Posts Tagged ‘JOHN F. KENNEDY’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 25, 2019 at 11:30 am
After his untimely assassination, President John F. Kennedy became the subject of a flood of adoring biographies.
Among these:
- With Kennedy, by Pierre Salinger;
- A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.;
- Kennedy, by Theodore C. Sorensen;
- The Pleasure of His Company, by Paul B. Fay;
- My Twelve Years With John F. Kennedy, by Elvelyn Lincoln;
- Conversations With Kennedy, by Benjamin C. Bradlee.
Many of these appeared shortly after his death. Some—such as A Thousand Days and Kennedy—were massive—totaling 1,087 pages for the first and 758 pages for the second.
John F. Kennedy
Many of these books were written by those who had worked closely with Kennedy and knew his most intimate secrets. Yet the worst of those secrets did not emerge until the early 1970s.
Among those:
- Kennedy’s compulsive womanizing.
- His poor health and reckless use of drugs (licit and illicit) to control it.
- His waging a no-quarter war on Fidel Castro (including using the Mafia to try to assassinate the Cuban dictator).
Kennedy inspired loyalty by somehow making those around him feel they were valued—and partners in a great historical moment.
By contrast, Donald Trump had held office less than two years when three books highly critical of him emerged.
The first, Fire and Fury, by Michael Wolff, appeared in January, 2018. The second, Unhinged, by Omarosa Manigault-Newman, came out in August.
Among the reviews of Fire and Fury:
“What makes the book significant is its sly, hilarious portrait of a hollow man, into the black hole of whose needy, greedy ego the whole world has virtually vanished.”―The Guardian
“An undeniably juicy chronicle of a presidential administration that in just one year has been beset by numerous scandals and crises….” ―The San Francisco Chronicle
Wollf is an author, essayist, journalist, and columnist. He was never a member of Trump’s inner circle—yet he was given extraordinary access to those who worked in the West Wing of the White House.
Donald Trump
Manigault-Newman, on the other hand, had known Trump intimately since 2003, when she first appeared on his NBC “reality” series, The Apprentice. She campaigned for him in 2016 and followed him into the White House as director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison—until she was fired in December, 2017.
After her firing, she abruptly underwent a conversion from worshiper to heretic. As a reviewer on Amazon.com put it:
“It’s a story that starts with a starry eyed younger Omarosa, and ends with her freedom from the ‘TrumpWorld cult’.
“Along the way she becomes increasingly aware that her former mentor, friend, and idol, has no empathy for others, is narcissistic to an extreme, does not read or intake new information unless it’s on a favored cable TV channel, and she also sees signs of dementia-like behavior leaving her wondering what, if anything, she can do as an insider.”
And on September 11th, the most devastating book yet to appear on Trump made its debut: Fear: Trump in the White House.
Its author was Bob Woodward, legendary investigative reporter and Washington Post associate editor.
Woodward “made his bones” as a journalist with Carl Bernstein from 1972 to 1974. Their reporting made “Watergate” a household word—and helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon.
Perhaps the most startling secret to be found within Woodward’s book: Nearly every member of Trump’s handpicked staff considers him an idiot.
- His former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson: “He’s a fucking idiot.”
- John Kelly, his now former chief of staff: “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in crazytown.”
- His now former Secretary of Defense James Mattis: Trump acted like—and had the understanding of—“a fifth- or sixth-grader. ”
- His former lawyer, John Dowd, warned Trump not to testify before Special Counsel Robert Mueller: “It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit” for perjury.
In The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli raised the question of “whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved.”
And he answered it: “The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved.”
But Machiavelli warned against relying primarily on fear: “Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred, for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.
Niccolo Machiavelli
If Trump ever read Machiavelli, he has ignored this warning with a vengeance.
By repeatedly showing himself ignorant of—and even indifferent to—the realities of Presidential statecraft, Trump quickly forfeited the respect of his top staffers and Cabinet officials.
As a result, Trump has produced a dysfunctional administration constantly teetering on the edge of meltdown.
And by regularly humiliating those staffers and Cabinet officials, he destroyed their ties of loyalty to him as a man and President.
This has produced legions of angry, disillusioned members seeking revenge—and they will eagerly leak Trump’s latest embarrassing secrets to the first reporter who comes asking.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 21, 2019 at 12:15 am
In January, 2018, the White House banned the use of personal cell phones in the West Wing.
The official reason: National security.
The real reason: To stop staffers from leaking to reporters.
According to an anonymous White House source: “The cellphone ban is for when people are inside the West Wing, so it really doesn’t do all that much to prevent leaks. If they banned all personal cellphones from the entire [White House] grounds, all that would do is make reporters stay up later because they couldn’t talk to their sources until after 6:30 pm.”
Other sources believe that leaks won’t end unless President Donald Trump starts firing staffers. But this could lead to his firing the wrong people. To protect themselves, those who leak might well accuse tight-lipped co-workers.
Within the Soviet Union (especially during the reign of Joseph Stalin) fear of secret police surveillance was widespread—and absolutely justified.
