Here are the 5 biggest right-wing outrages this week: Chaos unfolds in Trump investigations

Matthew Chapman
08 March 2019

This week, several new developments unfolded in President Donald Trump's legal battles. Investigators are looking into what Rudy Giuliani relayed to the president's former attorney Michael Cohen after the FBI raid on his office. House Democrats want to know whether Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was influenced on foreign policy by a Qatari investment in his company. Jerome Corsi sued the conspiracy theory site InfoWars, alleging it is trying to coerce him to lie to special counsel Robert Mueller to help his former associate, former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone. And Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was handed down a shockingly small 47-month prison sentence for his massive scheme laundering money for dictators, sparking outrage.

And through all of this, Republicans and Trump supporters are finding ever-more inventive ways to throw themselves headlong into controversy.

Here are five of the craziest right-wing moments this week:

  1. Rand Paul says we shouldn't be "giving up on liberty" by ensuring kids get vaccinated.

At a moment in our country when previously-eradicated deadly childhood illnesses like measles are resurging in the United States, Sen. Rand Paul wants to speak out against mandatory childhood vaccinations — not, he stressed, because he believes they don't work or because he buys conspiracy theories about vaccines causing autism, but because gosh darn it, parents deserve freedom.

"As we contemplate forcing parents to choose this or that vaccine, I think it's important to remember that force is not consistent with the American story, nor is force consistent with liberty our forefathers sought when they came to America," said Paul in a Senate Health Committee hearing on Tuesday. "I believe that the benefits of vaccines greatly outweigh the risks, but I still don’t favor giving up on liberty for a false sense of security."

Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a former physician, smacked him down, saying, "I've seen people who have not been vaccinated who required liver transplantation because they were not."

Watch below:

States mandate parents vaccinate children to go to public schools for the same reason they prohibit driving 120 miles per hour the wrong way on a controlled-access highway: because you could hurt other people. Not to mention, you could hurt your own kids — when you raise a child, you are their caretaker, not their owner, and they have a basic right to wellbeing and safety that you ought to respect.

  1. Mike Rounds says Trump only ordered illegal hush payments to women he slept with because he "loves his family."

Even some Republicans appear to acknowledge that when Cohen paid off two women to cover up affairs with Trump ahead of the 2016 election, he did so with Trump's knowledge and approval — but they don't seem to have any problem with it. Indeed, in conversation with CNN's John Berman on Wednesday, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) insisted that illegal hush payments are just something any responsible family man would do.

"Most of us have a concern anytime you have a president who is trying to work through some very personal matters," said Rounds. "I honestly think this president loves his family. I think it has as much to do with trying not to have public discussions about something that is, for him, a private matter that he didn't want to have discussed with his family. I think that’s a lot of it."

Watch below:

Obviously no one can know for sure what's in the president's heart, but one would think a man who "loves his family" would not have affairs in the first place. Not to mention, Cohen's payments were prosecuted as campaign finance offenses — so it's a lot more likely Trump's motivation was to influence the election than to spare his family.

  1. Kirstjen Nielsen says putting kids in cages is okay because they're larger than dog crates.

Anyone would have their work cut out trying to justify the policy of throwing migrant children into cages, which has been going on even before the Trump administration but which kicked into high gear with Trump's "zero tolerance" family separation protocol. But it would certainly be hard to come up with a worse answer than Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen did on Wednesday, at a hearing with House Democrats on immigration.

"What is a chain-link fence, enclosed into a chamber on a concrete floor, represent to you — is that a cage?" asked Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ). "Does it differ from the cages you put your dogs in when you let them stay outside, is it different?"

"Yes," said Nielsen. "It's larger, it has facilities, it provides room to sit, to stand, to lay down."

Watch below:

If the only difference between the space we store dogs and the space we store children is size and access to a toilet, our nation has lost its moral compass.

  1. Rick Wiles says liberals are going to put conservatives in concentration camps.

TruNews, a far-right conspiracy theory broadcast which describes itself as an "End Times" program, has never been known for making measured arguments. But on Wednesday, as documented by Right Wing Watch, host Rick Wiles took things to a new level. If given their way, Wiles warned his audience, liberals are going to round you up and put you in concentration camps.

"We are in a communist revolution," said Wiles. "If these people are not put down — I'm talking about this revolution — if they are not put down, if this revolution is not crushed, you will be crushed. Their next step is a concentration camp for you."

"They intend to crush the conservatives," Wiles went on. "They will tear this country to pieces, and when they do it, other nations are going to step in. I could see the United Nations someday passing a resolution asking China and Russia and other nations to send peacekeeping forces into American cities to put down the civil unrest ... we'll lose this country. That's how close we are."

Watch below:

  1. Louie Gohmert says it's "dangerous" to pass a House resolution condemning hate.

Much of the week in the news media was eaten up by arguing over whether the complaints of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) about the Israeli lobby demanding "allegiance" are anti-Semitic. There is a strong case to be made that while her comments were badly worded, they weren't intentionally hateful, and the media uproar was out of proportion and erased legitimate contours of foreign policy debate.

For this reason, the House backed off an initial plan to condemn anti-Semitism specifically and instead held a vote on Thursday to condemn all hate — which was arguably necessary as the media focus on Omar has also led to a wave of anti-Muslim hatred directed at her.

In the end, Omar herself voted for the resolution — but in an incredible self-own, 23 Republicans didn't. One was Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who absurdly claimed that condemning all hate would be "dangerous":

It is worth noting that Gohmert has spread debunked anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros, accusing the elderly Holocaust survivor of having collaborated with the Nazis.