(Dobbs) From The People Who Know Trump The Best
We see an ugly picture in public. They saw one in private.
We don’t really need more proof that Donald Trump is off the rails. We have four years of it from the White House, now two-and-a-half more since he left. Just in the last few days, after being criminally indicted for his role in the insurrection of January 6th, he has called the prosecutor a “deranged psycho,” used terms like “sick” and “demented” to describe former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (who had said he looked like “a scared puppy” when he showed up in Washington last week to be booked), and threatened on his website the day after the indictment, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you.” He has the privilege of free speech, but this is hardly sane behavior for an ex-president.
For good measure, he even had the coarse taste to trash the U.S. women’s soccer team, calling their heartbreaking loss at the World Cup “fully emblematic of what is happening to the our once great Nation under Crooked Joe Biden,” as if it was Biden who blew the penalty kick. “Nice shot Megan,” he went on, addressing a player who has criticized him, “the USA is going to Hell!!! MAGA.” It’s worth noting as a contrast we’ll probably see in the general election if the polls are correct, Biden had the grace to send an upbeat tweet to the dejected team: “I’m looking forward to seeing how you continue to inspire Americans with your grit and determination — on and off the field.”
But the real measure of any man comes from the people who have been around him, known him, watched him, met with him, seen him in action. Better than anyone, that would be family.
That’s why the credibility of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.— son of the late Bobby Kennedy and nephew of the late John F. Kennedy— has taken such a hit.
After making all kinds of outrageous statements about everything from the mandate on covid vaccinations—“Anne Frank,” he said, “had more freedom during the Holocaust”— to the assassination of his uncle, President Kennedy— he blames it on the CIA— his own family has been outspokenly derisive. His sister Kerry Kennedy has called his statements “deplorable and untruthful,” his brother Joseph P. Kennedy II says they’re “morally and factually wrong,” and his nephew Jack Schlossbert posted on Instagram, “I’ve listened to him. I know him. I have no idea why anyone thinks he should be president. What I do know is his candidacy is an embarrassment.”
Kennedy’s family is embarrassed. They are ashamed.
But not a peep from the Trumps about their patriarch.
Expecting any outrage from any of them over Donald Trump’s outrageous behavior would be asking too much.
So the next best sources are the people who served with him, the people who saw how he works and how he thinks. Their observations are nothing if not revealing.
His first secretary of defense, James Mattis, has said, “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people— does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.”
Mattis’s replacement (who resigned shortly after the election) was Mark Esper. His take on Trump? He “is an unprincipled person who, given his self-interest, should not be in the position of public service.”
Trump’s second attorney general Bill Barr pulls no punches when he talks about the man who gave him his job. He says that if the former president really believes the lies he’s been telling, he is “detached from reality.” Famously, he told Trump his lies were “bullshit.”
Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson— he’s the one Trump called “dumb as a rock”— said in an interview, “His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”
His second secretary of state, West Point graduate Mike Pompeo, said after the revelations about the top secret papers Trump carelessly and illegally kept at Mar-a-Lago, “Trump had classified docs when he shouldn’t have had them, and when given the opportunity to return them, he chose not to do that. That’s inconsistent with protecting America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.”
Steven Mnuchin, his treasury secretary and longtime friend, reportedly conferred with other cabinet members in the chaos of January 6th to talk about invoking the 25th Amendment, which can be used to remove a president for mental as well as physical illness.
Two of Trump’s chiefs of staff— he went through four of them— have made their own condemnations of their former boss. Retired Marine general John Kelly told friends, “The depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, though it’s more pathetic than anything else. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life.” Mick Mulvaney once called him “a terrible human being” and has said, “Is he a role model for my sons? Absolutely not.”
Two cabinet secretaries resigned because of what Trump did to incite the January 6th insurrection. Education’s Betsy DeVos wrote to him, “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation.” Transportation’s Elaine Chao— wife of Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell— told Trump in her letter of resignation that the insurrection at the Capitol “deeply troubled me in a way I simply cannot set aside.”
Then there’s Mike Pence, the unfailingly loyal vice president. Never a harsh word from his mouth in all those four years. But now? Anyone who “puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.” From a guy like Mike Pence, that’s as close as it comes to raw anger.
All of them have their motives, and some might be entirely self-serving. But it is worth asking, how many cabinet members trashed Barack Obama after they left their positions, or George W. Bush, or Bill Clinton, or any who served before them in the Oval Office? These people who know Donald Trump paint an ugly picture. Not just the one the public sees, but the one they saw in private.
Trump has a following that will adore him no matter what. But for people on the fence who might make the difference in next year’s presidential election, this is a picture they should see.
Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
I agree with all you have so eloquently stated. You used the words of those who know him from inside his inner circle, and that is more powerful than what you and me think or say. Sadly, those who are in his CULT will not read your words or be aware of them. Even if they did, it seems they have drunk Trump's Kool Aid. It baffles me. Some Republicans I know have told me they don't like Trump, but they don't like Biden even more. Really?!! They say they fear Socialism. I fear dictatorship with a mad man dictator much much more. So should they.
Bravo Greg. 👏 Those who support this lout and wave American flags in doing so have no appreciation of what it stands for. Our soldiers who laid down their lives defending our ideals did not do so to have to have those very ideals trashed by the scurrilous lout of a human being and those who follow him. Those who do are treading on the very symbol they claim to support.