PBS Washington Week with The Atlantic host Jeffrey Goldberg opened Friday’s political roundtable on PBS by setting up a segment on the reckless video issued by Democrats in Congress who are military or intelligence-agency veterans, pressuring current military members “to refuse illegal orders” – while leaving the illegal orders supposedly issued by Trump undefined.
The stunt comes off as a cowardly way to troll Trump while irresponsibly stirring instability and dissent in the ranks. But Washington Week host and Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg lived up to the show's typical pattern of ripping Republicans and skipping over judgments of the Democrats. He led off with a flourish over the onscreen words "ALL THE RAGE":
GOLDBERG: Donald Trump is under a lot of pressure these days -- Jeffrey Epstein, the economy, Jeffrey Epstein, declining poll numbers, Jeffrey Epstein -- and he's lashing out in fairly unprecedented ways, even for him... [clips of Trump saying "quiet, Piggy" and other things] ....And then he called for the execution of Democratic members of Congress. Tonight, Donald Trump's unmanaged anger, next.
After the "underwriting announcements," Goldberg continued editorializing:
GOLDBERG: Good evening and welcome to Washington Week. In ordinary times, a reminder to America's men and women in uniform that it is their responsibility to disobey illegal orders would pass without much comment from anyone. Indeed, in our armed forces, the armed forces of a democracy, it is common to be reminded of this basic obvious, and until recently, non-controversial demand because it's so utterly foundational.
But when six Democratic lawmakers, all veterans of the military and intelligence agencies, issued this general reminder the other day, Trump accused them of sedition and suggested that they be executed. Now, maybe if he had been having a better week, he wouldn`t have acted this way, or maybe not…
PBS ran a portion of the clip, a montage of several Democrats reciting versions of “You can refuse illegal orders."
GOLDBERG: So, obviously, there’s two issues here. There's the why the Democrats -- why these particular Democrats put this video out now, and then there`s Trump's response. Why did the Democrats do this and were they justified in doing so?
ABC’s Jonathan Karl refused to condemn the video.
KARL: Well, I won't make a judgment going to justify, but I will say the reasoning behind this is there is growing concern, I've directly heard it from senior military officers, both on duty and retired, about the politicization of the military. You know, obviously, you have the concerns over what's happening in the Caribbean, the targeting of the Venezuelan alleged drug boats, whether or not that is legal….
GOLDBERG: Toluse [Olorunnipa of The Atlantic], the interesting thing here, one interesting thing to me, is that this was eminently ignorable by the president. He didn`t have to say anything, but he said a lot. Again, part of the -- what Peter's talking about -- maybe the spinning out of control part, I mean, to go from zero to these Democratic elected lawmakers, who are veterans, should be executed, it`s quite a journey.
That's an interesting admission: Why would the video be “ignorable by the president”? Because the press originally skipped it. Only Trump’s response would be deemed newsworthy, and offensive. Our Jorge Bonilla calls it “Trumpwashing," defined as the “phenomenon wherein the media withhold covering some Democrat scandal until President Donald Trump opines on it, with President Trump’s statement being covered as if it were the scandal, rather than the underlying and until now suppressed Democrat event.”
The panel eventually raised some mild qualms about the Democratic stunt ("also a little bit of a troll, maybe." Goldberg suggested) but reserved its true bile for Trump’s reaction.
New York Times White House reporter/editorialist Peter Baker actually admitted that Trump’s reactions to Democratic missteps would invariably be a bigger story compared to actual Democrat acts that instigated Trump's reaction.
BAKER: The problem is, it's kind of a murky thing right now. Because, in fact, even judges right now are disagreeing with each other about what's illegal and not legal about what the president is doing with the military….you can see why any president might find that video a little problematic because it looks like you're encouraging members of the military to decide something might be illegal and therefore disobey their commander-in-chief.
But it is the reaction of course, that as always with Trump becomes the bigger story, the idea that we’re going to -- even if he’s just trolling them, to suggest that the death penalty is on order for members of Congress who are themselves veterans or members of the military or the national security establishment should be, you know, prosecuted for this is, of course, not normal and would be an illegal order by the way that that we're talking about.
