Today, we have the comic relief!

SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2023

A remarkable twenty-two minutes: For today, we'll restrict ourselves to the comic relief. We'll start at the outset of a remarkable 22 minutes of pseudo-discussion on modern-day "cable news." 

We refer to a 22-minute segment on yesterday's Deadline: White House—the segment which started at 5 o'clock sharp and continues till 5:22. 

During that remarkable segment, Nicolle Wallace and four guests discussed, or at least attempted to discuss, certain aspects of Donald J. Trump's videotaped deposition in the ongoing E. Jean Carroll lawsuit trial. 

We're not sure we've ever seen a segment which illustrated a basic anthropological fact with such startling clarity. We refer to the general inability of human beings to observe even the simplest points of logic in matters where preferred tribal Storyline compels them to do something different.

The logical bungling during this segment was truly astounding. As you can see thanks to the Internet Archive, the discussion—anthropologically, it was an "imitation of life"—started exactly like this:

WALLACE (5/5/23): The twice impeached, disgraced, indicted ex-president, on video and under oath, is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. 

Wallace proceeded to introduce her four guests. For the call of the roll, see below. 

Wallace and her favorite friends proceeded to produce one of the most instructive cable news segments we have ever seen—and we don't mean that in a good way! For today, though, we'll restrict ourselves to the comic relief.

In the brief passage we've posted, Wallace engaged in two of her favorite incantations. 

On the one hand, she engaged in the embarrassing statement that her guests had been drawn from among "our favorite reporters and friends." But she also indulged herself in a standard incantation about Donald J. Trump, a variant of which she had employed just two minutes earlier.

As this segment began, Wallace had played a brief clip from Trump's deposition. Then, she'd offered this:

WALLACE (5/5/23): Hi, everyone. It is 5 o'clock in New York. This is the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president...That is part of the newly released deposition of the disgraced, twice impeached, once indicted ex-president doubling down under oath...

Wallace loves the reassuring ritual in which she produces a string of notes about Donald J. Trump's disgrace.

Three of her ritual notes about Trump are, of course, factually accurate. He was impeached on two separate occasions, and he has been indicted once.

It's also factually true that Trump is an ex-president. The claim that he has been "disgraced" is, of course, a subjective assessment—an assessment more than a hundred million voters may be asked to address next year.

Three fourths of Wallace's incantation is factually accurate. The comic relief, and perhaps the strangeness, come from the way she feels the need to repeat the incantation, over and over again.

Mental health experts say they're reminded of abandoned children, in fictional texts, assuring themselves that things will turn out O.K. 

Other experts use the term "propagandization." To our eye and ear, the first group of mental health experts seem to have it more right.

However accurate their assessment may be, we'd also have to say this: this incantatory, performative "tick" does in fact, through its obsessive nature, provide something resembling comic relief. 

In this instance, Wallace produced her incantation at 5:02 p.m., then again at 5:05. It was part of a 22-minute segment in which Wallace and her guests behaved in ways which defy belief—but for today, we'll limit ourselves to the comic relief one can extract from this bit of ritual conduct.

How frequently does Wallace avail herself of the programmed reassurance conveyed by her ritual statement? Let's return to Monday's Deadline: White House, which had the analysts tearing their hair during one excruciating sequence.

Nicolle Wallace, Deadline: White House, 5/1/23

On this day, the Deadline program began in a highly unusual way—with a lengthy interview which didn't directly involve the desire to send Trump off to prison.

Wallace interviewed Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter lost her life in the Stoneman Douglas mass shooting incident.  The interview, about Guttenberg's new book, consumed the first 36 minutes of the Deadline program.

Finally, it was time to start discussing the twice impeached, once indicted, disgraced ex-president. What followed in the next 25 minutes, with time out for three commercial breaks, has sometimes been described as a case of incantation gone wild:

WALLACE (4:37 p.m.): Next, we turn to the investigations into the twice-impeached, once-indicted ex-president. Could special counsel Jack Smith be considering wire fraud charges as part of a criminal conspiracy into the events surrounding January 6? 

New reporting suggests that it's a question worth asking. Just ahead.

WALLACE (4:42 p.m.): That was the moment the January 6 committee  exposed the disgraced ex-president and his 2020 campaign for raising $250 million by duping their own supporters—by convincing them that they were fighting election fraud that they knew never existed.

WALLACE (4:56 p.m.): When we come back, it was another day in the rape and defamation trial against the twice impeached, once indicted ex-president.  E. Jean Carroll on the stand once again. Don't go anywhere! We'll be right back.

WALLACE (5:02 p.m.): Meanwhile, the defendant in the case—the twice impeached, disgraced, and now indicted ex-president—has not appeared in court and does not appear like he will do so, at least over the next few days. Currently, he is in Scotland.

The ongoing rape trial brought by E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends.

So it went as Wallace kept returning to her favorite incantations. For the Internet Archive, click here.

Blue tribe viewers, please! During that 25 minutes, Wallace snuck in three commercial breaks, totaling roughly ten minutes. But in the fifteen minutes at her disposal, she returned to her incantation about Donald J. Trump on four separate occasions.

Eventually, this led to the latest introduction of "our favorite reporters and friends."

Some scholars see those incantations about Trump as the self-affirming self-reassurance of a frightened child. More generously, we prefer to view them as "found humor"—as a form of comic relief.

Yesterday, starting at 5 o'clock, the incantation was offered twice in rapid succession. What followed was an astonishing pseudo-discussion about the deposition of the twice indicted, once impeached, disgraced and former president.

We're willing to dismiss the incantations as a form of comic relief. By way of contrast, yesterday's attempts at discussion involve us in pure anthropology—in anthropology all the way down.

For the record, Donald J. Trump strikes us as a deeply disordered person. On Monday, we'll try to walk you through the stunning array of bungled claims made by Wallace and her favorite reporters and friends during yesterday's segment.

Never was heard a discouraging word. One baldly absurd interpretation was piled upon another.

Everyone agreed with everything everyone else had said. Such are the rules in this antique realm, where ancient instincts prevail.

Wallace calls the roll: Yesterday, at 5 o'clock, the call of the roll proceeded:

WALLACE (5/5/23): The twice impeached, disgraced, indicted ex-president, on video and under oath, is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. 

Legal analyst and MSNBC host Katie Chang is here. Also joining us, Maya Wiley, former assistant U.S. attorney, now the president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Charlie Sykes is back, he's the editor at the Bulwark, and New York Times investigative reporter Suzanne Craig is here.

Plainly, it was a highly credentialed group of favorite reporters and friends. Come back on Monday to see what they said, all of you who dare.