Great! Live, learn, andv do better.
Yes, he was in over his head. Talked a good game, but never got control of the executive branch and the government. He repeatedly picked bad people, turned good people into bad people, left treasonous traitors in places of leadership. Trump was not prepared and the people he surrounded himself with failed him miserably. Blame them if you want, but this starts and ends with Trump. Nothing suggests it would be any different in a second term. Nothing.
It’s ok, Mr President. A price you paid for being a newbie in the ugly world of politics where everyone, save for immediate family members, is a potential enemy. No more of these douches in your third term.
He didnt know any better at the time..unfortunately he got some HORRIBLE advice and brought in many of the same swamp creatures he vowed to get rid of..he found out the hard way there are PLENTY and I mean PLENTY of swamp creatures in the GOP that need to be given the boot
No sh*t, Sherlock!
Bring back Flynn and Bannon!
There is one man Donald Trump was wise to choose as a cabinet member: Ben Carson.
Trump won’t admit it, but McConnell had a lot of control over him, to the extent he controlled approval of key appointments.
Sessions was a Pontius Pilate traitor. He washed his hands with his surprise, ridiculous “recusal,” and purposefully opened the sluice-gates at the DOJ for 2 years of persecution of Trump by Mueller/Weissmann, and later, the Vindmans and Pelosi.
He also concomitantly helped promote the sick, corrupt, neocon propaganda to go to war with Russia in Ukraine.
Sessions was a total scoundrel and a disaster.
If Trump wins his 2nd cabinet must be all Washington outsiders.
Good he recognizes and talks about this.
But does he yet understand WHY this has happened? I think it's because Trump is still learning that politics and government is not like business in terms of, say, purpose and personnel.
1) purpose: in business your in it for yourself, to make a profit (nothing wrong with that - makes the world go 'round), whereas in government especially the federal government, you're in it for the good of the American People by ensuring EVERYTHING is within the strict limitations of the Constitution (from which the feds have greatly strayed for 100+ years).
2) personnel: loyalty in businesses a great asset, not so much in government. In government, if somebody shows they are in it for themselves and ignores constitutional and moral boundaries, nuke 'em. Period. You're a STATESMAN and in there for the American People, not for your own personal loyalties or benefit.
Then wait for the media's heads to explode.
*If anyone else remembers the msm speculating that Trump would ask for a pledge prior to his first term cabinet meeting.
DeSantos supporters say they knew all these Republicans were going to stab Trump in the back the day they started working for the administration. I could have sworn most of these same people at the time thought Pence was a good choice. ☺
The day the earth stood still!
Trump says he made a mistake! Well, really lots of them when it comes to selecting people and who to believe.
Maybe he learned a lesson? Still not sure on that one.
DeSantis isn't yet getting the full "George Allen" treatment, but it's starting in two fronts.
Trump dropped the ball on the MAGA agenda and appointed too many swampsters... Establishment candidates don’t have a problem with those policies and appointments, so they won’t use them against. But a MAGA candidate like Desantis could wield those Trump failures with devastating effect... And Trump hired Chris Wray who heads a corrupt weapon used FBI...Since you've made the Trump appointments a major disputing point, I'll address them all here.
As you may recall, when Obama ran he was faced with the same issue: being an "outsider" (an Illinois creature who won his elections by default, and with only two years in the Senate), he had no "Rolodex," meaning he didn't know anyone to fill out a staff. Bill Clinton had an entire Arkansas machine that he build up and brought with him to DC (including Vince Foster, who became disillusioned and was terminated).
George W Bush, being a Texas politician, inherited his father's political machine, but he still needed the "gravitas" of Dick Cheney to round out his ticket in DC.
Back to Obama, his solution to the "gravitas" problem was, after a long VP search, to select Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden was said to be bringing the DC political connections after 40 years in Congress that Obama lacked. They wanted Biden's Rolodex, and the price for it was Biden himself.
