Oooh! That must be President Donald Trump cowering with fear in the Oval Office corner worried about the imminent arrival of "Hurricane Vladimir."
Such was the image projected by disgraced former CBS anchor Dan Rather yesterday on MSNBC's All In With Chris Hayes. Despite the fact that the Robert Mueller investigation seems to be focusing on rather peripheral figures without a hint of actual Russian collusion in sight, the "fake but accurate" Rather makes it sound as if "Hurricane Vladimir" might soon be arriving to sweep him from office.
We have never had a first-term president get off to such a chaotic, unsteady start as this. The General Patton is the president who is most popular when he first comes into office and then in the nature of things, his popularity declines. But what you're seeing with President Trump and I think it's very clear, Chris, it's not a Democrat or Republican assessment. It's not a biased assessment. It's looking at what's happening here. Donald Trump is afraid. He's trying to exude power and strength. He's afraid of something that Mueller and the prosecutors are going to find out.
Rather continued with the fanciful scenario:
What you're seeing time after time is a president who is within himself seized with fear. That's going to be a political hurricane out there at sea for him. We'll call it hurricane Vladimir, the whole Russian thing.
So far there has been no proof of Russian collusion. This explains why Mueller is currently focusing on peripheral figures who knew somebody that thinks that a Trump associate might have tried to do some business in Russia at some time in the past. Not exactly a crime. Bloomberg on August 29 even published that Trump's few half-hearted attempts to do business in Russia came to naught primarily because he was wary of dealing with the Russians.
It's still pretty far out at sea, but each day -- and tonight we saw it again with the two things you were reporting from Politico and the Financial Times. This hurricane, this political hurricane, it's still far out at sea and it's building in intensity. You say it's a category one. It's gone to category two. It's approaching category four. That's what's on Donald Trump's mind.
Dan Rather must have access to a secret code. It says that Russia is what's constantly on liberal minds. 24/7. And they can think of nothing else. Just like the disgraced Rather.
