The Trump thread: All things Donald

[Athos_131]

“It Was All About the Election”: The Ex-White House Aide Olivia Troye on Trump’s Narcissistic Mishandling of COVID-19

When I spoke with Olivia Troye on Thursday afternoon, she sounded more than a little scared. She was about to go public with a scorching video, in which she would denounce President Donald Trump and his stewardship of the country during the coronavirus pandemic. Troye, who served as Vice-President Mike Pence’s adviser for homeland security until late July, has witnessed the Administration’s response to the crisis, as Pence’s top aide on the White House coronavirus task force. She had seen Trump rant in private about Fox News coverage as his public-health advisers desperately tried to get him to focus on a disease that has now killed some two hundred thousand Americans. She had decided that Trump was lying to the American public about the disease, and that “words matter, especially when you’re the President of the United States,” and that it was time to speak out. She was nervous and scared and worried for her family and her career. But she plunged ahead anyway.

I asked about her firsthand observation of the President during the crisis. She said that Trump was “disruptive.” That he could not “focus.” That he was consumed by himself and his prospects in November. “For him, it was all about the election,” Troye told me. “He just can’t seem to care about anyone else besides himself.”

Troye joined the coronavirus task force when it was first established, in late January, before any Americans had died from covid-19. Her experience on it, Troye told me, convinced her that Trump’s handling of the situation—the conscious spreading of disinformation, the disregard for the task force’s work—had made the crisis far worse for Americans. She warned about the President’s push for a vaccine before the November election and said that she did not trust him to do the right thing for the country’s health and safety. “What I’m really concerned about is if they rush this vaccine and pressure people and get something out because they want to save the election,” she said.

Troye is the first White House staff member who has worked on the coronavirus response to speak out publicly against Trump, but the President and the Administration she described were drearily consistent with portraits that have emerged in countless other tell-all interviews and books: a White House riven by backstabbing and suspicion, where trouble flowed from the top and good governance was subordinate to Presidential whim and partisan calculation. She told me she believed that most other staffers on the coronavirus task force were genuinely motivated to help Americans weather the pandemic but that Trump blocked them from implementing the right policies. “Everything that you’re putting in place is derailed not just by a random person—it’s derailed by a No. 1. It’s derailed by the person at the very top,” she said.

Troye described herself to me as a lifelong Republican, whose first job out of college was at the Republican National Committee. On 9/11, she fled her office on foot, walking home past the smoldering fire of the Pentagon, a moment that convinced her, like many others in her generation, to pursue a career in national security. She went on to serve as a George W. Bush Administration appointee in the Pentagon. For the first year and a half of the Trump Administration, she worked at the Department of Homeland Security, as a career intelligence official, before being detailed to Pence’s staff. Civil servants like herself were reviled as “deep staters” by Trump’s political appointees, she said. They were viewed with even more suspicion after Trump’s impeachment in the House, in December, was aided by testimony from mid-level White House staffers, including Jennifer Williams, Pence’s national-security aide, who worked in the office next to Troye’s. “I actually find that term very offensive,” she told me, “because not once while I was there did I do anything that I believe would lead anyone to think that I was a ‘deep stater,’ constantly undermining his agenda. . . . At the end of the day, I’m a career officer and my job was to serve, no matter who was in office.”

Soon after our conversation, a coalition called Republican Voters Against Trump released Troye’s video, the third such testimonial of a former Administration official speaking out against the President that the group has produced in recent weeks. In the video, Troye speaks directly to the camera. As pictures of her sitting alongside Vice-President Pence flash onscreen, she says that, by mid-February, the task force knew that the coronavirus was a lethal threat to the U.S. “But the President didn’t want to hear that, because his biggest concern was that we were in an election year.” Troye adds, “It was shocking to see the President saying that the virus was a hoax, saying that everything was O.K. when it was not,” despite what he had been very clearly told in private. Troye ends the video by calling herself a “John McCain Republican” and endorsing Trump’s opponent, Joe Biden.

In the video, Troye recounts when Trump, a noted germaphobe, met with the coronavirus task force, early on in the crisis, and told its members that perhaps the pandemic was a good thing because he would no longer have to shake hands with all the “disgusting people” at his rallies and other public events. During our interview, I asked Troye if she could remember other particularly memorable times when Trump spoke privately to the group. She recalled how Trump refused several times to consider urgent business that the task force presented to him, deciding “to talk about himself and a preferred news network and how upset he was with them, instead of focussing on the agenda at hand.” Fox News coverage, in other words, preoccupied the President more than saving American lives. I asked Troye if that shocked her. “No,” she said. She remembered what she thought at the time: “This is exactly what you would expect.”

