Charlie Sykes: Bill Barr Puts Party Over Country by Saying He’ll Vote for Trump

SYKES: “He knows it. And this is a choice. I mean, this is one of those WTF moments where you have, you know, Donald Trump waging this, this campaign to undermine the rule of law. Bill Barr knows all of this. And he’s decided it’s a binary choice, because in his world in order to stay relevant and viable, he has to — he has to put party over country. I mean, literally, when he uses the phrase —“
SCARBOROUGH: “Literally.”
SYKES: “— Russian roulette — when he uses the term Russian roulette, he knows the danger he poses. He doesn’t have to do this. Look, what is extraordinary is the contrast between what Bill Barr is saying and what the former Secretary of Defense Mike Esper is saying.
BRZEZINSKI: “There you go.”
SYKES: “Vice President Mike Pence is saying —“
SCARBOROUGH: “Yes.”
BRZEZINSKI: “There you go.”
SYKES: “— I’m not going to endorse him. There are exit ramps. You are not required to look at Donald Trump and say, ‘OK, because I don’t like student loan forgiveness, I’m going to put a man who is clearly unhinged, who clearly, you know, tried to overthrow the government, called for terminating the Constitution, we could spend the next 10 minutes just walking through all of the things, somebody who has been found liable for rape, put him back in the Oval Office. But I do think it is interesting, the contrast between Bill Barr and much of the rest of the cabinet. And we need to remind ourselves that never before in American history, have so many people who work so closely with the president, taking the position that no don’t do this, again, we’ve seen him, he is unfit for office, you do not want him —“
BRZEZINSKI: “Right.”
SYKES: “— back in the Oval Office. The fact that Bill Barr reminds us that he is a political hack is — is of course interesting. But — but also realize what would he and people like you know, Governor Sununu are going to have to defend. They’re basically going to have to say —“
SCARBOROUGH: “Yeah.”
SYKES: “— and this is — this — and this is radical. I mean, we got to continue to be surprised by this. You know, up until like five minutes ago, nobody in America would say that a convicted felon should be elected president of the United States. Now they are all saying it. Up and down the ticket. They have to defend what Peter Wehner calls the kaleidoscopic — the kaleidoscopic corruption of Donald Trump. And this is not just Chris Sununu, it’s not just Bill Barr, up and down the ticket, they’re going to have to explain that yeah, we don’t care about this man’s character. We don’t care about how deranged he is. We don’t care about his — his crimes, or what he intends to do as president. And the fact that Bill Barr says that it’s Russian roulette for the country to put Donald Trump back in the presidency. And he’s OK with that. What a remarkable moment.”