Among the methods used to keep conversations secret:
- Turning on the TV or radio to full volume.
- Turning on a water faucet at full blast.
- Turning the dial of a rotary phone to the end—and sticking a pencil in one of the small holes for numbers.
- Standing six to nine feet away from the hung-up receiver.
- Going for “a walk in the woods.”
- Saying nothing sensitive on the phone.
The secret police (known as the Cheka, the NKVD, the MGB, the KGB, and now the FSB) operated on seven working principles:
- Your enemy is hiding.
- Start from the usual suspects.
- Study the young.
- Stop the laughing.
- Rebellion spreads like wildfire.
- Stamp out every spark.
- Order is created by appearance.
Trump has always ruled through bribery and fear. He’s bought off (or tried to) those who might cause him trouble—like porn actress Stormy Daniels.
He’s never been able to poke fun at himself—and he grows livid when anybody else does.
At Christmastime, “Saturday Night Live” aired a parody of the classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Its title: “It’s a Wonderful Trump.” In it, Trump (portrayed by actor Alec Baldwin) discovers what the United States would be like if he had never become President: A great deal better-off.
As usual, Trump expressed his resentment through Twitter: The Justice Department should stop investigating his administration and go after the real enemy: “SNL.”
“A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?”
By saying that “SNL’s” right to parody him “should be tested in courts, can’t be legal?” Trump has chosen to ignore the role of the First Amendment in American history.
Cartoonists portrayed President Andrew Jackson wearing a king’s robes and crown, and holding a scepter. This thoroughly enraged Jackson—who had repulsed a British invasion in 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans. To call a man a monarchist in 1800s America was the same as calling him a Communist in the 1950s.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was lampooned as an ape and a blood-stained tyrant. And Theodore Roosevelt proved a cartoonist’s delight, with attention given to his bushy mustache and thick-lensed glasses.
Thus, the odds are slight that an American court would even hear a case brought by Trump against “SNL.”
Such a case made its way through the courts in the late 1980s when the Reverend Jerry Falwell sued pornographer Larry Flyint over a satirical interview in Hustler magazine. In this, “Falwell” admitted that his first sexual encounter had been with his own mother.
In 1988, the United States Supreme Court, voting 8-0, ruled in Flynt’s favor, saying that the media had a First Amendment right to parody a celebrity.
“Despite their sometimes caustic nature, from the early cartoon portraying George Washington as an ass down to the present day, graphic depictions and satirical cartoons have played a prominent role in public and political debate,” Chief Justice William Rehnquist—an appointee of President Richard Nixon—wrote in his majority decision in the case.
Moreover, there is absolutely no doubt that Trump would be forced to take the stand in such a case. The powers-that-be at NBC and “SNL” would insist on it.
And recent history has shown that while Trump loves to sue those he hates, he does not relish being put on the stand himself.
On October 12, The Palm Beach Post, The New York Times and People all published stories of women claiming to have been sexually assaulted by Trump.
He accused the Times of inventing accusations to hurt his Presidential candidacy. And he threatened to sue for libel if the Times reported the women’s stories. He also threatened to sue the women making the accusations.
He never sued the Times or the women.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on February 20, 2019 at 12:11 am
On May 10, 2018, The Hill reported that White House Special Assistant Kelly Sadler had joked derisively about dying Arizona United States Senator John McCain.
McCain, a Navy pilot during the Vietnam war, was shot down over Hanoi on October 26, 1967, and captured. He spent five and a half years as a POW in North Vietnam—and was often brutally tortured. He wasn’t released until March 14, 1973.
Recently, he had opposed the nomination of Gina Haspel as director of the CIA.
The reason: In 2002, Haspel had operated a “black” CIA site in Thailand where Islamic terrorists were often waterboarded to make them talk.
For John McCain, waterboarding was torture, even if it didn’t leave its victims permanently scarred and disabled.
Aware that the 81-year-old McCain was dying of brain cancer, Sadler joked to intimates about the Senator’s opposition to Haspel: “It doesn’t matter. He’s dying anyway.”
John McCain
Leaked to CNN by an anonymous White House official, Sadler’s remark sparked fierce criticism—and demands for her firing.
South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close friend of McCain, said: “Ms. Sadler, may I remind you that John McCain has a lot of friends in the United States Senate on both sides of the aisle. Nobody is laughing in the Senate.”
“People have wondered when decency would hit rock bottom with this administration. It happened yesterday,” said former Vice President Joe Biden.
“John McCain makes America great. Father, grandfather, Navy pilot, POW hero bound by honor, an incomparable and irrepressible statesman. Those who mock such greatness only humiliate themselves and their silent accomplices,” tweeted former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Officially, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to confirm or deny Sadler’s joke: “I’m not going to get into a back and forth because people want to create issues of leaked staff meetings.”
Unofficially, Sanders was furious—not at the joke about a dying man, but that someone had leaked it. After assailing the White House communications team, she pouted: “I am sure this conversation is going to leak, too. And that’s just disgusting.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
No apology has been offered by any official at the White House—including President Donald Trump.
