The unique perspective and provocative opinions of Joe O’Neill
Trumpster Diving
She’s still there. Yes, Pam Bondi is still doubling down in her odious fealty to Trump. She will now be running his super PAC, Make America Great Again Action Inc. She takes over for the fired Corey Lewandowski.
At the GOPsters-only Capitol Hill Club, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon advocated for pre-trained teams ready to jump into federal agencies when the next Republican president takes office. “If you’re going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take over immediately.”
Trump’s third enabling press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, has–no surprise–a book out: “I’ll Take Your Questions Now.” Among her revelations: the reason why she never held a press conference to take said questions. “(I) knew that sooner or later the president would want me to tell the public something that was not true or that would make me sound like a lunatic.” Her descriptive take on Melania Trump was a riff on Marie Antoinette. She was like “The doomed French Queen. Dismissive. Defeated. Detached.” As for Jared Kushner: “Rasputin in a slim-fitting suit.”
“The motto of these last years might as well have been “Make Bigotry Great Again,” because that’s what the GOP did.”—Leonard Pitts Jr.,Miami Herald.
“Should I resign?” That was Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in asking advice after his embarrassing accompaniment of Trump through Lafayette Square that blatantly politicized the military. His question was directed at former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had chaired the Joint Chiefs under President George H.W. Bush. Powell’s response, according to the account in “Peril,”: “I told you never to take the job. Trump’s a f****ing maniac.”
One more locker room quote from “Peril.” This was Sen. Mitch McConnell, after the State Department strongly denied that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had called Trump a “moron.” “Do you know why Tillerson was able to say he didn’t call the president a ‘moron’? Because he called him a ‘f***ing moron.’”