In the 2016 campaign, presidential candidate Donald Trump told the country he would use his successful business experience to hire all “the best people.”
It was one of the conceited lines he used over and over – even after he was president. He would get “the best people.”
Let us count the ways.
There’s Omarosa Manigault Newman, the White House adviser who was fired in December for “serious integrity issues.”
Now that she’s out, she’s touting a tell-all book about the Trump White House, appropriately titled “Unhinged.” And she has begun to dribble out secretly recorded tapes – none flattering.
Trump has called her “crazed,” “lowlife” and a “dog,” who was “hated” in the White House for being “vicious but not smart,” and “nasty.” The president has added, via tweet: “I would rarely see her but heard really bad things. When Gen. Kelly came on board he told me she was a loser & nothing but problems. I told him to try working it out, if possible, because she only said GREAT things about me – until she got fired!
What’s the logical take-away?
The president who says he hires only the “best people” and touts “extreme vetting” for immigrants has but one criteria for hiring and keeping on “a loser”: “[S]he only said GREAT things about me “
But Newman is just the most recent example of “best people” who needed, but didn’t get, “extreme vetting.”
The actual list is quite long – even if you only count the ones who are gone and exclude those who for now are just in the “beleaguered” category of ongoing scandals, like Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, accused of stealing $120 million from business associates.
There’s Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, outed by Trump only after he came under criminal investigation for his own suspect business dealings. And like, Newman, Cohen also secretly recorded some of their conversations – just as Trump is said to have done many times.
Trump proteges do seem to learn from their mentor, even if the mentor is “vicious but not smart.”
There also is Paul Manafort, hired as Trump campaign manager. We watched his seemingly endless legal troubles unfold in federal court for weeks – accused of everything from tax evasion to working as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, to trying to get “whole” with a Russian oligarch to whom he owed millions while working in the Trump campaign.
Don’t forget Rick Gates, Manafort’s partner and a Trump aide who stayed on after Manafort left. Now Gates is the chief government witness against Manafort.
Although we haven’t heard much about him lately, we must include Michael Flynn, whom Trump hired as his national security adviser despite an explicit warning not to from then-President Barack Obama, who’d had to fire Flynn from his administration.
Flynn talked to Russia about sanctions even before Trump took office – a no-no. And he operated as an unregistered foreign agent, taking money from Russia and Turkey. Flynn has pleaded guilty to federal charges and now is cooperating with the Mueller probe into the Russian meddling into the 2016 presidential election that Trump won.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was forced to resign over ridiculous travel charges for government and private charter aircraft.
Scott Pruitt, the EPA chief with too many travel, construction and lease scandals, et al., to count, also was finally forced to resign.
Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, White House physician Ronny Jackson, tanked when Jackson withdrew his name because he sometimes got drunk on the job and too freely handed out medication.
Rob Porter, staff secretary to Trump, resigned after credible allegations of domestic abuse came to light – complete with photos.
In less than two years – more than 57 percent of Trump’s top staffers have left the White House, according to admittedly undercounted statistics maintained by the Brookings Institution. (Undercounted, for instance, because Trump has had a handful of communications directors since being elected president, but Brookings counted only the position.)
According to Brookings, Trump administration turnover in less than half a presidential term nearly equals the four-year turnover for the first terms of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.
Yes, sir: Trump really knows how to vet, hire and keep the “best people.”
They’re best if and as long as they flatter him – and until they get caught.