The credits rolled, the veteran NBC News anchor Brian Williams sat behind his desk and the headlines began: ‘The portrait of a volcanic President who wants a newspaper to hand over a mole in his own government. Or, as we call it, Wednesday night.’
Volcanic? The President was Vesuvian. He was shooting out molten lava in all directions and sulphurous gas clouds rose high into the humid Washington sky at what had become the latest, and maybe greatest, betrayal – an excoriating attack on him in the New York Times, apparently written by an anonymous member of his staff.
There are no quiet days and no calm weeks in the Trump presidency. No period where the whirring machine of government forms a carefully assembled and thought-through policy, whose roll-out proceeds effortlessly.
There are times when you can feel the chaos. I was at a media briefing a couple of weeks ago where the President’s long-suffering Press Secretary, Sarah Sanders, looked like she hadn’t slept a wink. She probably hadn’t.
Then there’s the regular drama. I and other journalists alighted from Air Force One to be rushed into the press buses – only to be rushed out again because the President had changed his mind on the itinerary. Talk to officials and they either shrug their shoulders with a ‘What can I do?’ or after a few drinks they will unburden.
President Donald Trump arrives for a political rally at Charleston Civic Center in West Virginia
It’s exhausting enough reporting on this President. But working for him? When I had my now famous clash with Donald Trump – when he picked on me at a televised press conference, calling me ‘another beauty’ – it was over precisely this.
I had challenged him on whether this administration could be described as a smooth-running machine. He has always insisted that it is.
But the pretence has gone.
Things were bad enough on Tuesday when excerpts of the soon-to-be published Bob Woodward book landed, with officials speaking off the record about the dystopian dysfunction of this White House.
According to Woodward – one half of the investigative Washington Post duo who helped expose Watergate – White House Chief of Staff John Kelly had referred to the President as unhinged. The Defence Secretary had described him as a fifth- or sixth-grader – in other words a ten-year-old.
The former chief economic adviser apparently removed papers from the Oval Office desk, fearing the economic damage that Trump might do if he signed them. And on it went.
The White House did what you do in those circumstances: it circled the wagons. But it was the events of the next 24 hours that took the lid off the volcano. A senior official from the administration penned a damning opinion piece for the New York Times, with the headline: ‘I am part of the resistance inside the Trump Administration.’
It is, on the face of it, the most scathing piece of invective you could read. An essay from a senior official on how he or she and others are engaged in a concerted effort to protect America from Trump’s excesses.
That’s one way of putting it. The other is to say that this is an effort to subvert the President’s agenda and the will of millions of Americans who voted for him.
My jaw doesn’t drop easily after 20 months of covering the Trump presidency, but it was slack by the time I finished reading the final sentence of this op-ed on the President’s shortcomings.
He is ‘impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective’. And Mr or Ms Anonymous goes on: ‘He engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.’
This treacherous article concludes with the self-justification that he or she is part of the ‘quiet resistance’ putting ‘country first’. But listen to an alternative argument. The country went to the polls. Nearly 63 million Americans voted for Trump, and by the rules of the electoral college he was the duly elected President.
And furthermore, no one can say he’s not doing what he promised. Renegotiating trade deals, tougher immigration laws, confronting North Korea, cutting taxes, exiting the Iran nuclear deal, winding back regulations, are exactly what he promised during the campaign.
As Sarah Sanders noted, while it may not always be pretty, Trump’s economic policies are paying dividends, with 200,000 new jobs created, salaries growing at their fastest rate in nine years, and unemployment at a historic low of 3.9 per cent.
So what legitimacy does the writer have in declaring that he or she is the guardian of US democracy? For better or worse, the ballot box is where elections are decided and in November 2016 the American people spoke.
If you are that unhappy about the administration’s direction of travel, you have the choice of resigning and fighting the Trump agenda at the next election.
Or you stay and argue your corner. But if you lose the battle while fighting from within, your duty as a public servant is to enact the policy that has been agreed.
President Donald Trump speaks as he meets with the Emir of Kuwait Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah
There are two other things Trump said repeatedly during the campaign, which were designed to appeal to those who always love to smell conspiracy: there was a ‘deep state’ – powerful, but secret forces at the heart of the establishment – and that Washington was a swamp that needed to be drained.
Lurking around every neo-classical column were bad actors whose allegiance was to the status quo, who would thwart the newly elected President and scupper him as if their lives depended on it.
At the time, I thought it was tendentious in the extreme, designed to show that Trump was the non-politician in the race, the change-maker and people’s tribune taking on the deeply entrenched elites.
Yet the New York Times article can be seen as the very definition of the deep state.
Maybe I’ve been watching too much of the political thriller House of Cards on television, but I’ve started thinking conspiratorially about whether the article might have been penned by Trump himself as a means of justifying a crackdown on those around him, while demanding greater, unfettered power in decision-making. I can’t see him writing those nasty things about himself. It is now likely we’ll see the President becoming even more distrustful of those around him and allowing even fewer people to be brought in to decision-making, which must be a bad thing for government.
Another thought: if you are part of a deep state conspiracy, don’t you just keep your mouth shut about it, rather than advertise what you are doing in the New York Times? I know that in spycraft, hiding in plain sight can be mighty effective. But this? I’m not sure it strengthens your hand.
Mr or Ms Anonymous, has probably never heard of the late Sir Alan Walters, Margaret Thatcher’s economic adviser for a while as she sought to fight off Cabinet demands for Britain to join the precursor to the single currency.
He was thought to have Svengali-like powers over the Iron Lady. Some in her Cabinet wanted him banished – and they eventually succeeded. But not before she came up with the memorable phrase, designed to allay fears: ‘Advisers advise, Ministers decide.’
The problem for Mr or Ms Anonymous is that you weren’t elected to decide. Donald Trump was.
- Jon Sopel is author of If Only They Didn’t Speak English, Notes From Trump’s America, which is available in paperback.
Link hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2018/09/09/jon-sopel-are-trumps-enemies-proving-his-conspiracy-theories-true/
Main photo article The credits rolled, the veteran NBC News anchor Brian Williams sat behind his desk and the headlines began: ‘The portrait of a volcanic President who wants a newspaper to hand over a mole in his own government. Or, as we call it, Wednesday night.’
Volcanic? The President was Vesuvian. He was sho...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves US News HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/09/09/01/4FE6F45300000578-0-image-a-3_1536451441412.jpg
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