In fact, Senior White House communications adviser Mercedes Schlapp reportedly expressed her support for Sadler: “I stand with Kelly Sadler.”
On May 11—the day after Sadler’s comment was reported—reporters asked Sanders if the tone set by Trump had caused Sadler to feel comfortable in telling such a joke.
“Certainly not!” predictably replied Sanders, adding: “We have a respect for all Americans, and that is what we try to put forward in everything we do, but in word and in action, focusing on doing things that help every American in this country every single day.”
On May 14 Trump revealed his “respect” for “all Americans”—especially those working in the White House.
“The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible,” Trump tweeted.
“With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!”
This from the man who, during the 2016 Presidential campaign, shouted: “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks!”
Of course, that was when Russian Intelligence agents were exposing the secrets of Hillary Clinton, his Presidential opponent.
And, in a move that Joseph Stalin would have admired, Trump ordered an all-out investigation to find the joke-leaker.
In January, 2018, the White House had banned the use of personal cell phones in the West Wing.
The official reason: National security.
The real reason: To stop staffers from leaking to reporters.
Officials now have two choices:
- Leave their cell phones in their cars, or,
- When they arrive for work, deposit them in lockers installed at West Wing entrances. They can reclaim their phones when they leave.
Several staffers huddle around the lockers throughout the day, checking messages they have missed. The lockers buzz and chirp constantly from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.
More ominously, well-suited men roam the halls of the West Wing, carrying devices that pick up signals from phones that aren’t government-issued. “Did someone forget to put their phone away?” one of the men will ask if such a device is detected. If no one says they have a phone, the detection team start searching the room.
Phone detector
The devices can tell which type of phone is in the room.
This is the sort of behavior Americans have traditionally—and correctly—associated with dictatorships
In his memo outlining the policy, former Chief of Staff John Kelly warned that anyone who violated the phone ban could be punished, including “being indefinitely prohibited from entering the White House complex.”
Yet even these draconian methods may not end White House leaks.
White House officials still speak with reporters throughout the day and often air their grievances, whether about annoying colleagues or competing policy priorities.
Aides with private offices sometimes call reporters on their desk phones. Others get their cell phones and call or text reporters during lunch breaks.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 19, 2019 at 12:43 am
“Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake news NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!
So tweeted President Donald J. Trump on February 17.
Less than nine hours earlier, “SNL” had once again opened with actor Alec Baldwin mocking the 45th President. In this skit, Baldwin/Trump gave a rambling press conference declaring: “We need wall. We have a tremendous amount of drugs flowing into this country from the southern border—or The Brown Line, as many people have asked me not to call it.”
Right-wingers denounce their critics as “snowflakes”—that is, emotional, easily offended and unable to tolerate opposing views.
Yet here was Donald Trump, who prides himself on his toughness, whining like a child bully who has just been told that other people have rights, too.
The answer is simple: Trump is a tyrant—and a longtime admirer of tyrants.
Donald Trump
He has lavishly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, such as during his appearance on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country”—a reference to then-President Barack Obama.
During a February, 2017 interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Trump defended Putin’s killing of political opponents.
O’Reilly: “But he’s a killer.”
Trump: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”
Asked by a Fox News reporter why he praised murderous North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, he replied: “He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father …If you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that.”
In short: Kim must be doing something right because he’s in power. And it doesn’t matter how he came to power—or the price his country is paying for it.
Actually, for all their differences in appearance and nationality, Trump shares at least two similarities with Kim.
Kim Jong-Un
Blue House (Republic of Korea) [KOGL (http://www.kogl.or.kr/open/info/license_info/by.do)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
First, both of them got a big boost into wealth and power from their fathers.
- Trump’s father, Fred Trump, a real estate mogul, reportedly gave Donald $200 million to enter the real estate business. It was this sum that formed the basis for Trump’s eventual rise to wealth and fame—and the Presidency.
- Kim’s father was Kim Jong-Il, who ruled North Korea as dictator from 1994 to 2011. When his father died in 2011, Kim Jong-Un immediately succeeded him, having been groomed for years to do so.
Second, both Trump and Kim have brutally tried to stamp out any voices that contradict their own.
- Trump has constantly attacked freedom of the press, even labeling it “the enemy of the American people.” He has also slandered his critics on Twitter—which has refused to enforce its “Terms of Service” and revoke his account.
- Kim has attacked his critics with firing squads and prison camps. Amnesty International estimates that more than 200,000 North Koreans are now suffering in labor camps throughout the country.
Thus, Trump—-elected to lead the “free world”—believes, like all dictators:
- People are evil everywhere—so who am I to judge who’s better or worse? All that counts is gaining and holding onto power.
- And if you can do that, it doesn’t matter how you do so.
Actually, it’s not uncommon for dictators to admire one another—as the case of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler nicely illustrates.
