The week in TrumpWorld that careened to an end at CPAC

David "Bobo" Brooks' mission as a political commentator is to make even the craziest and most irresponsible Republican policies sound not-so-bad, just a little rough around the edges. Having Trump as President and Adored Leader of the Republican Party has made that considerably more difficult. This past Friday was one of those days he could barely rally himself to the task. (Shields and Brooks on Cohen testimony, North Korea summit PBS Newshour 03/01/2019; transcript here):

He tried, but his heart didn't seem to be in it:

Judy Woodruff:

But quickly, to both of you, does this advance the case against Donald Trump, advance the case of impeachment, David?

David Brooks:

I think a little.

We know the Trump Tower stuff in Moscow, the hush money. I tend to think there's much more — and, actually, everybody agrees, and I agree too, that AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, did a very good job of laying down specific questions for specific predicates.

And she focused quite a lot on the business side of the Trump empire. And if I'm a Republican, I'm thinking there's a lot of bad news to come from there, and just whether it's taxes for all — whether it's other things.

And that's what the Southern District of New York is looking into. And so I think I'm less concerned that — there seems to be less to the Russia collusion and a lot more to everything else.

Below is the Global News video of the President's long, demented rant to the CPAC convention Saturday, Donald Trump addresses Conservative Political Action Conference 03/03/2019. He appareared to read some of it from the teleprompter, but there was plenty of extemporaneous Trump demagoguery, as well. Last week, the Trump-Pence Venezuela coup attempt spluttered into an embarrassing failure, leaving most of America's allies in Latin America and Europe with egg on their faces and wondering how they let themselves be conned into going along with it, to the extent of breaking relations with the actual government of Venezuela and recognizing what could accurately be described as a shameless American flunky as the self-proclaimed president of the country.

In the same week, The Republicans's Dear Leader went to Hanoi to sign a nuclear arms-control agreement with North Korea and that fell through, as well. As David Sanger and Edward Wong report (How the Trump-Kim Summit Failed: Big Threats, Big Egos, Bad Bets New York Times 03/02/2019), "As Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim parted company, nearly a year of optimism and flattery was left poolside at the Metropole, steps from a meeting room with two empty chairs and flags that had been carefully prepared for a 'signing ceremony'.”

Oh, and his former lawyer Michael Cohen gave devastating testimony against Trump to The House Government Oversight Committee.

Trump wrapped up the week with his longest episode of his current reality show, Trump Playing President in His Own Fantasy World:

PBS Newshour provides the transcript of what it describes as "his longest speech ever", Trump invokes ‘socialist nightmare’ ahead of 2020 03/02/2019.

Seung Min Kim and Brian Fung report on the CPAC speech in Trump derides Mueller probe, mocks Democrats and his former attorney general Washington Post 03/02/2019.

David Smith reports for The Guardian (Democratic oversight is 'bullshit': Trump goes off-script at CPAC 03/02/2019):

The president described the justice department’s Russia investigation as “a phoney witch-hunt” and claimed that since no collusion has yet come to light, Democrats in the House now want to look into his personal finances. He dismissed such oversight efforts with an unpresidential word: “Bullshit.”

Trump went on to rail against James Comey, whom he fired as FBI director, and Jeff Sessions, his former attorney general, even mocking the latter’s southern accent.

He also made false claims about everything from the unemployment rate to the crowd size at his inauguration. He insisted a wall on the US-Mexico would be built, prompting more cries of “USA! USA!”

He then went on to make remarks that some interpreted as an inflammatory attack on foreign-born members of Congress.

“Right now we have people in Congress that hate our country and you know that,” he said. “And we can name every one of ’em if they want. They hate our country. Sad. It’s very sad. When I see some of the things being made, the statements being made, it’s very, very sad.

“And find out, how did they do in their country? Just ask ’em, how did they do? Did they do well, were they succeeding? Just ask that question. Somebody would say, ‘Oh, that’s terrible that he brings that up.’ But that’s OK, I don’t mind, I’ll bring it up. How did they do in their country? Not so good, not so good.”

Andrew Restuccia and Politico get the booby prize for reporting on his CPAC speech as a "rollicking two-hour-plus appearance." (Trump delivers scorched-earth speech as he tries to regain footing 03/02/2019.