Rep. Olszewski to Marco Rubio: "I may have to get you a new pair of glasses because the facts are right in front of you, and it seems like malpractice for the Secretary of State to not be able to see this president and his family enriching themselves by billions of dollars."
Rep. Angie Craig demolishes Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins: "Joe Biden is no longer the president. Mr. Trump is. Your party controls Congress. You own these numbers at this point. I'm sick of hearing you blame an administration from a year and half ago. You own every single bit of this."
Trump: If I did meet with the new Ayatollah, I would be honored to meet him.
Doocy: Do you think because Epic Fury killed his killed his dad and his wife and his kid that he's has hard feelings?
Trump: I would say I'm not his favorite person, but with that being said, he's probably a pro—I don't know him—he's probably a professional in some circles, he has a very good reputation actually, you know, sometimes when people say bad, but a lot of people say bad about me . It's totally false, of course.
All the Republicans who have a lot to say about this Platner article and nothing to say about Max Miller beating his wife in front of their kids, Ron Fournier being arrested for domestic abuse again, or Ken Paxton protecting child sex predators can fuck right off.
Yesterday Donald Trump tripled the size of his personal political army inside the government. Illegally. And almost no one noticed.
Here's what happened:
He signed an order converting ~8,000 of the most senior career officials in government into employees he can fire for any reason, or no reason at all.
These aren't rando's. They're the directors, chiefs of staff, and the people who write the rules or decide who gets federal money, i.e. the lieutenants right below his political appointees.
Until yesterday, they answered to the law. Now they answer to him.
A president normally gets ~4,000 political appointees. People he can bring into government and fire at will. I was one of them at DHS. You serve at his pleasure, full stop -- so if you're gonna speak truth to power, you're prepared to quit (or get fired if he doesn't like it).
The rest of the federal government is PROTECTED from firing if they tell the truth.
But Trump just stripped those protections. Adding 8,000 more people to his personal army. Overnight. Without asking Congress.
With the stroke of a pen, those people now serve at the pleasure of the president. They're "his" people, whether they like it or not.
And the chilling effect is real. An official who can be fired this afternoon for "subversion of presidential directives" (the order's own words) doesn't need to be hand-picked to know what's expected of him or her.
The threat does all the work.
By the way, this order is illegal. The law only lets Trump reclassify jobs when "necessary" in exceptional circumstances. And this blows an 8,000-person hole in the merit hiring / firing system created by Congress.
Without permission, Trump has created a whole new category of stormtroopers inside the Executive Branch.
If this doesn't get challenged in court, you're going to see the U.S. government become a very different place.
Here's the full story: https://t.co/mJzrvzhxGR
Hey @HunterBiden, did you just see Trump fall asleep again during a live televised meeting?
If your dad had done that, assholes in the media like @jaketapper would have treated it like a national emergency. Wall-to-wall coverage, panic panels, anonymous leaks, and a full week of sanctimonious lectures about his fitness for office.
But when Trump does it?
They shrug and move on because the clown show keeps their ratings up and their pockets full.
The hypocrisy is disgraceful.
So let me get this straight.
Jake Tapper is focused on attacking my Mom.
Jared and Ivanka are building a private island paradise on Albanian protected land.
Don Jr married the daughter of Epstein’s banker, and a startup his fund backs just got a record $620M Pentagon loan.
Eric is taking an Israeli drone company public for $1.5B in the middle of a war with Iran that nobody wanted.
And I know: “But what about your paintings, Hunter?”
Please.