Fast-forward to Donald Trump and we have the same problem. Trump was a Big Donor for sure, but he was on the other side of the check, the writing side and not the cashing side. Trump relied heavily on the recommendations of Reince Priebus for his early appointments, perhaps too much so, but he (in my opinion), didn't know better. He did have a track record of loyalty to his executive staff, but that worked in a corporate setting where the c-level were compensated based on the success of the company. In DC, people are compensated based on the side deals they make from the power of the positions they hold, with lesser regard to the person who got them the position they now hold. In DC, getting the position is key; it's politically much harder to fire some than to appoint someone, because firing someone becomes an attack on the Senators who endorsed the nominee.
This brings us to the particular position of Chris Wray. Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and others made it clear to President Trump' whom they would support for certain positions, and who was off-limits for being fired. If there were any root-cause for this Sword of Damocles being held over Trump's head, it was his nomination of Jeff Sessions for Attorney General.
Trump was being loyal to Sessions for him being the first DC heavyweight to get on the Trump Train, and made Sessions the Attorney General. Some of us thought that Sessions, while a genial person with Biden-like connections in the Senate, was not a strong personality to hold such an important role in the administration. He may have been an effective Alabama "country lawyer" in his youth, but his casualness didn't serve him well in the federal positions he held until he became a Senator. Sessions would eventually undermine President Trump by so easily being duped by Democrat pressure to recuse himself at the beginning of the Russia hoax, instead of holding strong until he could see beyond the initial headwinds to assess what was really going on.
Ron DeSantis has a stronger background than Sessions:
- DeSantis went to Yale and then Harvard Law School; Sessions went to Huntingdon College in Montgomery, and then the University of Alabama School of Law.
- DeSantis joined the Navy, was an advisor to Seal Team One, and was deployed to Iraq for a year; Sessions joined the Army Reserve.
- DeSantis was appointed by the Department of Justice to serve as a Special Assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Middle District of Florida until he was honorably discharged by the Navy; Sessions was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama.
- President Reagan nominated Sessions to be the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama where he served for 12 years until Bill Clinton fired all of the US Attorneys.
- DeSantis ran for and won a seat in the House of Representatives; Sessions became the Alabama Attorney General.
- DeSantis ran for and won the Governor's race in Florida; Sessions ran for and won a Senate seat for Alabama.
I think comparing the CV's of DeSantis and Sessions, it suggests that DeSantis clearly has what some might call "the mettle of the man." DeSantis does appear to be the stronger-willed type, a product of Yale/Harvard/Navy training. That said, what he still lacks is the same DC insider experience that Obama, Bush, and Trump lacked; the Rolodex. DeSantis was only in Congress for five years (zero for Trump or Bush, two for Obama plus his stint in the Illinois statehouse).
Sure, DeSantis was a Founding Member of the House Freedom Caucus, but the Freedom Caucus (42 members at its peak) might be considered to be "fringe" when compared to the Congressional Black Caucus (57 members), the LGBTQ+ Caucus (175 members), the Congressional Progressive Caucus (95 members), and Non-Aligned Republicans (116 members).
Right now, DeSantis is "earning his chops" as Governor of Florida, a seat he won by barely beating charismatic black Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who was later discovered intoxicated in a hotel room containing crystal meth, a gay prostitute, and an overdose victim. I hope that he's winning over more residents of Florida since taking office, and that he improves his turnout in 2022.
The lesson that DeSantis needs to learn now is the story of George Allen of Virginia. After President Bush beat John Kerry in 2004 due to the so-called "values voter," Allen was seen as the next up-and-coming talent for 2008 and beyond. In law school, Allen was chairman of the "Young Virginians for Ronald Reagan," and his father was the famed NFL coach of the Los Angeles Rams and later the Washington Redskins. This made Allen the prime target for political kneecapping by Democrats when he ran for the Virginia Senate seat in 2006. Democrats hired hecklers to attend Allen rallies to try to goad him into making gaffes that they would record to use against him. One day, he retorted to a heckler "Macaca," his made-up word to essentially yell "Bull----!" back to the heckler (Trump would have just said it).
The Washington Post went on a search-and-destroy mission against Allen, using the word "macaca" to gin up story after story, for nearly three months, alleging racism, claiming that "macaca" referred to a Portuguese word for "monkey" (the heckler was of Indian descent). They even found references to Belgian slurs of African Congolese in the early 20th century colonial period. This all led to The Post successfully ending the Allen campaign and any chances of an Allen presidency, and struck a mortal blow to the rise of "values voters" as a faction until it reemerged as the Tea Party in 2010.
