Sunday School 7/5/20

Let's dive right in to the heart of the discussions in today's classrooms, shall we?

First up, we've got former UN Ambassador and National Security Advisor Susan Rice and Andrea Mitchell on This Week.  Mitchell's first question was on the message being sent to Vladimir Putin by president Trump calling the Afghanistan bounty intelligence a hoax. Rice didn't mince words, saying the message is

"You can kill American servicemen and women with absolute impunity." This is an extraordinary revelation. The president of the United States has demonstrated absolutely callous disregard for the safety and security of American forces in a war zone. And there's no explanation for this.

Not only that, Rice noted, but we're now 10 days since the story was published, and why

has he not come out and said to the American people, "My top priority is to protect our men and women in uniform. And I will get to the bottom of this intelligence. I will figure out why it is that Russia appears to be targeting our forces. And I will give the American people and the soldiers the appropriate response that it deserves"?

She also doesn't buy his story about not being briefed.

Well, if that's the case, then maybe these advisors in 2020, when the information came back, again failed to tell him. I wouldn't doubt that because they're scared of him, I believe. But the point is our servicemen and women are in a war zone, vulnerable. We have credible information (about Americans being killed)... and the president calls it a hoax.

She also said she "can tell the American people with certainty " that we don't wait for, and "very, very rarely have 100% certainty." That's not the goal; it's not how intelligence works, and

...what we just heard out of my successor, Mr. O'Brien, and the press secretary is a clown show... that's not how the national security advisor and the top Cabinet-level officials who are there to support the president are supposed to behave.

And to Mitchell's question on why, "if this intelligence was important enough"  for internal briefings, and for inclusion in Trump's PDB, why let him have all of those calls with Putin without raising the issue, number one, and where are the folks who should have told him to raise it on the calls?

... it makes no sense. None of this adds up. And if, in fact, the president is surrounded by such cowards and incompetents that even when he's trying to invite Putin into the G7 and has these six phone calls nobody has the guts to say to (him), "Mr. President, we still, I want to remind you, have credible intelligence that the Russians are trying to kill U.S. servicemen and women in Afghanistan. This is not the time to be handing Putin an olive branch. This is the time to be working at options to punish him."

That didn't happen. 

So, you know, this is really extraordinary. We have a president who's ...surrounded by sycophants and weaklings who aren't doing their jobs, who don't have the confidence in themselves and in the mission that they are there to carry out, to bring the president the tough messages he needs to hear.

That, she said, is "the essence of the job" of national security advisor.

Moving down the hall, Senators Joni Ernst and Tammy Duckworth chatted with Dana Bash on CNN's State of the Union; Ernst, the Iowa Republican, is up first, and the first question was whether she was comfortable with the president's comment below.

Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. No movement that seeks to dismantle these treasured American legacies can possibly have a love of America at its heart. 

She spoke of "a great level of frustration" across the country, and that the US is "the greatest nation on the face of the planet, but we do have "blemishes in our history," adding

... we need to come together and have some very hard discussions about our past. But the great thing about this nation is that we can learn from those blemishes, learn from those hard times in the past, and continue to evolve as a continually blessed nation. 

And did she think that the majority of the protests are "actually peaceful, and not the way the president described them? She said yes - there are many peaceful protests, and she supports them.

But what we can't allow is -- is violence and that type of disruption and destruction of whether it's personal or private property, public property. We can't allow that to happen. But, again, we all need to come together, we need to sit down, and we need to have some very real, very hard discussions. If we want to improve our country, we all need to come together.

Bash asked about the military spending bill, which includes language about renaming the bases currently named for Confederate folks - something Ernst supports - and whether Trump should sign it.

Well, I absolutely believe that we need to have a discussion on this. And, again, sometimes, those discussions are very hard. But I do believe that we should talk about these military bases that were named for generals that took up arms against the United States.  So, I welcome that discussion. I think we all should. And, again, we want to focus on the meaningful things that will move our country forward, but I don't believe in the destruction, again, of property...

Bash recognizes a non-answer when she sees one, and asked the question again.

Well, I would love that he would sign the bill and move forward. But, absolutely, we have to have the discussions. We have to do that. And if that's what will help, if we can all get together as stakeholders, then I think it's the right thing to do.

Not a whole lot better - maybe a little bit. The discussion moved to the coronavirus, and Ernst's comments about Barack Obama's "failed leadership" as shown by his handling of the Ebola outbreak which led to the deaths of two Americans, compared to the nearly 130,000 COVID-19 deaths under president Trump.  Is he also showing "failed leadership?"

Here's the failed answer.

Well, I think we all have responsibility in stopping the spread. And, certainly, I have heard some of the discussions earlier. Wearing a mask is entirely appropriate. Social distancing is entirely appropriate. We have seen, I think, one additional death in the last 24 hours here in Iowa. So, it is something that we absolutely should be paying attention to. And we all should do our part to make sure that we are protecting others as well. So, this is a virus that is not going to go away soon. We want to make sure that we are watching this and doing everything that we can as a federal government, including the research and development of therapeutics and vaccinations, to make sure that we are doing the right thing as a nation.