Joseph Stalin
After Hitler launched a blood-purge of his own private Stormtroopers army on June 30, 1934, Stalin exclaimed: “Hitler, what a great man! That is the way to deal with your political opponents!”
And Hitler was equally admiring of Stalin’s notorious ruthlessness: “After the victory over Russia,” he told his intimates, “it would be a good idea to get Stalin to run the country, with German oversight, of course. He knows better than anyone how to handle the Russians.”
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
One characteristic shared by all dictators is intolerance toward those whose opinions differ with their own. Especially those who dare to actually criticize or make fun of them.
All Presidents have thin skins. John F. Kennedy often phoned reporters and called them “sonofbitches” when he didn’t like stories they had written on him.
Richard Nixon went further, waging all-out war against the Washington Post for its stories about his criminality.
But Donald Trump has taken his hatred of dissidents to an entirely new—and dangerous—level.
On May 10, 2018, The Hill reported that White House Special Assistant Kelly Sadler had joked derisively about dying Arizona United States Senator John McCain.
Trump was outraged—not that one of his aides had joked about a man stricken with brain cancer, but that someone in the White House had leaked it.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 18, 2019 at 12:17 am
Fifty-five years ago, on November 22, 1963, two bullets slammed into the neck and head of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
It has been said that JFK left his country with three great legacies:
- The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
- The Apollo moon landing; and
- The Vietnam war.
Of these, the following can be said with certainty:
- The Test Ban Treaty has prevented atmospheric testing—and poisoning—by almost all the world’s nuclear powers.
- After reaching the moon—in 1969—Americans quickly lost interest in space and have today largely abandoned plans for manned exploration. For America, as for JFK, beating the Russians to the moon was the end-goal.
- Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam; 153,303 were wounded; and billions of dollars were squandered in a hopeless effort to intervene in what was essentially a Vietnamese civil war.
But there was a fourth legacy—and perhaps the most important of all: The belief that mankind could overcome its greatest challenges through rationality and perseverance.
White House painting of JFK
At American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy called upon his fellow Americans to re-examine the events and attitudes that had led to the Cold War. And he declared that the search for peace was by no means absurd:
“Our problems are man-made; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
“Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”
Today, politicians from both parties cannot agree on solutions to even the most vital national problems.
Since December 22, 2018, President Donald J. Trump shut down the Federal Government because Democrats would not agree to spending $5.6 on a symbolic “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. As a result, 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay.
By January 13, 2019, the shutdown had reached its 22nd day.
President Kennedy insisted on being well-informed. He speed-read several newspapers every morning and nourished personal relationships with the press. These journalistic contacts gave Kennedy additional sources of information and perspectives on national and international issues.
During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Republican Presidential candidates celebrated their ignorance of both.
Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain famously said, “We need a leader, not a reader.” Thus he excused his ignorance for why President Barack Obama had intervened in Libya.
Texas Governor Rick Perry (and now Secretary of Energy) showed similar pride in not knowing there are nine judges on the United States Supreme Court:
“Well, obviously, I know there are nine Supreme Court judges. I don’t know how eight came out my mouth. But the, uh, the fact is, I can tell you—I don’t have memorized all of those Supreme Court judges. And, uh, ah—
“Here’s what I do know. That when I put an individual on the Supreme Court, just like I done in Texas, ah, we got nine Supreme Court justices in Texas, ah, they will be strict constructionists….”
In short, it’s the media’s fault if they ask you a question and your answer reveals your own ignorance, stupidity or criminality.
And President Donald Trump has gone even further—attacking the free press as “the enemy of America” for exposing his lies and criminality.
His senior adviser, Kelleyanne Conway, set the tone of his administration’s approach to the truth right at the outset. Asked why then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer had lied about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration, Conway replied:
“You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving—Sean Spicer, our press secretary—gave alternative facts.”
“Alternative facts aren’t facts, they are falsehoods,” Chuck Todd, the moderator on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” properly responded.
During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, about the events leading to World War 1.
He said that the book’s most important revelation was how European leaders had blindly rushed into war, without thought to the possible consequences. Kennedy told his aides he did not intend to make the same mistake–that, having read his history, he was determined to learn from it.
Republicans attacked President Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”
And they resented his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. As if being a writer is somehow subversive.
When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline lies just around the corner.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Donald Trump infamously chortled after winning the Nevada Republican primary: “We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
And, that November, “the poorly educated” elected him President. He is their ideal of what a President should be.
In retrospect, the funeral for President Kennedy marked the death of more than a rational and optimistic human being.
It marked the death of Americans’ pride in choosing reasoning and educated citizens for their leaders.
The Eternal Flame at the grave of President John F. Kennedy
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 15, 2019 at 12:08 am
In 1983, Blood Feud, a two-part TV mini-series, depicted the 11-year struggle between Robert F. Kennedy and James Riddle Hoffa. Although it took some dramatic liberties, its portrayal of the major events of that period remains essentially accurate.
