There's no question some voters are reconsidering former President Donald Trump now that he has been out of office for nearly four years, wrote Michelle Cottle for The New York Times — but there's something about the Trump administration that she wants you to remember.
Specifically, for all the prominent Republicans who turned up to support him at the Manhattan courthouse this week, like Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), there is a whole cast of ex-Trump loyalists who aren't there to stand with him — because they caused an ongoing avalanche of governance scandals when they were serving in his orbit before.
"Michael Cohen deserves top billing with his juicy court appearances this week, as Mr. Trump’s former fixer shared the nitty-gritty of how to keep your boss’s alleged extramarital encounters from blowing up a presidential campaign," wrote Cottle.
"But then there’s Steve Bannon, who just suffered another setback in his ongoing legal drama. Rudy Giuliani lost a gig. And Paul Manafort — talk about a blast from the past! — hit a snag while trying to wriggle his way back into the political arena."
"Revisiting these guys and their antics is like stumbling across a hinky septic tank. You want to get clear of the stench as swiftly as possible. But it is important to stop and smell the sewage. With Mr. Trump having been out of office for a few years, it is all too easy for people to lapse into nostalgia and forget the degree to which he surrounds himself with grifters, thugs and skeezeballs," wrote Cottle.
After all, they are still trying to influence politics, with some of them, like Manafort, gearing up to advise the Republican convention until The Washington Post reported on his "recent work ties to Chinese interests," and Giuliani and Bannon teaming up to broadcast to the MAGA faithful.
All of this, Cottle concluded, is to say that figures like this will continue to surround Trump, and will be given new power if he is re-elected.
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"In 2016, people could plausibly plead ignorance about the extent of the corruption that engulfs Mr. Trump. Most voters had never heard of characters like Mr. Cohen or Mr. Manafort. And plenty of people still thought of Mr. Giuliani as America’s Mayor. Little did we know that just a few years on, we’d be watching a thoroughly debased Rudy at a news conference in Washington, shoveling so much horsepoop about election fraud that his sweat turned brown," she wrote.
"Today, we know too much about what we would be getting ourselves into by putting Mr. Trump back in charge. He and his rotating rogues’ gallery should not be anywhere near the levers of power."
In other words, she said, "This time, we have no excuse."
