We know Donald Trump sees his mis-administration as a mere television show, and himself as the star, but he also sees himself as a director. Evidently, he saw former Department of Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen as just another Fox News blonde and wanted her to do a public relations number for him at the border. At least, that is what former DHS chief of staff Miles Taylor is saying. Politico:
“‘Get your ass on TV at the border, what are you doing, what the hell are you doing?’” the president told Nielsen, according to Taylor.
As Taylor described it, Trump was fixated on being able to watch his homeland security team in action. “He would order us to go to the border so he could see us down there doing work,” Taylor said. “Do you actually think Kirstjen and I are putting up the steel bollards? That was dispiriting, to say the very least.”
Taylor said the constant pressure from the White House to focus on immigration enforcement and border security kept senior DHS officials from focusing on other issues, including election security and cyber threats. The department’s leadership was “running in circles” for his time there, he said.
“Quite literally there would be threat streams that we would read about in the PDB [President’s Daily Brief] and we’d be like, ‘Shit, we’ve got to spend the day on this!’ And the president would call and we’d be like, ‘Nope, not going to be able to spend the day on this because he’s focused on dah-dah dah-dah.”
John Kelly said the White House was “a horrible place to work.” Plus, we know about the open screaming match between Kelly and Corey Lewandowski. The Secret Service had to break that one up. Then later the same year, Kelly and John Bolton got into it, likewise screaaming. That dust up was characterized as a “typical airing of differences” between the two — probably it was. And this was all long after Hope Hicks fled the room in tears after Trump told her she was “the best piece of tail” that Lewandowski ever had. This is the woman who used to steam Trump’s pants, while he was in them, so that there wouldn’t be any wrinkles.
But insulting people, to their faces, is nothing new in Trump world. Harken back to the day when Trump summoned Reince Priebus to the Oval Office to kill a fly. Priebus was never long for Trump world, because when he had the temerity to suggest that Trump step down after the pussy-grabber audio, he was forever more “branded with the scarlet A.H.” in Trump’s mind.
The White House is clearly a zoo, and Miles Taylor’s recent anecdotes only underscore that premise. They certainly do not shock. Nevertheless, Judd Deere, Trump’s White House spokesperson, responded with the obligatory faux outrage and accusation of nefarious motive. It’s amusing how Trump’s staff projects that everyone else is mercenary and unprincipled, because that’s exactly what they are, or they wouldn’t be working for Donald Trump in the first place.
“This individual is another creature of the D.C. Swamp who never understood the importance of the President’s agenda or why the American people elected him and clearly just wants to cash-in,” he said in a statement. “President Trump has an unprecedented number of accomplishments in spite of government bureaucrats who are only out for themselves, not the forgotten men and women of this country.”
“You’re the creature. No, you’re the creature.” Will the real swamp creature please stand up? We’re all so confused.
I can hardly wait until he is off the news cycle every day.
As I said in a piece yesterday, don’t expect that the minute Trump is gone, everything will be rosy. The GOP put him there and the GOP will find themselves another character when he is gone. I’m not fear mongering here, I’m stating who and what the GOP is.
You mean what they WERE, Ursula. The Reagan Coalition is shattered. All their top leadership is gone. And every sane conservative will be fighting the MAGA maggots for years to come, a struggle made more difficult by how the latter group has gotten a taste for power. As bad as it’s going to be for the country, it’s going to be 10X worse for them.
We’ll see. A complicit GOP-led senate voted to acquit Trump. I think the GOP loves this level of MAGAt politiking. I think it’s their style. But we’ll see what Rubio and Cotton and other inheritors of the Trump legacy do with it all when Trump is gone.
A complicit GOP-led Senate will love that politicking right up until it incurs serious costs to their power. Max Boot rightly has no faith in the inheritors you mentioned to pull that off.
