said he was persuaded by the vow. (All three men will leave the Senate at the end of this term: Tillis is retiring, and Cornyn and Cassidy lost primaries to Trump-backed challengers.) This weekend, Blanche was interviewed on Meet the Press .
Kristen Welker asked whether he could “pledge that the Justice Department will always act independently of the White House.” Blanche refused —likely an honest answer, given his demonstrated willingness to follow Trump’s lead, but one that should worry anyone who believes in the rule of law; witness Trump’s repeated demands for political prosecutions , irrespective of evidence.
Yet Blanche insisted to Welker that Trump “will never ask me to do something unethical or illegal.
He never has.
He never will.” That might reassure someone whose political memory stretches back only as far as early August.
But anyone old enough to remember the slush fund, or Blanche’s starring role in negotiating it (as laid out by Federal Judge Kathleen Williams in May), would know that Trump not only has asked Blanche to do something unethical, but that Blanche complied.
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