Oh come on…

| 9:35 pm EST January 12, 2018
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I’ve never particularly enjoyed reporting on Donald Trump, for the same reason I wouldn’t enjoy reporting on rotting corpses or raw sewage. Someone has to do it, however, and I’m not inclined to complain about it. But enough is enough. I’ve got to stop and vent for a minute, because these past few days of Trump are so far over the top that I’m not even capable of believing any of it – even though I’m looking at the evidence right there in front of me.

I spent the bulk of yesterday reporting about the word “shithole.” So did nearly every other political journalist out there. This is how far we’ve fallen. Today was set to be another shithole day, but then we found out that Trump had an affair with a porn actress and paid her off during the election to keep quiet about it. Then it turned out Trump propositioned three porn stars in the same weekend, sexually assaulting one of the two who turned him down.

So as the day went on, journalists all faced the same question: put the primary focus on Trump’s shithole scandal or Trump’s porn scandal? What about Trump’s Russian treason scandal? Then there was the statement put out by the White House today which claimed to be from a military doctor, and claimed that Trump was in “excellent health.” However, the doctor’s name was spelled wrong. So either this military doctor is so illiterate he can’t spell his own name, or Trump’s people faked the quote and spelled his name wrong.

Of course the most underreported story of the day is that Donald Trump renewed President Obama’s Iran deal yet again today, despite his claims during the campaign that he would rip up the deal on day one. This is the rare bit of good news out of the Trump White House, so maybe things are turning around. Except no. Trump’s people set up a conference call with the media to announce the renewal, and they botched the call so badly that the first several minutes consisted of – you can’t make this up – someone talking about chicken while someone else played Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” By the end of the day, Rachel Maddow was singing it on the air while reciting the transcript. Maybe that’s it. We’re all just being rickrolled.