There are actually two messages I wouldn’t mind seeing five or so seconds of the news devoted to each day for the rest of my (hopefully much longer) life:
#1) “Donald Trump is still in jail”
And someday, preferably sooner than later when nature has done what it does to us all eventually
#2) (A variation of Chevy Chase’s reference to “Generalissimo Franco while doing the news each week on the original SNL) “Donald Trump is still dead.”
I DID read that one of Trumps greatest accomplishments is that he, despite ignoring COVID-19, effectively halted windmill cancer in its tracks.
Yeah, but “Flaming Asshole Syndrome” has never been more rampant.
“BREAKING NEWS,” William! How on EARTH did I miss THAT story?
I would like these people to name one thing that he has done for the forgotten men and women of this country. Just one. I don’t consider the wall as counting, because no one really benefits from that.
Relieved 170K plus of them from the burden of living by letting an infectious disease spin out of control…that’s his biggest “accomplishment”, yes?
And enjoyed every minute of it.
Kindly do not credit him with more sentience than he has shown, Meg.
We SHOULD grade him by volume of his incompetent actions, since That is the One thing he excels at …
Destruction of ALL the Pandemic Lab techs, and their workspace/specialty equipment/communication network with the rest of the world – Pfffft!! [Obama’s great experience-formed plan in place]
Looking the other way while Front Line Doctors and nurses, [over 1500] gave their lives, trying to save as many sick with the, “Trump Virus”, as possible, because Trump stole and hid bunches of PPE’s they SHOULD have received … well, the other talent, not to be confused with common sense, his almost humorous, STUPID at the highest levels, comments about the safety from the virus, coming in at such low levels and, like magic it will go away, drinking and injecting poisons, I’m not exactly sure of the wording but, in the Constitution, I believe I read, that the Office of the President, shall NOT lie to the public …
20,000 lies and still counting, the sheer volume of his criminal misuses of, “his Office”, so much to tally up, and yet, we continue to pay millions each for his 3-4 days of golfing each week.
B_T_W, his visit here in Iowa this week was nothing but nauseating fawning/ass-kissing from local GOP our Joni Ernst, our Grassley, and our Governor with a few local officials, hard to keep from vomiting, every attendee had to thank Trump for all he has been doing and the disaster call for our state, local Mayors, tried to explain insurance pays only for trees that toppled on your house, but all the old big, beautiful trees in their yards could cost $10,000 dollars or more to remove, and would he modify the disaster proclamation to cover help with those trees as well, DJT, did a little aside to someone on his team there, “can we do something to get that done, in a smooth grin and, of course no one in Iowa will be holding their breath …
His one singular accomplishment.
Providing a clear example of what happens if the worst of everything prevails, and why we must never let it happen again.
How totally nihilistic, Concinnity…and only true of Republicans. I would hooe the rest of us are a little more grown up, enough so to recognize the nadir of a neverending cycle when one sees it.
Is it more nihilistic to say we just ride ‘natural’ cycles out, or, that by our own actions we can improve things for everyone?
That we are victims of circumstance or that we shape our own destiny?
Spoiler alert: some factors are very much beyond human control. Of course you work to mitigate the worst (I’ve a fondness for Dr. Asimov’s Foundation series as the ultimate at such) but that “worst of everything” is a case of “when”, never “if”. So on one level or another, you’re going to be riding out that cycle. One of the more insulting propositions I’ve seen these last few years is pretending there’s a magic wand that can make it otherwise.
No magic wand, just a whole lot of people with a common aim, working together to save a democracy.
Far be it for me to agree with Deere-In-The-Headlights but he’s kind of right about motive. As grateful as I am for the DHS Chief of Staff’s recent statements, he’s only making NOW as opposed to THEN because it is both safe and to his advantage to do so. It should be seen as an encouraging sign that the wind is at our backs.
And before anybody says anything, a) no, considering their roles in caging children and destroying families, these people do NOT deserve our pity and b) yes, of course, we keep working to run up the score for Biden in the meantime, which we should be doing regardless.
This week Deere is calling people swamp creatures, next week someone else will be doing the same to him after Donnie throws him under a bus.
These morons never think it will happen to them, until it does.