You might need to be a masochist to work in a second-term Trump White House
Timothy P. Carney
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I have dozens of friends and contacts who worked in Donald Trump’s presidency, and I know that many of them had deep reservations about Trump’s fitness for the job. I never would have worked for Trump, but when I look at good attorneys who did (such as Pat Cipollone, Jeffrey Rosen, and Don McGahn), I am grateful.
Cipollone, for instance, resisted Trump’s most crazy election claims and stopped the White House from putting its institutional primer on these claims. He also worked hard to keep Trump from going to the Capitol on Jan. 6, which could have made things even worse.
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William Barr, who was Trump’s attorney general, also seemed to have steered Trump away from even worse post-election misdeeds in 2020 and January 2021.
So here’s the question: Who the heck would work for Trump in a second term?
Bret Baier went after this question in his interview with Trump on Monday night.
Baier is making a more subtle point there: Trump often defends himself, excusing his failures or dismissing his critics, by attacking the people who worked for him. Specifically, he dismisses the people he hired as losers, idiots, and liars. If Trump is right, that means he hired tons of losers, idiots, and liars. Given that he’s running to be president again, a history of hiring a bunch of losers, idiots, and liars seems pretty disqualifying.
Alternatively, Trump may have hired smart and ethical people who oppose him because of how self-absorbed and unethical he is.
Consider, in contrast, the quintessential loyal man in the Trump White House: Walt Nauta. Nauta, who became Trump’s body man at the end of his presidency, did everything Trump wanted and always stood by Trump’s side, and for that reason, he has been charged with felonies.
Imagine Trump wins the presidency in 2024. Now ask yourself what sort of person would take a high-profile position in a second Trump term. For starters, Trump would be able to hire people perfectly willing to commit crimes. Otherwise, it would be people willing to be abused by Trump.
An administration of ne’er-do-wells and masochists hardly seems likely to “Make America Great Again.”