THIS COULD GET INTERESTING!

Trump is a no-rules street fighter. He will kick, bite, spit, smash your head with a rock, taunt you, hide brass knuckles under his glove, and stomp on your face when you are down and unable to get up. Then, he will stand over your supine body and gloat.

If you choose to take him on, and you have your own personal code of conduct, you are likely to lose. You may observe gentlemanly rules, or a sense of mercy, or may fear becoming or even appearing to become the animal that Trump, the street fighter, is.

And you will have played into his hands. You see him as a dirty fighter. He sees you as weak, because you don’t have what it takes to be dirty enough to win.

Strength is prominent in Trump’s mental word cloud.

What other candidate can you think of, who in a televised debate with his female opponent would have paraded-in her husband’s female sex crime accusers? You cannot think of one, can you?

Jeff Flake is clearly disgusted, but there is no street fighter in Jeff Flake or Bob Corker, or Jeb Bush, or Mitt Romney, or any other decent Republican, whose stomach turns with each insult, firing, and reckless tweet.

So how do we survive Trump when, every day, we are subjected to the street fighter’s sucker punches on our democracy and its institutions? How do we hang in there when the mid-term elections seem years away and when Mueller and his band of untouchables methodically do their detective work behind an unmovable curtain, providing us with little instant gratification?

If politicians cannot or will not get down and dirty to take on the Menace-in-Chief, who will?

Maybe a lawyer will.

Not just any lawyer, but one who delights in outmaneuvering opposing lawyers.

Not just any lawyer, but one who will say and do whatever it takes, stopping short of being Trump-ugly.

Not just any lawyer but one who loves the adrenaline rush.

Not just any lawyer but one who has the perfect client for his mission.

Enter Michael Avenatti!

He is a lawyer who loves the big stage, loves to provoke his opponents, and loves playing high stakes chess with the law.

He is a classier street fighter.

He represents Stormy Daniels.

And he drives race cars at Le Mans and Daytona. Could Donald Trump race a car at 190 miles per hour in the pouring rain?

Probably not, but maybe that’s an apt metaphor for where he is taking the country.

Avenatti and Stormy Daniels are on 60 Minutes this Sunday. He has talked-up this interview all week, but has been tight-lipped on any blockbusters that might be revealed.

He just might top 190, so you are advised to buckle up!

And this is the end of my exhausting two minutes.

TRUMP IS OUTRAGED AND YOU SHOULD BE TOO!

Under the heading of The United States of America Trying to Survive Trump (excluding the 35 to 40 percent who still like him, love him, or just don’t want to think about how they voted for Freddy Krueger), it has been an especially hectic week.

Porn star, Stormy Daniels picks up steam.

Bob Mueller crosses “the red line,” subpoenaing Trump Organization records.

Trump fires his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson – by Twitter.

Porn star, Stormy Daniels picks up steam. Sorry, I had to say that one more time.

Democrat, Conor Lamb wins a very big special election in a deep red district in Pennsylvania.

Because of those big stories, it is possible that you missed this small gem:

So, Donald Trump was in Missouri, giving a fundraising speech. You know that trade reciprocity is big with the Donald. He uses that term a lot. Reciprocity is really not his word, but he likes saying it. Fairness is his word. I think Stephen Miller probably gave him reciprocity. Stephen Miller strikes me as a reciprocity guy, not a fairness guy.

Anyway, Donald Trump needed to deliver his specialty punch, kind of the Joe Frazier left hook to the side of the head. This specialty punch bangs home the fact that we are a country of pathetic suckers, because every president before him was either too stupid or too chicken to negotiate a good trade deal for America.

So, how do you think Japan manages to keep U.S. car companies from getting a foothold in the Japanese market?

It’s simple and brilliant. It’s the Bowling Ball Test.

As Trump explained to his audience, “Somebody takes a bowling ball and drops it from twenty feet up in the air onto the hood of a car. If the hood dents, the car doesn’t qualify.”

He went on say, “It’s horrible the way they treat us. It’s horrible!”

I don’t know if there has been an official response from the Japanese government, but I think it’s safe to say that they are still in the head-scratching phase.

As for me, I am waiting until there’s video. I’ll bet those trade-riggers didn’t drop a bowling ball on a Chevy Tahoe. I think the Tahoe would have passed. It’s a big solid car. If Trump were a car, he might be a Tahoe -- gold plated, of course.

