Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

With the House Ways and Means Committee chairman requesting President Trump’s tax returns on Wednesday, the White House’s representatives were tasked with explaining how the president could refuse to release them. They did so with a healthy dose of classic Trumpian spin.

Of course, illogic has long been a feature of Trump and his allies’ excuses for keeping his returns hidden. You see, he can’t release his returns because the Internal Revenue Service is auditing him! Yes, it’s true he can’t provide proof that he was being audited during the 2016 election campaign, nor point to a law prohibiting him from releasing his returns while under audit. And sure, almost every other president since Richard M. Nixon has released his tax returns even though the IRS automatically audits a sitting president’s personal tax returns. But that doesn’t mean he’s hiding anything! You’ll just have to take him at his word, the president’s defenders say.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

WASHINGTON — President Trump moved to sweep out the top ranks of the Department of Homeland Security on Monday, a day after pushing out its secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, accelerating a purge of the nation’s immigration and security leadership.

Government officials said three more top department leaders were expected to leave soon: L. Francis Cissna, the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Randolph D. Alles, the Secret Service director; and John Mitnik, the agency’s general counsel.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The Trump administration has informed Major League Baseball that it may impose a new waiver system that makes it tougher for Cuban baseball players to play professionally in the U.S., citing what it called the dangers of doing business with Havana.

“Major League Baseball has been informed of the dangers of dealing with Cuba,” a senior administration official said, saying that the White House would provide more details later Monday.

A MLB spokesman declined to comment.

Such a move could result in the reversal of a historic agreement that allowed Cuban players to join Major League Baseball without having to defect.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

It is time to end the charade. Trump is agitated that Nielsen was not barbarous enough for his depraved tastes. She still retained some vestigial loyalty to the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Given that we are in a time of purported emergency, we can no longer afford such sentimental attachments. Rather than appoint another outsider who will never live down to his expectations, Trump should nominate as her successor the actual mastermind of the administration’s immigration policies: White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller.

This is the 33-year-old wunderkind who orchestrated the Muslim travel ban, vast reductions in refugee admissions, efforts to build the wall, attempts to deport the "dreamers," the deployment of troops to the southern border, and, of course, the family separations policy — along with the accompanying hysteria about crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. He even went so far as to deny that the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty — "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — represents the spirit of America. Miller has further ambitions such as ending “birthright citizenship” and slashing legal immigration. He should assume formal, legal responsibility for this un-American approach.

Stop trying to put a civilized face on an uncivilized policy. Trump should have the courage of his racist convictions: nominate Miller as secretary of homeland security and let the puppetmaster come out from behind the curtain. Or is Trump afraid that even a Republican-controlled Senate wouldn’t confirm this nativist fanatic? Miller may well be judged too radioactive because he eschews the “white lies” favored by Nielsen and her predecessor, John F. Kelly. If an honest defense of the administration’s heartless and vindictive approach to immigration won’t survive the light of day, perhaps that should be an indication to the president that the real problem is not personnel but policy.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

1930s ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Two Thursdays ago, in a meeting at the Oval Office with top officials -- including Nielsen, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, top aides Jared Kushner, Mercedes Schlapp and Dan Scavino, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and more -- the President, according to one attendee, was "ranting and raving, saying border security was his issue."

Senior administration officials say that Trump then ordered Nielsen and Pompeo to shut down the port of El Paso the next day, Friday, March 22, at noon. The plan was that in subsequent days the Trump administration would shut down other ports.

Nielsen told Trump that would be a bad and even dangerous idea, and that the governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, has been very supportive of the President.

She proposed an alternative plan that would slow down entries at legal ports. She argued that if you close all the ports of entry all you would be doing is ending legal trade and travel, but migrants will just go between ports.

According to two people in the room, the President said: "I don't care."

...

Senior administration officials also told CNN that in the last four months or so, the President has been pushing Nielsen to enforce a stricter and more widespread "zero tolerance" immigration policy -- not just the original policy started by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and undone by the President once it was criticized -- that called for the prosecution of individuals crossing the border illegally between ports of entry, resulting in the separation of parents from children.

According to multiple sources, the President wanted families separated even if they came in at a legal port of entry and were legal asylum seekers. The President wanted families separated even if they were apprehended within the US. He thinks the separations work to deter migrants from coming.

Sources told CNN that Nielsen tried to explain they could not bring the policy back because of court challenges, and White House staffers tried to explain it would be an unmitigated PR disaster.

"He just wants to separate families," said a senior administration official.

 

[Michael Scally MD]