Well, that was interesting.

Well. Donald Trump just spent an hour on the telephone committing election fraud. He did it three days before Congress is supposed to certify the November election results. Three days before a passel of Republican congressmen and senators said they are going to protest Biden votes cast in multiple states. I wonder if any of Trump's defenders are questioning their choices now.

What is really interesting is listening to Trump’s voice in the call, the way his tone changes as he tells Brad Raffensberger he wants him to “find" 11,780 votes. He gets careful, and hesitates before he says it, as if he questions does he really want to say it. The rest of the conversation is bluster, rage, wheedling. But, at that one point, he seems to involuntarily change tone. He's not sure if he is going too far.

He's done it before. Listen to him talk to Lester Holt back in 2017; he couldn't wait to tell Holt that he fired James Comey and why. But, as he starts to say “about Russia” it comes out “about Russia-er" drawing out and mangling the second syllable, as if he's questioning if there's legal jeopardy in saying it.

Or listen to him in June, 2016, telling Russia “if you can find the missing 30,000 emails…” he'd sure like to see them. It's an out and out call to a hostile foreign power to commit a crime to help him win the election, and it sure doesn't sound like he was joking (as he later insisted). It's in the cadence and tone. He was damn serious.

Trump is definitely the guy you want to play against in poker. Normally that's a lousy trait for a president to have. Thank God, though, in this case.