… including Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton

This is Trump playing his distraction game, of course. So many negatives are piling up on him this week that he’s trying to change the subject with some outrageous but relatively innocuous controversy, in the hope that the media will report less about Woodward, Cohen and the whistleblower. If people rant about the far-fetched and imaginary prospect of Tom Cotton in the Supreme Court, an obvious red herring, they will have that much less time to rant about Trump’s COVID lies. You may have noticed that the latest shenanigans have already pushed his financials and tax returns out of the news cycle.

Reporters are generally unfocused and easily manipulated, so this tactic usually works for Trump. You’d think people would get wise to his tricks, but they never seem to.

It appears that as the lawyers were battling, the judge stepped down from his perch and hit the wrestlers’ lawyer over the head with a chair.

Ironically, he caused brain damage.

Among the plaintiffs were Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, Joseph “Road Warrior Animal” Laurinaitis, Paul “Mr. Wonderful” Orndorff, Chris “King Kong Bundy” Pallies and Harry Masayoshi Fujiwara, known as Mr. Fuji.”

Snuka and Fuji are dead. Both had advanced cases of CTE. Bundy is also dead.

A few new revelations:

The book describes Mr. Trump hiring “a Faux-Bama, or fake Obama, to record a video where Trump ritualistically belittled the first Black president and then fired him, a kind of fantasy fulfillment that it was hard to imagine any adult would spend serious money living out.”

Trump’s coordination with the National Enquirer was more extensive than previously known. According to Cohen, Trump’s involvement with the National Enquirer included personal day-to-day supervision of stories on his Republican rivals. The book specifically mentions Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

Washington Post overview

WaPo makes a big deal out of the fact that Trump knew COVID was deadly and much worse than a flu, but was telling the country a different story.

I found that less interesting than some other aspects of Woodward’s presentation:

Kim said his meetings with Trump were a “precious memory” that underscored how the “deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force.”

Coats: “He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.”

Trump: “My fucking generals are a bunch of pussies.”

Woodward asked Trump about whether white people should be feeling some responsibility to better “understand the anger and pain” felt by Blacks in America. “No,” Trump replied, in his own sensitive way, “I don’t feel that at all.”