Trump is soft

Not even their wives want to see Joe Biden and Donald Trump measure dicks. Every time that men like them go off about how they'd beat each other up in a physical fight, it is a reminder of why we need more women in office. Their particular brand of pugilistic political puffery is so tired. This time, though, it is worth sifting through this viscous stew of machismo and testosterone to better understand something about the current President of the United States.

First, let's dispense with what happened. Speaking to University of Miami students last Tuesday at a rally to end sexual violence, the former vice president made reference to Trump being caught on tape gleefully boasting about his preferred method of sexual assault – and then, once again, recommended the exact wrong thing to do. "If we were in high school," he said, "I'd take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him."

President Biff Tannen, natch, took the bait. "Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy," @realDonaldTrump tweeted on Thursday morning. "Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn't know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don't threaten people Joe!" On Friday, the White House chimed in from the sidelines. Deputy press secretary Raj Shah issued a preemptive 2020 challenge to Biden, telling conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that "we'd like to see him at the ballot box. We'd like to see him in the boxing ring."

Even if I did want to see these two septuagenarians fight, which I sure as hell don't, I would have to question Trump's chances. I mean, Vladimir Putin is kicking his ass right now and the president has barely thrown a punch.

On the same day that Biden issued his phony challenge, Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his re-election in Russia, directly contradicting the advice of his national security advisers. He congratulated Putin, even after being strongly warned to avoid doing exactly that. He also chose not to condemn Russia for poisoning a former Russian spy in London, despite that also making sense. It remains frightening that we have a president who takes pride in not reading, but even he had to see "DO NOT CONGRATULATE" in all caps.

It wasn't the first time that an American president had congratulated Putin on winning Russia's sham of an election, but Trump became the first one to do so after we learned that Russia screwed with our elections. Not only do we have evidence that their government sought to interfere to help Trump win (and were arguably quite successful at it), but The New York Times recently reported that Russians hacked the United States energy grid and water systems as well. "From what we can see, they were there," a Symantec security tech director told the Times. "They have the ability to shut the power off. All that's missing is some political motivation." The energy industry and federal regulators quickly tried to reassure the public that nothing bad had yet happened. But the administration declared that Russia was responsible for that, and less than a week later, Trump called Putin to give him a pat on the back.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/jamil-smith-president-trump-is-soft-w518342?utm_source=rsnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=032418_12