DeSantis needs to focus on his 2022 reelection as Florida Governor first. If DeSantis thought he was getting a bad rap during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and then again with the "Don't Say Gay" slurs, just wait until after the 2022 mid-terms when the Democrats turn their full force on DeSantis to try to clear the field for California's Gavin Newsom. You can bet that DeSantis will get the George Allen treatment x 100.
In my opinion, DeSantis can't be looking to a presidential run in 2024, he's going to have too much of a target on his back to take him out before then. DeSantis needs to be a Florida Governor first, a Trump supporter second to deliver Florida to Trump, and then a future presidential candidate third. DeSantis should be looking to 2028, meaning he should be looking for a position in the Trump administration for 2026 (or sooner), perhaps as President Trump's Attorney General. He can then leverage that position to build up his own Rolodex as the foundation for his presidential run in 2028.
-PJ
"Trump: First Term ‘Mistake’ Was Some of the People I Picked for My Cabinet"
Unfortunately, quick study Trump is now an expert on how the unconstitutionally big federal government works.
It's up to us Constitution-savvy patriots, not Trump's institutionally indoctrinated GOPe advisors, to get Trump up to speed with how the constitutionally limited power federal government is supposed to work.
And we start by primarying all state and federal incumbent lawmakers and executives in 2024, except for Gaetz, MTG, and Jordan imo.
After all, lawmakers and executives continue to show that they do not have the patriotism and leadership skills necessary to find legislative support for effective remedies for unconstitutional government policies.
In fact, consider that since one of the very few powers that the states have expressly constitutionally given to the big, bad federal government to dictate peacetime domestic policy is to run the Mail Service (most federal domestic policy actually based on stolen state powers imo), the worst problem that the country would otherwise be looking at with a new Congress of freshman lawmakers is arguably a delay with mail delivery.
"Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"
Trump can endorse candidates that Constitution-savvy patriots recommend as long as candidates are not incumbents, candidates also promising to repeal the 16th (direct taxes) and 17th (popular voting for federal senators) Amendments after they win office.
The definition of insanity is reelecting your beloved career state and federal lawmakers and executives over and over again, expecting those same politicians to find remedies for unconstitutional government policies every time.
From what I’ve read on FR (and I think it’s accurate), a big part of DJT’s personnel challenges were that he could only put people in position that Congress/Deep State would approve. Even if he chooses better people this time around, why would Congress/Deep State be any more cooperative (I’d actually expect them to be even less so).
First step in recovery is to admit you have a problem and want to correct it. I am glad he admits it and believes he has been paying attention so that a second chance won’t result in picking traitors again.
I don’t think anyone understood the depth of the deep state depravity.
Trump won the Republican primary and then was elected President. You don’t think the existing Republican infrastructure is going to try to sabotage their own president and that their advice and recommendation were actually subterfuge and meant to put in personnel to combat and thwart the administration.
If he gets a second term he should go “Gorillia”.
when ever a Gorilla succeeds in taking over a
troop, he kills all the males, so that he has
no opposition.
Trump should eliminate every appointed official. From generals to bureaucrats.
Officials that were were appointed by and loyal to past presidents and install his own or no, on his very first day.
He should also rescind every executive order ever signed
by any president.
That will eliminate government employee unions.
Congress is going to start to do it’s job
and prioritize it’s time. They have delegated way too much of their powers to self interested bureaucrats.
On his second day furlough all employees from every agency not specifically authorized by the Constitution.
Order the GSA to terminate all utility contracts to Federal buildings used by organizations not authorized by the constitution.
Now let the dust settle and start over.
That would be how I’d start out.
Swamp is drained.
Country cannot be fixed with this present bureaucracy.
Jeff Sessions was my largest disappointment. There are other picks Trump made that we knew from the beginning were mistakes (i.e. Pence). But I and most other FReepers were excited with picking Sessions as A.G. So when he turned out to be a dud it was the biggest let down.