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[scriver]

An Oprah campaign would be incredibly interesting to see.

[Draignean]

No. Please no.

I'm already trying to Forget about the Johnson/Hanks campaign.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

In the sense that a new form of birth defect is interesting, maybe.

[smjjames]

Getting him for perjury or lying to the FBI would be incredibly low bar, like 'THAT's all you've got??', and I agree on Clinton, it was pretty overtly political. However, there's already people who are saying liberals just want him out of office, so, that accusation is likely to fly around regardless.

That said, Papadopoulos and Flynn went for that low bar because they pled guilty to that in exchange for not being charged with larger crimes and agreeing to cooperate with Mueller.

In all likelyhood, it's just a fact finding interview to get Trump's side of things (though obviously he's been very vocal on his side of things) and it's just the first in a number of interviews.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If Mueller really does want an interview, it's probably the same as with the email trick - to ask Trump for information he already has, in order to discern the shape of the lies.

[Starver]

An Oprah campaign would be incredibly interesting to see.

(In my head I have "you get medical coverage, and you get medical coverage, and everybody gets medical coverage!", which is a bit unfair/arbitrary, but I confidently predict that someone will GIF up something of that kind...)

[Reelya]

It's the one year anniversary of Trump soon. Only three more years and two election cycles to go before it's possible to consider a post-Trump world.

One thing is that the current economy is said to be Trump's strong point, and pro-Trump pundits point to the stock market as proof.

However, stock prices are outpacing actual gains in income, which is a sign of a bubble. A number of analysts are saying a price crash is likely in the second half of 2018. If that happens, then it's going to be very good for the Democrats going into the 2018 elections.

[Telgin]

A big holdup I have about Oprah running for president is that she tolerated and invited people like Dr. Oz onto her show.  Whether she did it for money, as a favor or out of ignorance, it almost doesn't matter.  None of those are good reasons.

Otherwise, she's absolutely more diplomatic than "my nuclear button's bigger than yours!", so I might be able to live with it.

[Enemy post]

Please, please not a celebrity/joke candidate.

[smjjames]

Well, it's a talk show, and there's going to be all kinds of people on talk shows. That said, it's going to be a double edged sword for sure.

Please, please not a celebrity/joke candidate.

It's just rumors right now, she hasn't actually said she's going to be a candidate. Pretty sure she came up as a potential candidate for several election cycles in the past.

Rumors are going to fly around until people actually start running in mid 2019 at the earliest.

[Reelya]

Dr Oz is small-time evil compared to guys like Manafort and Bannon. Remember, Manafort's firm specialized in PR for actual third-world dictators, while Dr Oz merely shills some dubious herbal treatments to daytime television watchers.

Also, Oprah is guilty of promoting the book "The Secret" on her show, I believe. Death penalty crime for sure.

[Lord Shonus]

He's also pushed gay conversion therapy in the past. That's kind of a problem.

[WealthyRadish]

To be fair, I think it was even more stupid with the Clinton stuff - I mean I'm all about holding our leaders to high character standards, but that whole investigation over infidelity was equally as "let's just see if we can get him out of office" nonsense.  (NOTE: I am not saying by any stretch that our current administration has anything near "high character standards").

I do know that it's not technically entrapment by the way - just kind of wondering how it falls on the spectrum of "we have evidence we're trying to catch him with" which I think should be done in a court, not in an "interview", and "we're trying to get him to say something we can use against him".  That's what I meant about it feeling Not Good.

I don't understand this defense that the interview is a "not good" thing, like it's unfair to him. Trump could just refuse to hold the interview if he considered it an unnecessary risk; it seems more likely that he considers it an opportunity to improve his position and potentially greater than the risk of a major fuckup and the public backlash for refusal.

I also think we're generally past the point where new reasons to impeach or legal justifications for it are necessary. If Trump were a perfect angel from now on and Mueller ended the investigation with full exoneration, a bear hug, and an endorsement of Trump Steaks, Trump would still be impeached if the democrats took the House. A general erosion of Trump's standing only makes a difference by increasing the margin of reliable Republican defectors if they hold the House.

[Reelya]

He's also pushed gay conversion therapy in the past. That's kind of a problem.

I haven't seen that episode, but reading about it, maybe it's not so cut and dried.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/gay-rights-groups-rip-dr

“The issue is not one that can be discussed as though both sides are equally valid,” said GLAAD President Herndon Graddick.
...
A spokesperson for The Dr. Oz Show released a statement saying the show examined the “medical angles of reparative therapy and the controversy surrounding it,” in light of the California law.

“While we acknowledge this is a difficult conversation to have, it’s critical that a discussion like this happen through the filter of a show like The Dr. Oz Show rather than in secluded basements or back alleys,” the statement read.

Oz—who acknowledges that medical groups like the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association denounce reparative therapy—wrote on his blog following the episode, “’After listening to both sides of the issue and after reviewing the available medical data, I agree with the established medical consensus, ‘I have not found enough published data supporting positive results with gay reparative therapy, and I have concerns about the potentially dangerous effects when the therapy fails, especially when minors are forced into treatments.’

From this article, it's not clear that he was "pushing" the treatments, more than allowing a debate to happen, and opponents of the treatments were objecting to the idea of their being any discussion in the first place. After all, Dr Oz straight up states here that "established medical consensus" is in fact against the treatments, and that his views coincide with that.

It's mentioned that the laws had changed, banning the treatments for minors, and his episode was in response to that, looking at the medical evidence both for and against the validity. It might be that those opposed to the treatments have demonized any discussion on it, a sort of zero-tolerance thing where merely opening the debate at all is a sign you're the enemy.

[McTraveller]

If that happens, then it's going to be very good for the Democrats going into the 2018 elections.

Wrong dichotomy - I don't want it to be good for "the Democrats" or "the Republicans." I want things to be good for the people.  I make no mistakes about assuming that is more likely with one party or the other.

Right now either party is good for some people and outright bad for others.

@UrbanGiraffe - it's not that the interview itself is good or bad or whatever.  It's that an interview couched in "we have to do something, anything to remove a person in power" is acceptable.  It just doesn't feel like it's really an issue of actual justice.  That's what I meant by it not being good.   Especially in this issue - I think it's hilarious (in a train-wreck kind of way) that people get mad if Russia somehow uses social media to get voters to vote one way, but they think it's fine if they use social media to get voters to vote their way.  I guess there's the whole sovereign concept thing there, but in whose interest is voting one way or another really? I mean you have massive millions of people voting for both parties anyway, so the actual outcome of the election doesn't really align with massive millions of people's interests whatever way the ballots fall...  but that's kind of the thing above when you make the fight about D vs R, rather than about meaningful issues.  And yes, sometimes meaningful issues are linked heavily to D or R philosophy, but the average American doesn't know or care - they just care about that initial letter.

Until all our politicians start changing their job from "we have to get our party member elected" to "we have to get whoever gets elected to do things that actually benefit everyone", we're going to continue in this mess.