John McCain adviser explains why the Trumpified GOP has become ‘the greatest threat since 9/11’

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Although MSNBC has a liberal slant, some of its hosts have very conservative backgrounds — including “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough (a former GOP congressman) and Nicolle Wallace, who served as White House communications director under President George W. Bush and was a senior adviser to the late Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. But the 49-year-old Wallace is a scathing critic of former President Donald Trump, and she slams the modern-day GOP as a hotbed of Trumpist authoritarianism in an op-ed published by MSNBC’s website on July 16.

Wallace, who hosts MSNBC’s weekday afternoon show “Deadline: White House,” warns, “I never thought I’d cover the demise of democracy in my own country, but here we are…. The attack on our democracy, spearheaded by the ex-president and enabled by the GOP, represents the greatest threat since 9/11.”

The former Bush official and McCain adviser goes on to say that in one sense, the United States is facing a more perilous national security threat in 2021 than it did after al-Qaeda terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. There were no prominent Republicans or Democrats defending al-Qaeda after 9/11, Wallace argues — whereas apologists for the bloody January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building by Trump supporters are plentiful in the Republican Party. Continue reading.

The Memo: The pre-Trump ‘normal’ is gone for good

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One big question about former President Trump now has an answer — and it’s an alarming one for his critics.

In the later days of his presidency, his foes debated whether politics would snap back to normal if he lost his bid for a second term.

Some feared he had wrought permanent change on the political landscape. Others viewed his tumultuous presidency as a toxic aberration that might be neutralized soon after he left the White House. Continue reading.