Joyce White Vance of MSNBC
When Donald Trump recently called Kamala Harris "mentally impaired," it was unusually nasty and nonsensical -- even by his standards. More importantly, it might have been the strongest sign in a growing body of evidence that Trump has neither the temperament nor the intelligence to serve as president. In recent comments to Axios about Trump's baseless attacks on Harris, one of our nation's foremost historians seemed to be thinking along those lines.
It is not unusual for Trump to use dark, fear-mongering language -- seemingly as a means to keep his MAGA fan base in a state of agitation. But his words directed at Harris were one of several recent instances where his language seemed particularly vile and outside the boundaries of normal political discourse. Do we run the risk of allowing Trump to normalize rude, insulting language in a way that could coursen a public environment that already is marked by divisiveness and tension? An expert on presidents and their use of words hints that she thinks the answer is yes.
Here at Legal Schnauzer, this is the first in a series of posts that will show Donald Trump is wildly unfit to be America's president. His main interest -- according to words straight from his own mouth(see here, here, here, and here.) -- is to discard our democracy and replace it with an authoritarian regime that would operate way outside the boundaries of our constitution, surely pleasing the strongmen" he so admires, such as Vladimir Putin of Russia, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, and Xi Jinping of China.
We soon will be presenting a string of posts, which will include powerful evidence that Trump should never be allowed anywhere near the White House. For one reason, we now have plenty of data that shows Trump was a dreadful president the first time around, and many experts suspect a second Trump term would be even worse.
But first, let's examine Axios' reporting on Trump's verbal assaults against Kamala Harris. Under the headline "Dark Trump: Former president calls Harris “mentally disabled,” Mike Allen writes:
Former President Trump, in a self-described "dark speech," told a rally in Wisconsin recently that his opponent, Vice President Harris, is "mentally impaired" and "mentally disabled."
- "Joe Biden became mentally impaired," Trump said during a riff about immigration. "Kamala [mispronounces name] was born that way. [Laughter.] She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country." (Video)
Why it matters: Even for Trump, it was weird, nasty and nonsensical — when he needed to be swaying "national security moms" and other undecideds, 38 days out from Election Day.
- Trump told the rally in Prairie du Chien (prairie of the dog): "This is a dark speech."
The big picture: Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin — whose latest bestseller is The Leadership Journey: How Four Kids Became President — told me, "While former President Trump's latest outrageous claim about Vice President Harris does seem beyond the pale even for him, and even in our country's long history of political invective, what is even more disturbing is that it will now be taken as a matter of course, demonstrating we've become inured to his degrading language."
- "Think back to 2015," she added, "in the very early days of his first campaign when he said John McCain was not a war hero because he was captured. The N.Y. Post predicted that his campaign would implode. The front-page headline declared: 'Trump is toast ... DON VOYAGE!"
The other side: The Harris campaign, highlighting Trump's comment that he was giving a "dark speech," said he "gave a gloomy review of his angry, rambling diatribe."
Trump went off on other tangents that made him sound even more like a madman in the making. Allen writes:
Other comments by Trump during the hour-plus remarks at the rally, which was moved inside at the last minute because of security concerns:
- He clarified that in addition to his plans to prosecute any 2024 election cheaters if he wins, "and if we can, we'll go back to the last one [2020], too, if we're allowed. But we're gonna prosecute people." (Video) (Trump can't seem to get over the notion that presidents are prosecutors, who direct the charging or non-charging decisions of the Department of Justice. They aren't, and they don't, no matter how many times Trump tells the worn-out lie that Joe Biden was behind the charges in his hush money case.
- There's no evidence of widespread fraud during the 2020 election. And Trump continues to claim that the only way he'll lose in November is if Democrats cheat.
- On Harris and the border: "She's letting in people who are going to walk into your house, break into your door and they'll do anything they want, they'll do anything they want. These people are animals. ... These are stone-cold killers. ... It's also the fact that they're taking all of our Black population's jobs and our Hispanic population's jobs." (Video ... Fact check)
- On his debate performance: "All the stupid people — the anchors, back there — no, they say: "He fell into a trap' — her trap. She can't set a mental trap." (Video)
- Joyce White Vance, MSNBC legal analyst and former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, has an answer for Trump's tall tale, under the headline "Donald Trump's plot to prosecute Joe Biden without probable cause is based on a lie and ignorance, as MSNBC analyst Joyce White Vance makes clear. From a Legal Schnauzer post dated 4/9/24:
- Donald Trump and his allies are plotting to prosecute President Joe Biden if Trump wins the November election, according to a report from Axios. After months of Congressional inquiries, no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden has surfaced, so it is unclear what would form the basis of a Trump-fueled prosecution. But this much appears to be clear: Trump apparently wants to prosecute Biden because he believes Biden had him prosecuted -- even though Trump has offered no evidence to support that claim. One prominent legal analyst has stated that Biden did not have Trump prosecuted and could not have done so. Those matters come down to grand jurors; more on that in a moment.