Nobody is sure where he got this story, and with strange news dropping fast, there is no time to figure it out.

Sarah Sanders said that he was "obviously joking." She says that a lot.

And it's good enough for me.

And that is my two minutes, for now.

I AM SURVIVING TRUMP A LITTLE BETTER TODAY

A woman, interviewed by an NBC reporter, said of Conor Lamb, “He is every mother’s dream.”

Yesterday, the voters of Pennsylvania’s 18^th congressional district, which voted for Trump by 20 percentage points, got the opportunity to vote for him again.

Republican, Rick Saccone, had advertised himself as being “Trump before Trump was Trump.” The voters could not have been presented with a more clear-cut choice.

They could cast a vote for every mother’s dream or they could cast a vote for Rosemary’s baby.

So, while we are still living our own Nightmare on Elm Street, our first new hero has arrived on the scene to save the day. There will be others. They were carefully selected, or at least blessed, by party leaders, not because they fit a national profile, but because they fit the citizens of their districts. A lot of them, men and women, have military backgrounds, some with combat experience. Not an easy task to brand them as soft-on-crime, soft-on-defense, Nancy Pelosi Liberals.

On election eve, Rick Saccone, fearing a loss, said the Democratic Party was being energized by “hatred for our country, God, and our president.”

Here are some of the anti-American, God-hating qualities exhibited by Conor Lamb and soon to be inflicted on the nation by some of the mid-term candidates:

(You might try saying each word aloud, while conjuring an image of Donald Trump.)

Intelligence

Integrity

Honesty

Humility

Discipline

Modesty

For sure, not every Democratic candidate will be every mother’s dream. Good, because that might be rather boring. I think that most of them will be decent human beings. Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Progressive, Moderate, Conservative, I believe they will help set a new tone.

Now, with another deep red district turning blue, we can wait for more incumbent Republicans to announce their decisions not to run for re-election. They of course have decided to spend more time with their families. Their decisions will have nothing to do with the writing on the wall – not to be confused with Trump’s wall with Mexico.

My two-minute buzzer just went off.

TRUMP DOPES-UP IN PITTSBURGH

From the moment he stepped to the podium, we knew. This would not be a ringing endorsement for Rick Saccone, Republican candidate for Pennsylvania’s 18^th congressional district. 

Instead, this would be yet another gorging of dopamine, endorphins, and testosterone, for a man who cannot function without his fix -- a fix that requires an ever increasing dose of his drugs of choice.

It began last night with the screaming cheers from an adoring crowd. It heightened with his self-back slapping for saving the Winter Olympics, single-handedly producing record job numbers, bringing back manufacturing, especially steel and aluminum – so important to an audience yearning to regain yesterday’s economic and social status and yesterday’s reality.

But false boasting is never enough.

There must be a full buffet of delicious insults. The recipients included the usual suspects: The Fake News Media, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Obama, Hillary, low IQ Maxine Waters, spiced up with light pokes at George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and even Ronald Reagan. To fully claim his position on the pinnacle of his own Mt. Olympus, he will need to demote Reagan (“Sorry Ron, you’re demoted!”) before he deals with the fake stature of Lincoln.

This 75-minute ego-feast in Pittsburgh evened the score with all of the small minded, insignificant, jealous losers who dared challenge him.

Oh, wait a minute! One loser went unmentioned. Trump would have loved to utter the name of his almost invisible nemesis, Robert Mueller, for whom he has probably already come up with a disparaging nickname.

But for now, the lawyers hold him in check, depriving him of the joy of taking on the relentless prosecutor on Trump-adoring turf.

Finally, with his ego fed and bursting at the seams, it was at last time to make room for the local candidate. Rick Saccone stepped to the podium with a loud, scratchy, screaming voice, but with almost nothing to say.

And that was just fine for the headliner. Sharing a spotlight with anyone, friend or foe, could be kind of a buzz-kill.

Oh, and “Lamb the Sham?” Will that nickname for the Democratic challenger stick and seep into the brains of Trump Democrats, traditional Republicans, and independent voters who go to the polls on Tuesday?

Trump can sell that stuff in Trump World. Trump can sell almost anything in Trump World, but college educated women have turned their backs on the school yard bully with the fifth grade vocabulary.

And, Conor Lamb won’t take the bait.

And, my two minutes are up.