Donald Trump’s GOP House allies are dazed and confused

| 9:40 am EDT October 9, 2019
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When Donald Trump decided yesterday to block U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland from testifying before the House impeachment inquiry, Trump’s allies did a comically inept job of trying to spin the move in Trump’s favor – summed up by their use of the phrase “malicious Captain Kangaroo.” Part of this is because, well, they’re idiots. But it turns out there’s more to it.

If it sounded like Trump’s House GOP allies were just making it up as they went along yesterday, that’s because they were in fact doing precisely that. They didn’t even know Donald Trump was blocking Sondland’s testimony, until they heard about it from the media. We’re not sure if these House GOP dim bulbs could have come up with anything better if they’d been given time to prepare, but you don’t let your allies get caught with their proverbial pants down like this.

Bloomberg is reporting that Trump’s favorite House Republicans were frustrated at having to improvise a response on the spot, and that they’ve asked Trump not to let it happen again. More to the point, they’re the only possible source for the Bloomberg article, which means that Trump’s own allies are now so frustrated by his erratic and self defeating antics, they’re whining about him to the press just to make sure he gets the message.

Donald Trump’s House GOP apologists are never going to turn against him. At this point they’re in too deep to reverse course, and they’re generally from the kind of pro-Trump districts that would punish them if they ever turned against him anyway. But if they become so demoralized and demotivated by Trump’s antics that they start to pull back from trying to run interference for him, let’s just say that Trump can’t afford that. These guys may be idiots, but they’re the loudest pro-Trump voices remaining in the federal government – and Trump has them babbling about kangaroos.