Also, the Axios report suggests Trump has no problem violating roughly 40 years of U.S. policy that holds the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is to operate independently of the White House -- that presidents are not prosecutors, and they are to be excluded from decisions to charge or not charge suspected wrongdoers.
Trump might be determined to seek revenge against Biden, and other perceived political enemies -- as Trump repeatedly has said he intends to do in a possible second term. But for now, Trump only has managed to make himself look bad, adding to the substantial evidence we already had that he is wildly unfit to serve as president. In this instance, Trump's unfitness manifests itself in this indisputable fact -- he simply has no idea how government works, even after spending four years in the White House during a chaotic and dysfunctional administration that numerous experts have described as a failed presidency.
The plot to wrongfully prosecute Biden, and perhaps members of his family, goes beyond Trump to include members of the Republican Party, as reporter Stephen Neukam writes under the headline "Scoop: Trump, GOP plot 2025 criminal probe of Bidens":
Republicans' impeachment probe of President Biden is unraveling because of a lack of evidence — but their work could become the basis for federal investigations and even prosecutions of the Biden family if Donald Trump wins re-election, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Trump has vowed retribution against his enemies if he wins in November. House Republicans have struggled to show Biden has done anything illegal, but people close to Trump are still plotting to use the Justice Department against Biden and his family.
- A source close to the Trump campaign said that "everything you have seen from the Biden DOJ," in terms of the charges against Trump, "you can expect to see from the Trump DOJ."
Driving the news: House Republicans have alleged that Biden should be impeached because he illicitly benefited from lucrative foreign deals arranged by his son Hunter.
- Despite their difficulty proving that, Trump has said he thinks Biden should be prosecuted anyway — because Trump is being prosecuted now.
- "By weaponizing the DOJ against his Political Opponent, ME, Joe has opened a giant Pandora's Box," Trump posted on Truth Social in January.
The items highlighted in blue above get to the heart of the matter -- Trump wants to prosecute Biden because he believes, contrary to evidence, that Biden is having him prosecuted. In other words, Trump is playing a tit-for-tat game. Prosecutions, however, are serious matters, and it helps to understand at least a few basics of criminal procedure. For example, a criminal investigation is not to begin until there is evidence of a crime.That seems simple enough, but Trump apparently cannot grasp it. The standard to meet is called probable cause. The link in the previous sentence notes that probable cause is found in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in the Bill of Rights. But apparently Trump is ignorant when it comes to key provisions of our founding documents. Still, chunks of the American electorate, particularly the MAGA chunks, claim to support a presidential candidate who is clueless about a concept as simple as probable cause, which is front and center in the Bill of Rights. That tells me a lot of GOPers who claim to support Trump aren't taking the 2024 election seriously -- and themselves have no idea what Trump does, or does not, stand for. (Hint: Trump has made it clear he does not know, or intend to abide by, the U.S. Constitution. And some on the right seriously think he is fit to be president.) . . .
Almost every issue raised in the Axios article grows from the idea that Joe Biden is having Trump prosecuted. In Trump's diseased, narcissistic brain, that has to be true because Trump cannot be responsible for anything that goes wrong. But this is a lie, one Trump apparently is convinced his MAGA followers are gullible enough to believe. But here is the truth, as stated by MSNBC legal analyst and former Alabama U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance:
Joyce White Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and current legal analyst for MSNBC, stated in a recent tweet: "Joe Biden didn't indict Trump. Prosecutors must go before a grand jury, made up of citizens, including Republicans & Democrats. These citizens hear evidence & vote on whether a defendant should be charged. Different grand juries have now done that with Trump 91 times."
So it all comes down to grand jurors. But Trump apparently realizes there are too many grand jurors to keep track of, and their deliberations generally are conducted in private, so Trump has to blame one guy, Biden.This is the kind of thinking that, in a president, could cause the U.S. to bomb Iran for a supposed wrong that Saudi Arabia committed. That is the kind of mishap that could spark a world war. But Trump displays that kind of rattled thinking on an almost daily basis.
