He hired “Garbage”
Trump poses with his Cabinet and White House staff. Photo: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
In
an astonishing admission, Donald Trump said that instead of hiring
only “the best people,” as he promised voters, he hired “garbage.”
The
also complained that these former appointees didn’t follow his version
of omerta after a new book revealed that he wanted to execute an unidentified
White House leaker. Omerta is the ancient Sicilian mob tradition of never
talking outside their criminal gang, an offense punished by death.
Each
day America’s beggar-in-chief issues “Save America” statements via email. Most
are petty, many deranged, but now and then, truth inadvertently comes through
because of his utter lack of self-awareness, his emotional immaturity and his
rank incompetence as a leader. I’ve shown for three decades his failures
to his furious denials.
Now
the people he chose for his White House team are telling their stories of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the White House years.
Here is what Trump declared at 12:49 on Thursday afternoon:
First,
many of the people Trump says are “all of a sudden” talking to reporters have
been talking to them for months and years. Trump doesn’t read books nor did he
read his Presidential Daily Brief when he was president. Not reading more
deeply than the cover of a book often leaves Trump badly, sadly — and when he
was president — dangerously misinformed.
If
Trump cracks the spines of the bookshelf of tell-alls coming out now, he would
know that the authors carefully cultivated these sources and won their trust
while he was president.
Second,
notice that people who worked with Trump and now speak about him, other than as
he wants, are “losers.”
The
reason Trump made oh so many people sign nondisclosure agreements, even some
2016 campaign volunteers, was that anyone who gets inside could see the truth
about Trump: He is and always has been a fraud.
The
reality: He’s the self-made man who blew daddy’s fortune. He’s the Don Juan
sued repeatedly for groping and allegedly raping women because he lacked the
charm to seduce them. And now he’s the beggar-in-chief, a faux billionaire reduced
to pleading for alms from the people he says he loves, the “poorly educated”
whom he hurt so badly while in office.
Third,
Trump is back to his “many say” device, as if that lends credence to what he
says.
The
fact is that many say he is the worst president of all time. Many say he is a
Kremlin stooge. If these documents published in The Guardian Thursday are
true, Vladimir Putin owned him. Many say he is a lousy businessman.
I
could go on here with enough examples to fill three books—oh, wait, Thursday I
finished my third Trump book, The Big Cheat, out Sept. 28.
Fourth,
who conflates stars and garbage? There are great metaphors, there are mediocre
metaphors and then there are Trumpian trash metaphors.
But at least this one was honest trash in which Trump admitted, finally, that he didn’t hire the best and the brightest, but a bunch of losers.
David
Cay Johnston is the Editor-in-Chief of DCReport. He is an
investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues,
and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.