Today, labor unions are a rapidly-vanishing species, commanding far less political influence than they did 50 years ago. As a result, young viewers of this series may find it hard to believe that labor ever held such sway, or that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union posed such a threat.
James Riddle Hoffa testifying before the Senate Labor Rackets Committee
And in an age when millions see “Big Government” as the enemy, they may feel strong reservations about the all-out war that Kennedy waged against Hoffa.
Blood Feud opens in 1957, when Hoffa (Robert Blake) is a rising figure within the Teamsters. Kennedy (Cotter Smith) is chief counsel for the Senate Labor Rackets Committee.
At first, Hoffa tries to ingratiate himself with Kennedy, telling him: “I know everybody who can help me and anybody who can hurt me.”
Robert Blake as James R. Hoffa
A wily Hoffa decides to parley Kennedy’s anti-corruption zeal into a path to power for himself. Via his attorney, Eddie Cheyfitz, he feeds Kennedy incriminating evidence against Dave Beck, president of the Teamsters.
Confronted with a Senate subpoena, Beck flees the country—paving the way for Hoffa to assume the top position in the union. Hoffa believes he has solved two problems at once.
“He’s got his scalp,” Hoffa tells an associate. “Now he can move on to other things while I run the union.”
But Hoffa has guessed wrong—with fatal results. Realizing that he’s been “played” by Hoffa, a furious Kennedy strikes back.
He orders increased surveillance of Hoffa and his topmost associates. He subpoenas union records and members of both the Teamsters and the Mafia to appear before his committee in public hearings.
And he tries to enlist the aid of legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Ernest Borgnine). But Hoover wants no part of a war against organized crime, whose existence he refuses to admit.
Meanwhile, Kennedy’s confrontations with Hoffa grow increasingly fierce. In open hearings, Kennedy accuses Hoffa of receiving kickbacks in the name of his wife. Hoffa damns him for “dirtying my wife’s name.”
Kennedy secures an indictment against Hoffa for hiring a spy to infiltrate the Senate Labor Rackets Committee. He’s so certain of a conviction that he tells the press he’ll “jump off the Capitol building” if Hoffa beats the rap.
But Hoffa’s lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams (Jose Ferrer) puts Kennedy himself on the witness stand. There he portrays Kennedy as a spoiled rich man who’s waging a vendetta against Hoffa.
Hoffa beats the rap, and offers to send Kennedy a parachute. But he jokingly warns reporters: “Hey, Bobby, you better have it checked. I don’t trust myself!”
By 1959, Robert Kennedy’s work as chief counsel for the Senate Labor Rackets Committee is over. But not his determination to send Teamsters President James Hoffa to prison.
Cotter Smith as Robert Kennedy
Throughout 1960, he manages the Presidential campaign for his brother, John F. Kennedy (Sam Groom). By a margin of only 100,000 votes, JFK wins the election.
Hoffa thinks that his troubles are over, that “Bobby” will move on to other pursuits and forget about the Teamsters.
Hoffa is partly right: Kennedy moves on to another job. But it’s the office of United States Attorney General.
JFK, needing someone in the Cabinet he can trust completely, browbeats Robert into becoming the the nation’s top cop.
For Hoffa, it’s a nightmare come true.
As Attorney General, Kennedy no longer has to beg J. Edgar Hoover to attack organized crime. He can—and does—order him to do so.
Throughout the country, the Mafia feels a new heat as FBI agents plant illegal electronic microphones (“bugs”) in their innermost sanctums. Agents openly tail mobsters—and send them to prison in large numbers.
And Kennedy sets up a special unit, composed of topflight prosecutors and investigators, to go after just one man: James Riddle Hoffa. The press comes to call it the “Get Hoffa” squad.
Hoffa continues to beat federal prosecutors in court. But he believes he’s under constant surveillance by the FBI, and his nerves are starting to crack.
Convinced that the FBI has bugged his office, he literally tears apart the room, hoping to find the bug. But he fails to do so.
What he doesn’t know is he’s facing a more personal danger—from one of his closest associates.
He tells a trusted colleague, Edward Grady Partin (Brian Dennehy) how easy it would be to assassinate Kennedy with a rifle or bomb.
Later, Partin gets into a legal jam—and is abandoned by the Teamsters. Hoping to cut a deal, he relays word to the Justice Department of Hoffa’s threats against the Attorney General.
Now working for the Justice Department, Partin sends in reports on Hoffa’s juror-bribing efforts in yet another trial. Hoffa again beats the rap—but now Kennedy has the insider’s proof he needs to put him away for years.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on December 19, 2018 at 12:13 am
On September 26, 1960, Robert F. Kennedy gave some brutal—and effective—advice to his brother, Democratic United States Senator John F., who was about to debate Republican Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
Said RFK, who was managing his brother’s campaign: “Kick him in the balls, Jack.”
John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy
As a result, Kennedy came out fighting—and stayed on the offensive throughout the debate. At one point, he said flat-out that the United States should overthrow the year-old Cuban regime of Fidel Castro.