Sadly, the surprise here is not that Trump acted so callously in the midst of a pandemic but that so many senior government officials know that this is happening and are doing nothing to stop it. Troye’s testimony, like that of so many others, is from inside the room—in this case, from inside the very room that is supposed to be dealing with the single biggest crisis currently afflicting the United States.

Every Presidency has its dissenters, people who leave and tell tales after they do so. But there has never been anything like the stories that have emerged from the Trump White House, from so many who worked with the President and observed him up close. People like his former national-security adviser John Bolton, who called Trump “unfit” for office. And people like the former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, the former White House chief of staff John Kelly, and the former director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, all of whom have relayed grave concerns about Trump that have made their way to Bob Woodward and other journalists.

In the end, this is what struck me most during my conversation with Troye: she is young, only forty-three years old, with a long career ahead of her, and she was willing to put it all on the line publicly, whereas people like Mattis and Kelly were not. That contrast could not have been more stark as I read a Coats Op-Ed in the Times that published the same day as Troye’s video. Coats, clearly referring to Trump’s recent undermining of faith in the upcoming election, said that a national commission should be established by Congress to insure confidence in this fall’s voting. Coats never once referenced Trump by name, and he has never publicly come forward to share with Americans his misgivings about the President. Why not? He is a veteran U.S. senator and a former U.S. ambassador who closed out his career as the head of the massive U.S. intelligence bureaucracy. What does he have to risk?

Troye, with much more to lose—and with none of the stature of a former member of Congress or a former Marine general—had much more courage than all of them. She went ahead when they have not, knowing that she would be attacked. And, sure enough, when the video went online, the White House released a comment about her that was harsh and personal. Her direct supervisor in Pence’s office, Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, told the Washington Post that Troye was a “disgruntled” former detailee from the Department of Homeland Security who was “no longer capable of keeping up with her day-to-day duties.” Later, when Pence himself was asked about Troye, he told reporters that she was just “one more disgruntled employee who’s left the White House [and] decided to play politics during an election year.” When I spoke with Troye once more, on Thursday evening, she was bracing for more such comments from powerful men.

I asked her if she was bothered by the failure of senior officials who share her views to speak out as she had done. Troye was generous. “I know that I am not alone—and how hard it is,” she said. But, she added—and this is a point that cannot be repeated enough between now and November 3rd—this is not a time for silence. “I hope that this will encourage other voices who were obviously much more senior than I was to tell the truth about the situation here we’re in,” she said. “And how dangerous this is.”

#BlackLivesMatter

#BanTheNaziFromKB

[Lois]

Trump blamed the blue states for the high death toll from coronavirus. But the facts are that if you only counted deaths from the red states our death rate from coronavirus would still come second only to Brazil.

However, it was interesting to hear Trump essentially say blue lives don't matter.

[Athos_131]

Trump Threatens To Issue Executive Order Preventing Biden From Being Elected President

In a wide-ranging speech at a campaign rally Saturday night, President Donald Trump ramped up attacks against his opponent, Joe Biden, calling Biden the "dumbest of all candidates," and went so far as to declare, "maybe I'll sign an executive order that you cannot have him as your president."

#BlackLivesMatter

#BanTheNaziFromKB

[Lois]

I say that we write Trump as tRump, much as Joan writes Joe Biden's name JoE. 

[Shiela_M]

I'm going to keep going with trumpster.  It's so close to dumpster

Trumpster
Dumpster

[msslave]

After his remarks Friday in Northern Minnesota, I'm leaning towards "Herr Trump". Speaking to an all white crowd he said they had "good genes".  To some, reading of his remarks, it sounded like he was extolling "the Master Race".

He went on to use scare tactics, saying Biden would flood Minnesota with Somalis..WTF

The county he was speaking in, Beltrami, saw it's County Commisioners vote to keep immigrants out of the nty. Easy to see why Herr Trump was drawn to that location.

Worse, to me, that county was always solidly Democratic. In the years I lived up there I don't remember any Republican getting a majority of votes.

https://www.startribune.com/trump-s-good-genes-comment-at-bemidji-rally-draws-condemnation/572486371/

[Jed_]

After his remarks Friday in Northern Minnesota, I'm leaning towards "Herr Trump". Speaking to an all white crowd he said they had "good genes".  To some, reading of his remarks, it sounded like he was extolling "the Master Race".

Good genes in his crowd?  I hear they like chocolate.

[Athos_131]

It's been his latest tactic at his COVID-19 Superspreader Events to gin up racist fears by saying that shit.   I am surprised the Nazi has not started parroting it here yet.

I'm still waiting on the caravan that was invading two years ago.  

Also, where's that health care plan he promised he'd sign, and the tax cut for the middle class he promised?

#BlackLivesMatter

#BanTheNaziFromKB

[Athos_131]

Trump live-tweeted his television nearly 300 times in the first six months of 2020

Trump tweeted in response to television programs he was watching nearly 300 times in the first six months of 2020, according to a Media Matters review. More than nine in 10 of those tweets came in response to Fox News or its sister network, Fox Business, as the right-wing channels maintained their unprecedented influence over the federal government.

