It would take a heart of stone to watch Kasich burble about how “difficult” it was for him to come to this conclusion and not laugh.

It’s not that his arguments are faulty. He’s within his rights to have found Mick Mulvaney’s admission yesterday damning. It’s that his entire political brand already depends upon opposing Trump, especially on moral grounds, and yet he persists in the charade that there was some “dark night of the soul” for him in arriving at this position. It’d be like Hannity declaring, after careful thought and lots of prayer, that he must reluctantly conclude that Trump is completely innocent of everything he’s been accused of.

You can almost feel Kasich waiting for CNN’s anchor to congratulate him on his courage. How many times does he have to stress how hard this was for him before Ana Cabrera will farking applaud him already?

Meanwhile, on the far end of the opposite spectrum within the GOP…

The Trump campaign is so angry about Mick Mulvaney’s appearance yesterday that they’re …. fundraising off of it pic.twitter.com/rJdhNIwtZ5

— Miriam Elder (@MiriamElder) October 18, 2019

“Get over it” is what Mulvaney said yesterday at the podium to people who objected to his spirited defense of a quid pro quo with Ukraine involving military aid and the CrowdStrike server. That was three hours before he put out a statement insisting that he’d never said any such thing and that your lying eyes and ears had deceived you. Looks like the Trump campaign is back to the first position, that there was in fact a quid pro quo and that’s perfectly fine and right. By the end of the year, the crowds at MAGA rallies will be chanting “QUID PRO QUO” as their new cheer. If you’re willing to say it out loud, it can’t be wrong, right?