this incident never endangered foreign policy - it was opportunism at worst. no policy decisions were being made or altered here.
You are minimizing, and you know it. It was a big deal for him to pull all the levers to make this happen. And his motives were for purely political gain to himself. So in terms of balancing the scales, it was of ZERO benefit to the country, but did create risk to our interests. So no, it can never be excused.
Dems wouldn't give 2 craps if one of their own had done it.
Now here I would agree with you.
But first, that doesn't make it ok. Just because the Dems have Trump in a "gotcha" moment doesn't mean that they are wrong about the gotcha.
Second, I honestly do not think a Rubio, a Bush, a Santorum, a Fiorino, or a Sanders, Biden, Warren, or Buttigieg would ever have done something like this, if for no other reason than had career personnel and close allies been warning them it was illegal.
Trump was told not to do it by a lot of people. I'll bet Bolton told him not to, directly. But Trump thinks he can talk his way out of anything, that he is so charismatic he can do what he wants.
When reality hits him about the limits of what people are willing to put up with from him, and he cannot get away with something, its going to be a nasty, nasty day for him.