Nixon knew there was a secret CIA plan under way to do just that, but couldn’t afford to say so in public. So he came out hard against such a proposal, saying it would alienate American allies throughout the Caribbean.
Nixon had been warned by Henry Cabot Lodge, his Vice Presidential running mate, to tone down his “assassin image.”
During the 1950s, as a colleague of Red-baiting Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Nixon had made himself immune from the damning charge of “soft on Communism.”
And yet, pitted against a surprisingly aggressive Kennedy, he came off as decidedly second-best in standing up to Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, the successor of Joseph Stalin.
The Kennedy-Nixon Debate
Commentators generally agreed that Nixon lost that first debate—the most-watched of the four. And it may have proved fatal to his electoral chances that year.
“Kick him in the balls, Jack.“
It’s advice that current Democrats have only now begun applying.
Case in point: The December 11 Oval Office meeting of President Donald Trump, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer. And, true to his love of publicity, Trump makes sure it’s televised live.
Nancy Pelosi
Trump opens with on a positive note: “We’ve actually worked very hard on a couple of things that are happening. Criminal justice reform…[Republican Kentucky U.S. Senator] Mitch McConnell and the group, we’re going to be putting it up for a vote. We have great Democrat support, great Republican support.”
But he soon moves to the matter he truly cares about: Demanding $5 billion to create a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border: “And one way or the other, it’s going to get built. I’d like not to see a government closing, a shutdown. We will see what happens over the next short period of time.”
“One way or the other”—“so doer so”—was a favorite phrase of Adolf Hitler’s, meaning: If he couldn’t bully his opponents into surrendering, he would use violence.
PELOSI: I think the American people recognize that we must keep government open, that a shutdown is not worth anything, and that you should not have a Trump shutdown. You have the Senate. You have the House of Representatives. You have the votes. You should pass it right now.
Trump claims he can get “Wall” legislation passed in the House but admits he doesn’t have the 60 votes he needs in the Senate.
PELOSI: Well, the fact is you can get it started that way.
Trump then contradicts himself: “The House we can get passed very easily, and we do.”
PELOSI: Okay, then do it.
Trump keeps insisting that “the House would give me the vote if I wanted it.”
PELOSI: Well, let’s take the vote and we’ll find out.
SCHUMER: We do not want to shut down the government. You have called 20 times to shut down the government….We want to come to an agreement. If we can’t come to an agreement, we have solutions that will pass the House and Senate right now, and will not shut down the government. And that’s what we’re urging you to do. Not threaten to shut down the government because you can’t get your way.
Charles Schumer
TRUMP: We need border security. And I think we all agree that we need border security.
SCHUMER: Yes, we do.
TRUMP: The wall is a part of border security. You can’t have very good border security without the wall.
PELOSI: That’s simply not true. That is a political promise. Border security is a way to effectively honor our responsibilities.
By “political promise,” Pelosi means this is an appeal Trump made to his hardcore base. which he expects to re-elect him.
SCHUMER: And the experts say you can do border security without a wall, which is wasteful and doesn’t solve the problem.
TRUMP: It totally solves the problem.
Schumer then goads Trump into taking responsibility for closing down the government if he doesn’t get funding for his border wall.
TRUMP: I’ll take it. You know what I’ll say: Yes, if we don’t get what we want, one way or the other…I will shut down the government. Absolutely.
Thus, Schumer guarantees that any government shutdown during the Christmas season will be blamed on Trump.
During the Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman said of his Confederate enemies: “They cannot be made to love us, but they may be made to fear us.”
General William Tecumseh Sherman
The same is equally true today.
In short: Stand up to bullies. Odds are they will respect you more for it—and you will earn your own self-respect.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 6, 2018 at 12:06 am
David Gergen is a longtime Republican who has advised Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. He is now a senior political analyst for CNN.
Summing up Trump’s legacy of hatred, Gergen said:
“Trump unleashed the dogs of hatred in this country from the day he declared he was running for president, and they’ve been snarling and barking at each other ever since. It’s just inevitable there are going to be acts of violence that grow out of that.”
Gergen made that statement on October 24, 2018—the day that pipe bombs were mailed to:
- Former President Barack Obama
- Former President Bill Clinton
- Former First Lady and United States Senator Hillary Clinton
- Former Attorney General Eric Holder
- Congresswoman Maxine Waters
- Billionaire George Soros
- Former Vice President Joe Biden
- Actor Robert De Niro
- Former CIA Director John Brennan
- Former Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz
All of these intended victims had one thing in common: All of them had been brutally and repeatedly attacked by President Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
Watching coverage of the pipe-bomb mailings on CNN, a viewer might be forgiven for mistaking this thinking this network for Fox News.
One commentator after another said, in effect, “The President doesn’t understand the power of his words—and that they can lead unstable people to violent action.”
On the contrary: Trump thoroughly understands the power of his words.
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks addressed this issue on the May 27, 2016 edition of the PBS Newshour.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it.”
Donald Trump
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’”
Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only Presidential candidate who proved unable to cope with Trump’s gift for insult. His targets—and insults—included:
- Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Wears glasses to seem smart.”
- Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “Low Energy Jeb.”
- Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders: “Crazy Bernie.”
- Ohio Governor John Kasich: “Mathematically dead and totally desperate.”
Trump fully understands the power of threats—and has made liberal use of them against both Republicans and Democrats.
On March 16, 2016, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
An NBC reporter summed it up as: “The message to Republicans was clear: ‘Nice convention you got there, shame if something happened to it.’”
Two years later, on August 27, 2018, Trump, meeting with Right-wing Christian leaders at the State Dining Room of the White House, warned of “violence” if Democrats won control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections: “There is violence. When you look at Antifa—these are violent people.”
Trump also understands the value of having subordinates make inflammatory statements that serve his purposes.
On July 29, 2016, Roger Stone, a notorious Right-wing political consultant and Trump strategist, told Breitbart News: “The first thing Trump needs to do is begin talking about [voter fraud] constantly. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.”
In short: This is not a case of careless language that is simply misinterpreted, with tragic results.
Donald Trump fully understands the constituency that he is trying to reach: Those masses of alienated, uneducated Americans who live only for their guns and hardline religious beliefs—and who can be easily manipulated by perceived threats to either.
He is the ultimate narcissist: “The show is Trump, and it is sold-out performances everywhere,” Trump told Playboy magazine in a 1990 interview.
After the bombing attempts, Trump stated: “In these times we have to unify.” But he is by nature a combative divider, not a conciliator. He is a nihilist, appealing to hatred, offering only destruction.
He’s 72, has often boasted of the joys of getting even, and he’s not going to change now.
As first-mate Starbuck says of Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick: “He is a champion of darkness.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 5, 2018 at 12:18 am
England’s King Henry II became infamous for his quick temper.
It was Henry who screamed, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” And soon afterward, four of his barons rushed to Canterbury Cathedral and murdered Archbishop Thomas Becket.
Becket and Henry had been close friends for years. On the battlefield, Becket had routed Henry’s enemies in France.
And Henry had rewarded Becket’s loyalty by appointing him Chancellor of England.
But then Henry decided to negate the expanding power of the Catholic Church by appointing Becket Archbishop of Canterbury.
It was a mistake. The previously worldly Becket took his new duties seriously—and became the church’s foremost defender in England.
Henry believed it was a betrayal—and never forgave Becket.
Unable to convict the archbishop on trumped-up charges, Henry gave vent to his rage—and Becket died in a hail of sword-thrusts by the King’s barons.
Fast-forward to 2018—and America’s own version of Henry II (or Henry VIII): Donald Trump.
According to the The New York Times, during the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump aimed nearly 4,000 tweets at 281 different targets.
Donald Trump
His Twitter assaults often dominated entire news cycles for days on end.
As President-elect, he continued these assaults—such as the one on November 18, 2016.
On that evening, Vice President-elect Mike Pence attended a Broadway performance of the hit musical “Hamilton.”
After the curtain call, the actor Brandon Victor Dixon—who played Aaron Burr—respectfully addressed Pence:
“We are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our friends, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”
Dixon—who is black—was rightly alarmed.
Trump had received the open and enthusiastic support of the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazi Party and other white supremacist groups. Since his election, white thugs had assaulted blacks and other non-whites across the country.
Trump’s reaction to Dixon’s plea came in two Twitter rants:
“Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing. This should not happen!”
And: “The Theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!”
Trump clearly didn’t care if some of his 55.3 million Twitter followers decided—like Henry’s barons—to “rid” him of “this meddlesome actor.” Or the whole “meddlesome cast” of “Hamilton.”
According to an October 16, 2018 story on CNN: Since taking office in January 2017, Trump has directly insulted, attacked or otherwise maligned more than 100 individuals on Twitter.
On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
On July 2, 2017, Trump tweeted a video showing him punching a man with the CNN logo superimposed on his head during a WWE wrestling match.
And on August 15, 2017, the President retweeted a cartoon photo of a “Trump Train” running over a CNN reporter.
Then there are his “hillbilly Nuremberg rallies,” as comedian Bill Maher put it.
During his 2016 run for the Presidency, Trump said at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa: “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell … I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise.”
And on August 9, 2016, Trump told a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Thus, Trump encouraged gun fanatics to assassinate Clinton.
On October 18, 2018, appearing at a rally in Missoula, Montana, Trump celebrated Montana United States Senator Greg Gianforte’s 2017 physical assault on a reporter: “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!”
From the outset of his campaign for President, Trump gave his opponents—Republican and Democrat—a series of disparaging nicknames. Among these:
- “Crooked Hillary” Clinton
- “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz
- “Psycho Joe” Scarborough
Besides inciting violence against his critics and opponents, Trump has repeatedly attacked their integrity and patriotism.
Trump mocked the wife of United States Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz. He claimed that Cruz’s father had been a party to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Throughout his run for President, Trump’s followers aimed the chant, “Lock her up!” at Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Yet Clinton has never been tried for a crime, let alone convicted of one.
