Sarah Longwell: The Time to Speak Out Is Now

Former Trump aides must tell the voters what they saw.

(Composite by Hannah Yoest / Photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock)

Scene from a courtroom:

DONALD TRUMP: [Muttering loudly during the testimony of rape-victim E. Jean Carroll “con job” . . . “witch-hunt.”]

ATTORNEY: [Objects that the jury can hear Trump’s outbursts.]

JUDGE KAPLAN: Mr. Trump has the right to be present here. That right can be forfeited, and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive.

[Turns to Trump] Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial. I understand you are probably very eager for me to do that.

TRUMP: [Throws up hands] I would love it. I would love it.

JUDGE KAPLAN: I know you would. I know you would. You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance, apparently.

TRUMP: You can’t either.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the man the GOP is about to nominate once again for the presidency of the United States.

Happy Thursday.

Because this is Trump, the courtroom outburst was followed by the requisite whining ramble:

But wait, there was more.

In a 1 a.m. post on Truth Social, Trump ranted that he deserved COMPLETE & TOTAL PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY… even for “EVENTS THAT ‘CROSS THE LINE’”:

A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MUST HAVE FULL IMMUNITY, WITHOUT WHICH IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM/HER TO PROPERLY FUNCTION. ANY MISTAKE, EVEN IF WELL INTENDED, WOULD BE MET WITH ALMOST CERTAIN INDICTMENT BY THE OPPOSING PARTY AT TERM END. EVEN EVENTS THAT “CROSS THE LINE” MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD. THERE MUST BE CERTAINTY. EXAMPLE: YOU CAN’T STOP POLICE FROM DOING THE JOB OF STRONG & EFFECTIVE CRIME PREVENTION BECAUSE YOU WANT TO GUARD AGAINST THE OCCASIONAL “ROGUE COP” OR “BAD APPLE.” SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH “GREAT BUT SLIGHTLY IMPERFECT.” ALL PRESIDENTS MUST HAVE COMPLETE & TOTAL PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY, OR THE AUTHORITY & DECISIVENESS OF A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WILL BE STRIPPED & GONE FOREVER. HOPEFULLY THIS WILL BE AN EASY DECISION. GOD BLESS THE SUPREME COURT!

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Mitt Romney provided some context for the moment, telling CNN’s Manu Raju:

"I think a lot of people in this country are out of touch with reality and will accept anything Donald Trump tells them.

“You had a jury that said that Donald Trump raped a woman. And that doesn't seem to be moving the needle.

“There's a lot of things about today's electorate that I have a hard time understanding."

But here is some more context that GOP voters might want to consider:

All of which leads us to…

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It’s Time for Former Trump Officials to Speak Out Against Him

Today’s must-read — Sarah Longwell in the Bulwark:

If we want to stop a Trump restoration and the promised MAGA dictatorship, it’s going to require building a coalition of people who understand the stakes.  And there are no messengers better equipped to convey the peril of a Trump presidency than those who lived it firsthand, on the inside.

But wait, haven’t they done that already? Mark Milley posed for a front-page spread in the Atlantic. John Kelly gave a statement to CNN. Others have back-channeled their grave misgivings, off the record, to Puck and Politico.

Hard truth: That’s not enough.

I talk to Republican primary voters every week in focus groups, and you know what they don’t read? The Atlantic, Puck, and Politico. Fundamentally, the reason they seem unbothered by Trump’s autocratic tendencies is that a lot of them don’t know about them.

(Some do, and are perfectly fine with it, but that’s a different story.)

You and I may agonize over the state of our politics, but the people I talk to are worried about other things. They don’t process the finer nuances of who’s giving blind quotes to whom. Even if they did, do a couple of sternly worded rebukes feel adequate to this moment in American history?

The answer is no. Which is why it’s time to step up. The people who served Trump directly need to go on the record, as loudly and frequently as possible, about exactly why he should never get near the White House again.

We need John Kelly on primetime TV making the case.

We need Bill Barr speaking plainly in swing state ads, with millions of dollars behind them.

We need Jim Mattis talking straight to camera about what it means to serve the Constitution—and what it means to subvert it.

We need John Bolton on Fox News telling Republicans not to vote for Trump.

And yes, we need Mike Pence saying to all Americans—loudly, over and over again—what he knows to be true about January 6th: that it was a betrayal of America and a disqualifying offense.

Kelly recently made the point that he and others have spoken out about Trump: “I came out and told people the awful things he said about wounded soldiers, and it didn’t have half a day’s bounce.” 

“You had his attorney general Bill Barr come out, and not a half a day’s bounce. If anything, his numbers go up,” he continued. “It might even move the needle in the wrong direction. I think we’re in a dangerous zone in our country.”

Kelly is right about being in a dangerous zone, but wrong about moving the needle. He and Barr and others haven’t been talking to the people who need to hear them. They’re talking to legacy media organizations, policymakers, and lots of people who wouldn’t ever vote for Trump. These are high-information people who have already made up their minds.

Instead, Kelly and the other former Trump officials need to reach actual swing voters. Which requires a concerted, sustained campaign to meet people where they are and alert them to the danger we face….

For these former Trump officials, telling the truth about Trump can’t just be a position they take. It ought to be a cause: a sustained project that they pursue with as much focus and vigor as they applied to the rest of their professional duties.

I don’t mean to make this sound easy. It isn’t. Some former Trump officials are lifelong conservatives who have a deep institutional attachment to the Republican party and a bone-deep interest in opposing Democrats. Others spent their careers in the military, studiously avoiding partisan politics. It makes all the sense in the world for them to want to stay silent.

But this moment demands more of all of us, as Americans. If ever there were a time for broad-shouldered leadership, this is it. 

We need former Trump officials—people of conscience, who have not acquiesced to the authoritarianism of it all—to stand as one and to speak plainly to the American people. Again and again, until every voter has heard their voices.

Generals Kelly and Mattis, Vice President Pence, Attorney General Barr, Ambassador Bolton: The primary season has ended before it even began. Donald Trump will be the Republican party’s nominee. It’s time to go to work. Your country needs you.

Sarah also has a companion piece in today’s New York Times, which you can read here: “17 Trump Cabinet-Level Appointees Criticizing Trump.”

Feel free to bookmark, clip, and send to a GOP voter near you.

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Tina Nguyen: The MAGA Diaries

On Wednesday’s podcast: The young people who show up at CPAC and Turning Point events are there because of a deeply entrenched grassroots effort to draw in new soldiers of the conservative movement. The inside story from a journalist who got out. Plus, a diagnosis of Tucker Carlson. Puck's Tina Nguyen joins me to talk about her fantastic new book.

You can listen to the whole thing here. Or watch us on YouTube.

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