You just knew it was going to end like this

| 10:14 am EDT October 6, 2019
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Back when Donald Trump’s Russia scandal first came to light Palmer Report predicted that if it came down to it and Trump was cornered, he would try to paint himself as too naive and/or senile to have known that his underlings were conspiring with a foreign nation to rig the election. Trump skirted on that scandal, for reasons not worth rehashing. But now that he really is cornered, things are going just like you knew they would.

Yesterday, Donald Trump tried to blame his Ukraine scandal on Rick Perry of all people. Trump actually told House Republicans that he didn’t even want to make the Ukraine phone call, and that Rick Perry made him do it. To be clear, this is the same Rick Perry whose best known quote is “Oops.” This is the same Rick Perry who once performed a musical duet with Vanilla Ice. Trump is now insisting that he got duped into committing international extortion by Vanilla Ice’s DJ.

But this is merely Donald Trump’s story this week. Once the public, the media, and the House impeachment inquiry finish laughing at Trump for having believed he could simply scapegoat Rick Perry and move on, it’ll be time for Trump to try to pin the whole thing on someone closer to him. He’s already trying to steer the blame toward Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence. We’ll see who goes under the bus next.

What’s remarkable is that just a few days ago, Donald Trump stood in front of the cameras and tried to show us all how bold he was by repeating his crimes in public. Now that it predictably hasn’t worked, he’s trying something just as predictable: he’s trying to paint himself as a clueless dotard who was tricked by his underlings into doing things that he had no idea were wrong. That’s not going to work either. Nice try, dotard.