Michelle Obama to Barack Obama: You were doing the people's work. Rescuing our economy. Expanding healthcare. Ending a war. Ordering the Bin Laden raid. Saving the auto industry. Winning a peace prize. Keeping us safe from Ebola. Regulating the banks. Standing up for marriage equality. Listening to science. And comforting an entire nation. And you did it all with such grace, and class, and cool.
Trump, Musk and Rubio slashed aid and scoffed that it was woke nonsense. Now they're seeing that it not only saved one life every 10 seconds but also protected us from diseases like Ebola. Their actions constituted a security failure as well as a moral one.
More broadly, their fecklessness contrasts with the courage and humanity of doctors and aid workers in Congo and Uganda, lacking adequate PPE but still risking the virus to care for fellow humans.
Trump, Musk and Rubio might learn something from them. https://t.co/kPKj7fqJFZ
I’m not sure there’s ever been a president more distant from the ideals of the Founders of the United States and the Framers of the Constitution—and more detached from the core American culture of liberty, individualism, and self-determination—than President Trump.
Just to get a sense of how off-kilter our politics has become. Just TODAY we have:
* an expose revealing our HHS Sec "still uses psychedelics, and even smoked dimethyltryptamine."
* a report that the Dept FBI Director wasn't given a background check
* a report that Michael Flynn may get a $50m settlement???
* The president sic-ing the DOJ—overtly—on Democrats tied to a sex predator that he himself is tied to
* The Attorney General happily agreeing to his request
* A report that the DHS sec sent millions in ad contracts to a firm tied to her
* A congressman alleging that Trump's wanna-be assassin may have been "groomed"
unfortunately too many Americans in all walks of life - business, politics, journalism - dismissed these warnings
obviously Kelly and Milley were right
On a single Saturday in September:
--Trump instructed his AG to go after specific political enemies.
--We learned that his DOJ ended an investigation into his border czar, who was caught on camera taking a $50k cash bribe.
--His Pentagon top brass threatened to expel journalists who report info not cleared by them.
--His WH spoke to a shady deal that will see TikTok in the hands of a consortium of GOP mega-donors.
--Trump threatened "bad things" if we don't re-take Bagram AFB.
--His most senior counterterrorism official is in a Twitter spat with Laura Loomer.
None of this is normal. All of it is so dangerous and corrosive to our democracy.
BREAKING UPDATE: The government pressured ABC — and ABC caved. The timing of ABC's decision, on the heels of the FCC chairman’s pledge to the network to “do this the easy way or the hard way,” tells the whole story. Another media outlet withered under government pressure, ensuring that the administration will continue to extort and exact retribution on broadcasters and publishers who criticize it.
We cannot be a country where late night talk show hosts serve at the pleasure of the president. But until institutions grow a backbone and learn to resist government pressure, that is the country we are.
In the end, this is why the Trump administration has attacked independent journalists, academics and now museums. He wants to replace the truth of American history with an idealized myth. The only way to do that, is to hobble and eliminate truth tellers. https://t.co/mj6dOgyBJT
POTUS pointing to the free and plural press with the military as a backdrop while encouraging boos through a derogatory, discrediting term for the press is antithetical to democracy and what our nation stands for. So disappointed in all involved. It has consequences abroad, too.