Trump’s obsession with Fox is well-documented. The president has stocked his administration with former Fox employees, invites its hosts to advise him on policy and politics, regularly praises his network supporters during public events and interviews, and lashes out whenever he finds its coverage less than adoring.

Since 2017, I’ve been studying what I call the Trump-Fox feedback loop, tracing the president’s often erratic and hyper-aggressive tweets back to the television programming that spurred them. Last year, as the president’s relationship with the right-wing networks drove federal policy and national politics, Trump sent at least 657 such live tweets in response to Fox News or Fox Business.

Fox continues to shape Trump’s responses to crucial issues this year, with key foreign and domestic policy decisions and federal pardons and contracts dictated by the network’s coverage. And the president selected additional familiar faces from his television to fill the highest ranks of his administration. But the center of influence appears to have shifted away from Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity in 2020, as Laura Ingraham and especially Tucker Carlson have become preeminent within the Fox Cabinet.

Trump’s live-tweeting habit is still going strong. He sent 293 live tweets in response to his television in the first six months of this year. Of those, 226 were of Fox News programs, 42 were of Fox Business, three were of the would-be Trump propaganda channel OAN, and 22 were of all other networks combined (14 MSNBC, six CNN, one CNBC, and one ABC).

Trump continues to live-tweet most frequently during his morning “executive time” sessions, with more than three in five of his live tweets coming in response to programs which air before noon ET. Fox & Friends, Fox News’ insipid morning show, generated the most live tweets of any single program, with 61.

Nine of 10 programs generating the most Trump live tweets aired on Fox News or Fox Business. The outlier was MSNBC’s Morning Joe; Trump sent 13 live tweets in response to that program as he pushed a deranged conspiracy theory about its host, Joe Scarborough.

More than half of Trump’s live tweets during the first six months of the year responded to coverage of his impeachment trial, the novel coronavirus pandemic, or the protests and civil unrest following the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Trump’s 69 live tweets in January -- all of Fox News or Fox Business shows -- marked his highest total of any month so far this year. He was transfixed by the networks’ coverage of the Senate impeachment trial into his abuses of power and obstruction of Congress, sending 37 tweets promoting their defenses of his corrupt plot to condition military aid to Ukraine and a White House meeting with its president on that country helping his reelection campaign. Notably, he sent at least 12 tweets in response to Fox programming on January 23, more than he has sent on any single day in Media Matters’ database.

Trump didn’t just channel the network’s commentary as part of his impeachment communications strategy. He also filled the ranks of the team that defended him in the Senate with lawyers and House members whom he regularly saw playing that role on his television. The group combined for an astounding 1,368 weekday Fox News appearances between August 1, 2017, and January 17, 2020.

The president’s live-tweeting total declined in each of the next four months.

In March and April, Trump’s live tweets largely came in response to the coronavirus pandemic sweeping across the nation. He sent a total of 53 coronavirus-related live tweets, more than 70 percent of his total live tweets during those months.

Trump’s fixation with Fox played a key role in nearly every aspect of his handling of the virus. His early efforts to downplay the pandemic, his subsequent, albeit brief, shift toward taking it more seriously, his championing of untested malaria drugs as potential miracle cures, his demands for a swift reopening of the economy, his distaste for masks, and his decision to terminate U.S. funding for the World Health Organization each were influenced by the network’s propagandists, particularly Carlson and Ingraham.

In May, as the network seemed to lose interest in the coronavirus, Trump sent only nine live tweets on the subject amid his lowest total live tweets of any month in this period, 30.

But June brought a sharp uptick in live tweets, to 67, after the police killings of Floyd and Taylor triggered nationwide protests against police brutality and racism. Thirty-four of his live tweets during that period referenced coverage of the protests and the civil unrest and looting which at times accompanied them.

Trump’s response to those protests featured attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement, dire warnings of urban violence and demands for “LAW AND ORDER,” denunciations of statue vandalism, and conspiracy theories about the purported depravity of antifa, all of which aligned with what he was seeing on his television, especially from Carlson.  

The influence of the president’s television extended far beyond those three major stories. He decided against a military escalation with Iran in part due to Carlson’s opposition to it, tweeted that he had “instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea” in response to a Fox & Friends news brief, and repeatedly threatened Scarborough with a criminal probe after watching the MSNBC host criticize his presidency.

And the power of the Trump-Fox feedback loop is likely to increase in the days to come. The “rhetorical roots” of the president’s July 4 speech at Mount Rushmore are in Carlson’s recent monologues, according to Axios’ Jonathan Swan. “Trump's Independence Day speech lays a marker for how he's going to campaign through to November, according to campaign advisers,” he reported. “Perhaps no TV host has ever had such an influential role — whether Trump's team admits it or not — in defining a president's re-election message."

