On Giuliani: Hold the Popcorn

So, last night, Rudy Giuliani, who was recently hired as part of Donald Trump's legal team, went on Fox and gave a rather stunning interview to Sean Hannity, during which he said that Trump reimbursed his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, the $130,000 paid to Stormy Daniels to silence her ahead of the 2016 election.

This seemed like a rather incredible admission, and naturally many people (myself included) quickly assumed that Giuliani had made a critical error. But, since things are often not what they seem when it comes to this administration, especially regarding their interactions with the media, I kept my eyes peeled for any suggestion that Giuliani was actually playing a long game.

And then came Trump's morning tweetshitz.

It is manifestly obvious that Trump didn't write these tweets. pic.twitter.com/9CM3qW7wHI

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 3, 2018

If you can't view the embedded screencapped tweets, published on Trump's account, they read (in three parts): "Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. These agreements are very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll [sic] in this transaction."

That was when I knew something was up.

If they are indeed trying to seize the opportunity to put their spin first on what is in Cohen's files, then Rudy isn't going rogue; he's doing exactly what he's been hired to do.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 3, 2018

And obviously it helps them if the political press (and all the rest of us) believe that Rudy is off the rails and hurting Trump. Too busy yukking it up to scrutinize (yet again) that we are being manipulated by Trump in an attempt to evade accountability.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 3, 2018

If it doesn't convince you, they don't care. It doesn't have to. It only has to create the spin for the "other side" to oblige the compliant press to bothsides this into irrelevance. Again.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 3, 2018

And confirmation of my suspicion came directly from Giuliani himself:

Giuliani tells me he just spoke w / POTUS. Tonight by phone. President "very pleased," Giuliani says. He says they discussed his revelation of the reimbursements long in advance. Does not expect to be fired. Insists his remarks on FNC were approved by Trump. Story TK.

— Robert Costa (@costareports) May 3, 2018

He reiterated the same thing this morning during an appearance on Fox & Friends.

So here's where we are: Once again, the Trump administration is manipulating the media, and delivering talking points to their base ahead of a disclosure that would be scandalous under normal circumstances.

Here, however, many members of the media spent the entirety of last night and much of the morning publicly laughing at what a dipshit Rudy Giuliani is. So now they have a strong incentive to pretend it's not a strategy, even when it becomes obvious that it is, because to backtrack and take it seriously would necessitate admitting that they were totally fucking wrong, missed the strategy, and got played.

And we can't have that. So instead they will keep playing along, precisely as the administration hoped they would, and abet Donald Trump once more to avoid having to admit they got it wrong, keep getting it wrong, will get it wrong again, and will wrong us all right over the fucking cliff.