New Years' Resolution for the Trump Administration: Don't Trust Anyone. Ever.

Michael Wolff has released Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, a book portraying the Trump Presidency as pure chaos.  Wolff has developed a negative reputation yet he somehow managed to find his way into the White House.  Even liberal Steve Rattner, who worked in the Obama Administration, referred to Wolff as an “unprincipled writer of fiction.”  Laura Ingraham had it right when she said “No White House staffer should have ever been encouraged to speak with a muckraker like Michael Wolff.” The book may have some elements of truth but it also contains loads of “fake news”, or as Kellyanne Conway might say, “alternative facts.”  Wolff says he has tapes to back up his accounts, we’ll see whether or not he’s bluffing.  One of the most outrageous parts of the book claims that President Trump did not know who John Boehner was despite the fact that he repeatedly played golf with the Former House Speaker, who served as the subject of many of his tweets.  Only a week into the New Year, I may have already stumbled upon one of the top 10 lowlights of 2018. 

 

Less than a week before the scheduled release date of Fire and Fury, an excerpt became public featuring Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s description of a 2016 meeting between a Russian lawyer who offered dirt on Hillary Clinton without actually delivering it and Donald Trump Jr. as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”  The book also details Bannon describing Ivanka Trump as “dumb as a brick.” After Bannon’s comments became public, President Trump’s legal team tried to sue Henry Holt and Company, the book’s publisher, to prevent the release of the book.  I sense a defamation lawsuit coming in the very near future.      

 

The book had initially been scheduled for release on January 9; in the wake of the increased demand for the book following the Bannon controversy and the Trump Administration’s threat of legal action, Henry Holt and Company moved the release date up to January 5.  The book also alleges that many in Trump’s inner circle deem him mentally unfit to serve as President, a claim which CIA Director Mike Pompeo referred to as “pure fantasy.”  White House Policy Advisor Stephen Miller, who definitely has a bright future in the conservative-populist movement, went a step further, calling the entire book “a grotesque work of a fiction” and “a pile of trash.”  Miller’s presence and his eloquent defense of the Trump administration definitely triggered “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper, who abruptly ended the interview where he made those comments.  

 

 

President Trump did not like Bannon’s comments.  He quickly accused him of losing his mind and branded him with the nickname “Sloppy Steve.”  Several GOP House and Senate candidates have distanced themselves from the embattled Bannon.  Rebekah Mercer, a billionaire who has supported Bannon and Breitbart financially, has cut ties with Bannon after he said that he would rely on her support should he decide to run for President in 2020.  Prior to the publication of Bannon’s comments addressing the meeting between senior Trump Administration officials and the Russian lawyer, the Breitbart News executive had served as a dartboard for the mainstream media and the GOP establishment, who blames Bannon for their loss of Jeff Sessions’ old Senate seat in Alabama.  In the Church of Liberalism, going after the Trump Administration provides absolution for all prior “sins.”  As someone who thought Bannon served as an effective tool to keep the GOP establishment focused on Making America Great Again, I find Bannon’s comments quite troubling. 

 

I find it quite strange that Bannon, who famously described the mainstream media as the opposition party, decided to trash-talk the President’s children in front of the opposition party, who will surely exploit any appearance of discord within the Trump Administration. If he supports the President’s agenda so much, why would he have made those comments to Michael Wolff?   For his part, Bannon tried to do same damage control by releasing a statement saying that he aimed his accusations of treason at short-lived Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, not Donald Trump Jr.  Manafort also attended the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.  Looking back, President Trump probably should not have placed so much trust in Manafort, who had a long history of shady dealings with foreign countries before joining the Trump campaign. The Court of Public Opinion considers guilt by association a very serious crime.           

 

 

I certainly hope that the Fire and Fury fiasco has taught Team Trump an important lesson.  As a relative newcomer to the blood sport of politics, President Trump has probably learned many lessons during his first year in office the hard way.  The most important lesson they should have learned by now: Don’t trust anyone.  Ever.  President Trump’s unique Presidency, intended to serve as a wrecking ball to business as usual in “The Swamp”, has made him many enemies.  The enemies behave like “The Howling Man” in a classic episode of “The Twilight Zone”, deceptively turning on the charm and revealing their true colors after it’s too late.

 

The sleazy behavior of the press is not unique to the Trump Administration.  On “The Five” last week, co-host Dana Perino, who held a variety of positions in the George W. Bush administration including press secretary, recounted an experience she had where a journalist expressed sympathy for Karl Rove and offered to do a piece on him.  She ran it by the White House Communications director, who said “fine knock yourself out”, despite the fact that the journalist in question worked for a notoriously liberal magazine.  Perino “pulled out all the stops for access, interviews, helpful third party input.”  Upon the publication of the piece, Perino realized she had made a mistake; as she had unwittingly provided the journalist with all of the necessary material to write a hit piece.  A decade later, someone on the Trump communications team made the same unfortunate mistake.  If only people’s noses grew when they told lies.  Nearly everyone in the Beltway and the media bubble would start to look like Pinocchio.      

 

President Trump himself made the almost fatal mistake of trusting the media. A decade before deciding to run for the Presidency, he made an unfortunate decision to engage in “locker room talk” with “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush, not knowing about the hot mic that captured the audio.  NBC sat on the tape for 11 years and released it to The Washington Post one month before the 2016 Presidential Election with the hope of inflicting damage on his campaign, apparently forgetting about all of the money Trump had made for the network over the years. 

 

President Trump should also not trust the actual opposition party, the Democrats.  Back in September, President Trump’s decision to meet with “Chuck and Nancy”, the leaders of the opposition party, caused much concern in many conservative circles; especially after “Chancy” released a statement saying that the President had agreed to a deal to protect the dreamers without securing a promise for the border wall in return.  President Trump responded to their statement by saying “We have to have an understanding that whether it’s in the budget or some other vehicle in a fairly short period of time, the wall will be funded.  Otherwise, we’re not doing anything at all.”   Sean Hannity warned the President not to trust the Democrats, as they “have burned Republicans over the decades way too many times with these so-called bipartisan deals.”  The Democrats definitely want President Trump to break his signature campaign promise of building a wall, as that will anger his base and allow the Democrats to regain control of Congress and possibly the Presidency.  Pushing through a DACA amnesty with no promises to roll back chain migration and end diversity visas could very well make the Democratic majority permanent.  As Ann Coulter pointed out, a permanent Democratic majority will allow the Cultural Marxists to “completely destroy the last remnants of what was once known as ‘the land of the free.’”  That should send a chill down the spine of every God-fearing American.    

 

President Trump had initially planned to hand out his “Fake News Awards” this afternoon but has since decided to postpone the ceremony until January 17, after discovering that “the interest in, and importance of, these awards, is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!”  In my opinion, he should not need any more time to make a decision.  After watching the events of the past week unfold, I nominate Michael Wolff for a Fake News Award, even though most of the American public had no idea who he was until this past week.  We’ll see if President Trump agrees.  Get your popcorn ready.