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Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
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White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s gruesome defense Thursday of President Trump’s call to the widow of Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson was shocking.
But it should not have been a surprise. Any examination of Kelly’s past public remarks makes clear he is not a sober professional, calculating that he must degrade himself in public so he can remain in place to rein in Trump’s worst instincts behind the scenes. Rather, Kelly honestly shares those instincts: He’s proudly ignorant, he’s a liar, and he’s a shameless bully and demagogue.
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So even before Kelly’s ugly performance Thursday, there was no reason to hope he would put any kind of brake on Trump. Kelly may be personally far more palatable; he’s certainly no mewling coward like Trump, and has unquestionably put his life where his mouth is. That goes for his children as well — his other son is also a Marine — even as Trump’s kids are the living embodiment of every criticism Kelly makes about U.S. society.
But there’s a reason these two men found each other. They see the world in fundamentally the same way, and Kelly is going to help Trump do what he wants to it.
All Trump has to show for his first year in office is a whole lot of nada. No border wall. No tax reform. No infrastructure package. His sole bragging point—the installation of Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court—was a gimme, owing everything to the Republican Senate’s obstruction of Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, not to any exertion of his own. His spats with congressional chieftains (Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Paul Ryan) reek of sour grapes and frustrated stalemate. Meanwhile, in the background is the ominous sonar beep of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference, a run-silent, run-deep probe drawing upon a lode of legal brainpower that ought to make any finky operator nervous. (And Mueller’s reported Batman-Robin team-up with New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman takes the magic pardon wand out of Trump’s little hand.)
In the sorriest days of the Watergate scandal, the iconoclastic journalist and 60 Minutes commentator Nicholas von Hoffman compared the Nixon presidency to “a dead mouse on the American family kitchen floor. The question is: who is going to pick it up by the tail and drop it in the trash?” It would be premature to write off the Trump presidency as a deceased rodent lying on the linoleum. In its nasty defensiveness, it is closer to a cornered rat. It still has plenty of ugly fight left. But we are at the beginning of the endgame and it is not premature to start imagining how to pick through the damage the Trump presidency will leave behind and future-proof the republic so that It Can’t Happen Here never happens again. So much headspace will be opened up once Trump is no longer occupying it that we must make the most of it.
The moment Trump leaves the White House for early retirement, jail, a sanitarium, or a Russian refuge, let the reckoning begin. Cue the exodus of his cronies from the Cabinet and commence the shunning. The Trump family itself should be as unwelcome in what passes for society as Bernie Madoff at a Bar Mitzvah. Pay no heed to those pious owls in politics, the op-ed pages and cable-news panels—pastoral Voices of Civility such as Jon Meacham and David Gergen—who will caution that “now is not the time” to be raking over the recent past, casting recriminations, and turning Schadenfreude into tasty casseroles; the nation must move forward and let the healing process begin. To such doily knitters and thumb twiddlers, it’s never the right time to sift through the debris, apportion responsibility, and name the guilty parties; this is why it took more than a year to establish a 9/11 commission, and its final report was analytical, rhetorical mush. The day after Trump is deposed will be the day to get cracking on addressing what got him to where he never should have been.
Kelly Fellatios Trump ...
Three families of fallen servicemembers received next-day UPS letters from President Trump after a turbulent week in which Trump falsely claimed he had called “virtually all” of the families.
The Trump administration is scrambling to defend the president’s characterization of his communications with grieving military families, including rush-delivering letters from the president to the families of servicemembers killed months ago. Donald Trump falsely claimed this week that he had called “virtually” all fallen servicemembers’ families since his time in office.
Timothy Eckels Sr. hadn’t heard anything from President Trump since his son Timothy Eckels Jr. was killed after a collision involving the USS John S. McCain on August 21. But then, on October 20, two days into the controversy over the president’s handling of a condolence call with an American soldier’s widow, Eckels Sr. received a United Parcel Service package dated October 18 with a letter from the White House.
“Honestly, I feel the letter is reactionary to the media storm brewing over how these things have been handled,” Eckels told The Atlantic. “I’ve received letters from McCain, Mattis, and countless other officials before his. I wasn’t sure if the fact that the accident that caused Timothy’s death has still yet to officially have the cause determined played into the timing of our president’s response.”
He added that the letter “seemed genuine and even mentioned Timothy’s siblings.” It was “a respectful letter,” Eckels wrote. The family of Corey Ingram, another Navy systems technician who died in the collision on the USS John McCain, also confirmed to The Atlantic they received a rush-delivered letter from the White House on October 20. A third family, of another sailor who perished in the accident, John M. Hoagland III, said they, too, received a rush-delivery letter this week. It was not immediately clear whether White House condolence letters are typically sent via this expedited shipping.
The White House declined to address The Atlantic’s specific questions about how Trump has—or has not—comforted grieving military families. “The president and the nation are grateful for the service and sacrifice of our fallen American heroes,” a White House official told The Atlantic.“We have addressed the president’s outreach to the families extensively and out of respect, we are not going to comment further.”
The controversy began with a Rose Garden press conference on Monday, October 16, in which Trump was asked why he had not spoken out about the deaths of four U.S. servicemembers in Niger on October 4. He responded by falsely suggesting that previous presidents hadn’t made personal calls to the families of slain U.S. servicemembers. The next day, he followed up by claiming that he had called “virtually” all fallen servicemembers’ families, which was also false.
In the past week, The Atlantic made contact with 12 families who had been identified as having lost kin serving in the military since January. Along with those contacted by other news outlets like The Washington Post and the Associated Press, about 25 of the 46 families have been reached. Of those 25, a plurality—11 families—said they had received neither a call nor a letter from the president. Nine confirmed that they had received personal calls from the president. Members of four families said they had received a letter, but no call. And members of the remaining family were contacted by the White House, but declined to meet with the president.
Hmmm...
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency has canceled the speaking appearance of three agency scientists who were scheduled to discuss climate change at a conference on Monday in Rhode Island, according to the agency and several people involved.
John Konkus, an E.P.A. spokesman and a former Trump campaign operative in Florida, confirmed that agency scientists would not speak at the State of the Narragansett Bay and Watershed program in Providence, R.I. He provided no further explanation.
Scientists involved in the program said that much of the discussion at the event centers on climate change. Many said they were surprised by the E.P.A.’s last-minute cancellation, particularly since the agency helps to fund the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, which is hosting the conference. The scientists who have been barred from speaking contributed substantial material to a 400-page report to be issued on Monday.
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