#BlackLivesMatter

#BanTheNaziFromKB

[Lois]

Trump is implying that if he is not declared the winner in the November election, he will not leave the White House.  Personally I hope he resists. I would like nothing better than to see Trump escorted from the White House by the Secret Service.

[eater]

Whatever.

The video shows that Trump belives demonstrators, practicing their 1st Amendment rights, should be beaten.  He calls upon his followers to do the beating. Any concern about that?

its better than shooting them, i have been watching this chaos grow for months and to tell you the truth i am really surprised one of those business owners didnt get on a roof with an AK and mow down hundreds of idiots in the streets burning and looting ...the restraint shown by the general public has been amazing.

btw the first amendment does not protect your right to loot and burn and shoot and kill and assault and disturb the peace and destroy private property or govt. property. one day some citizen is gonna have enough of this crap and lose it and start sweeping the streets.
and those who pushed these unemployed punks and young kids as pawns to act this way will have their blood on their hands.
like hillary and nancy and orcosio cortez and that other foul mouthed woman from michigan and that dope that stands next to nancy all the time.. and CNN talking heads ...they are all idiots. destroying the minds of the youth and the country just to try to win some stupid election ....IDIOTS.

what the hell did trump do to deserve such extreme hate from them anyway?...won the election??
so what!
try harder next time.
get better candidates.
make better policy.
win an election fair like every other president has done, this isn't f**king mob rules its a DEMOCRACY.
if you don't like it move to some shit-hole 3rd world country and carry on with your looting and stupidity there.

[eater]

***************************************************************
Lets all put aside our petty squabbles and take a moment to say a prayer for our President and  Commander in Chief and the First Lady's health




moderator edit: removed a bunch of '*'s that were forcing a scroll bar below.

[Jed_]

Karma is a bitch isn’t it.

[Shiela_M]

say a prayer for our President and  Commander in Chief and the First Lady's health

I did and it appears it came true finally.

Karma is a bitch isn’t it.

My thoughts exactly Sir

[msslave]

Stepson came into the kitchen early after catching the news on TV and told us about it. Wife started laughing. She was embarrassed by that, but said she couldn't help it.

The irony is just so fitting. This fool who's tried to downplay Covid and allowed rallies with no distancing or masks is now facing reality.

I know I shouldn't feel amused by the President's health. Maybe I'll send him a jug of bleach to ease my guilt.

[Jed_]

Stepson came into the kitchen early after catching the news on TV and told us about it. Wife started laughing. She was embarrassed by that, but said she couldn't help it.

The irony is just so fitting. This fool who's tried to downplay Covid and allowed rallies with no distancing or masks is now facing reality.

I know I shouldn't feel amused by the President's health. Maybe I'll send him a jug of bleach to ease my guilt.

Ironically since I had stopped reading them, I found out here seeing eater’s post, then checked the news to confirm.

[eater]

you people are really sick. i could never feel that way if biden and his wife got covid' or even pelosi or AOC i would not feel like that..

you are really honestly some sick motherfuckers.

[eater]

I'm starting to understand now how people can burn down their neighbors businesses and walk up to peoples drinks at a cafe and guzzle down an elderly womans drink with a rude mob of uncouth scum behind me and cheer on politicians who condone the crime and want to defund police..all of it..i see now

these people are not left wing or democrats they are filthy sick minded scum who really do hate our country and want to destroy it.

[Lois]

Trump tested positive for COVID, no doubt given to him by his current Mistress Hope Hicks.

It's ironic that the man who downplayed the virus and encouraged his followers not to take safety measures like social distancing and wearing masks now has the virus himself.

So what treatments should he use? Hydroxychloroquine? Bleach injections?  UV lights up his bum?

I think it's to much to wish his upcoming experiences will teach him any empathy for those who have contracted the disease before him.  Maybe he planned the whole thing.  He knows he's going to loose the upcoing election and go to jail.  Maybe it's his plan to turn everything over to Pence and get a pardon before he leaves office.  That would be very Nixonian.

[_priapism]

Trump tested positive for COVID, no doubt given to him by his current Mistress Hope Hicks.

It's ironic that the man who downplayed the virus and encouraged his followers not to take safety measures like social distancing and wearing masks now has the virus himself.

So what treatments should he use? Hydroxychloroquine? Bleach injections?  UV lights up his bum?

I think it's to much to wish his upcoming experiences will teach him any empathy for those who have contracted the disease before him.  Maybe he planned the whole thing.  He knows he's going to loose the upcoing election and go to jail.  Maybe it's his plan to turn everything over to Pence and get a pardon before he leaves office.  That would be very Nixonian.