Bash pushed on this one as well, asking "is the president right now exhibiting failed leadership'?

Well, I -- no, I think that the president is stepping forward.

And I laughed and I laughed and I laughed.... All I can say, after watching this, is if she castrated hogs as poorly and painfully as she answers questions, she should have been brought up on animal abuse charges.

Duckworth, the Illinois Democrat and, like Ernst, a veteran, was up next, and was offered up a different Trump/Mt. Rushmore quote; take a look.

Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. 

Bash asked her, knowing that she supports renaming the bases, if statues of leaders like Washington and Jefferson, both slave owners, should come down. She said "we should start off by having a national dialogue on it at some point," but there are more important things we have to worry about right now.

What really struck me about this speech that the president gave at Mount Rushmore was that he spent more time worried about honoring dead Confederates than he did talking about the lives of our American -- 130,000 Americans who lost their lives to COVID-19, or by warning Russia off of the bounty they're putting on Americans' heads.  I mean, his priorities are all wrong here. He should be talking about what we're going to do to overcome this pandemic. What are we going to do to push Russia back? And, instead, he had no time for that. He spent all his time talking about dead traitors.

Bash took exception to calling Washington a traitor, and pressed again on whether removing statues of him was a good idea. Duckworth said we should "listen to everybody" and reminded us that Mt. Rushmore was built on land stolen from Native Americans. And she reiterated, 

We should be talking about the fact that COVID- 19 is experiencing a resurgence, and both this president and the man he put in charge of the pandemic response team, the vice president, have both failed miserably at their jobs. I'm more worried about the 130,000 who have lost their lives recently and the thousands and thousands more Americans who are currently sick than I am about the -- our historical past. We need to talk about what we're doing now to bring this country off of the brink of chaos that it's in.

Next up? Duckworth's demand that the Defense Department confirm that no one is going to mess with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's promotion to Colonel, if in fact that was in the works.  She hasn't heard from the DOD since she notified them of her intentions, and asked for confirmation.

Let me just make it clear. If Lieutenant Colonel Vindman is on that list, he made his way on it through his own job performance. And you can't get on the promotion list unless you were recommended to be on it by your rater, your intermediate rater and your senior rater. So, three superior officers have to agree to put you on the promotion list. And all I'm saying is, I will not support the promotion of anybody to the rank of colonel or general unless the Defense Department certify to me that, if he is on the list, they won't take him off.

She's doing this because she heard he was on the promotion list, but that the White House had said he needed to come off the list. And, she said, she's not blocking any promotions other than colonels and generals. Anyone below that is fine.

On the coronavirus, Bash was curious about women having a kid, or having a job, but not both, in the "COVID-19 Economy" (an op-ed in the NY Times), and wondered how Duckworth, the first senator to give birth while in office, was dealing with it and if she and other leaders were doing enough to address the issue. Duckworth talked about her own daughter's situation come fall: full-time home schooling, or two days in school and three at home.

I can figure out how to make things work. But what about the single mom who's got to go and work at McDonald's or the grocery store? How are they going to put this together? This is very much something that I'm talking with the Democratic leadership on. And it is part of the Democratic position that we should have child care for all Americans. 

And, on Biden's upcoming veep pick (Duckworth is rumored to be on Papa Joe's short list herself), Bash wondered if he should pick a black woman.

Well, I do think black women are a key to the victory for Democrats. Look at how Doug Jones was elected and will be reelected to the United States Senate. Listen, the Biden campaign have their own process that they're going through. And I'm sure Vice President Biden will pick the right person to be next to him as he digs this country out of the mess that Donald Trump has put us in.

Remember that we need a leader who's going to bind us back together, someone whose resilience -- who has empathy, who has seen so many of the ups and downs through his own life and can connect with the American people. And Joe Biden is that person. And I believe so strongly that we need to get him into the White House.

And, she said, she'll do whatever she has to - "it's one team, one fight."

And I -- if that means I have to go sweep floors in a VA hospital, and that's the best thing I can do to help him win, then that's what I will do.

Bash pressed for clarification, saying, "So, real quick, you do not think that his running mate has to be an African-American woman?" Biden needs to, and will, make up his own mind, she said. 

He knows best who he needs as a vice president who can help him connect with the American people, who can help him overcome the crises that we're -- that we're operating under right now, everything from rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic, making sure we can face off the next pandemic, making sure our economy gets turned around, and making sure we push back our folks like the Russians, who are putting bounties on Americans' heads. There's a lot of problems that Donald Trump is leading and Joe Biden is going to have to clean up. And he will pick the right person to help him do that.

And, that's where we're going to leave it.

Masks on, keep a pool noodle's distance away from others, and if you're in one of the 37 states with cases on the rise, please be careful. Please be safe.

See you around the virtual campus.  Tomorrow's Extra Credit is going to be full of mayors - the folks in the weeds trying to keep their communities going.