At his rallies as President, Trump still encourages his followers to shout this chant.
Summing up Trump’s legacy of hatred, longtime Republican Presidential adviser David Gergen said:
“Trump unleashed the dogs of hatred in this country from the day he declared he was running for president, and they’ve been snarling and barking at each other ever since. It’s just inevitable there are going to be acts of violence that grow out of that.”
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 24, 2018 at 12:12 am
Those who have seen the classic 1960 movie, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” will remember its pivotal moment.
That’s when Burt Lancaster, as Ernst Janning, the once distinguished German judge, confesses his guilt and that of Nazi Germany in a controlled, yet emotional, outburst.
Addressing the court—presided over by Chief Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy)—Janning explains the forces that led to the triumph of evil.
It’s not hard to imagine, in the future, an equally conscience-stricken member of the Donald Trump administration, standing before the bar of justice, making a similar statement:
“My counsel would have you believe we were not aware of the ICE concentration camps. Not aware. Where were we?
“Where were we when Trump began shrieking his hate across the country? When Trump called our free press ‘the enemy of the people’?
“Where were we when Trump openly praised Vladimir Putin and attacked those in the FBI, CIA and other Intelligence agencies sworn to protect us?
“Where were we when the victims of Trump’s hatred cried out in the night to us? Were we deaf? Dumb? Blind?
“My counsel says we were not aware of Trump’s treasonous collusion with Vladimir Putin—and his intention to betray American freedoms in exchange for the Presidency. He would give you the excuse we were misled by the lying rhetoric coming out of the White House.
“Does that make us any the less guilty? Maybe we didn’t know the details, but if we didn’t know, it was because we didn’t want to know.”
Consider Trump’s effect on:
Race relations:
- Since Trump’s election, attacks on non-whites by Right-wing—and white—Trump supporters have increased. According to The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), there has been a rapid increase in youth bullying during and since the 2016 campaign:
- “The bullying effects of the Trump presidency—dubbed the Trump effect—are devastating, particularly when it comes to bullying of minority groups, especially those who are easily identifiable and/or who are singled out by the president’s statements or actions.”
- On August 11-12, 2017, white supremacists from across the country gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, for a “Unite the Right” rally. On August 13, a Nazi sympathizer rammed his car into a group of counter-protesters, killing a woman and injuring 19 other demonstrators.
- Refusing to condemn the Fascistic demonstrators, Trump said: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.”
Donald Trump
The rule of law:
- On May 9, 2017, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who was conducting an FBI investigation into well-documented contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
- Trump has repeatedly and publicly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from the above-mentioned investigation. (Sessions did so because of his own documented ties with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.)
- Trump has repeatedly attacked the integrity of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, who has continued the FBI’s probe into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign.
- Trump has called on Sessions to investigate “all of the corruption” of Trump’s critics and those investigating him, including Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
- In short: He wants to use the FBI as his private secret police against anyone who has ever criticized, investigated or run against him.
Trump as liar:
- From 2011 to 2016, Trump falsely accused Barack Obama as being born in Kenya, not—as evidence proves—Hawaii. This was an effort to de-legitimize Obama as President of the United States.
- During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump falsely accused the father of his political rival, Texas United States Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz, of being a party to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
- After taking office Trump falsely accused former President Obama of illegally wiretapping him at Trump Tower.
- By August 1, 2018, the Washington Post reported that Trump had made 4,229 false or misleading statements since taking office.
Trump as traitor:
- Trump has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, both during his Presidential candidacy and since taking office. In fact, Putin remains the only major public figure that Trump has never criticized.
- On July 22, 2016, Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida: “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing [from Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s computer]. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
- Hours later, the Main Intelligence Directorate in Moscow targeted Clinton’s personal office and hit more than 70 other Clinton campaign accounts.
- On July 16, 2018, President Trump attended a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There he sided with Putin against American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—for Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election:
- “I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the server.”
Since 1945, historians have brutally condemned the vicious and destructive reign of Adolf Hitler and those who supported him.
Future historians will condemn just as harshly the equally vicious and destructive reign of Donald Trump—and those who now support him.
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TRUMP VS. MACHIAVELLI: TRUMP 0, MACHIAVELLI 10
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 25, 2019 at 11:30 amAfter his untimely assassination, President John F. Kennedy became the subject of a flood of adoring biographies.
Among these:
Many of these appeared shortly after his death. Some—such as A Thousand Days and Kennedy—were massive—totaling 1,087 pages for the first and 758 pages for the second.
John F. Kennedy
Many of these books were written by those who had worked closely with Kennedy and knew his most intimate secrets. Yet the worst of those secrets did not emerge until the early 1970s.
Among those:
Kennedy inspired loyalty by somehow making those around him feel they were valued—and partners in a great historical moment.
By contrast, Donald Trump had held office less than two years when three books highly critical of him emerged.
The first, Fire and Fury, by Michael Wolff, appeared in January, 2018. The second, Unhinged, by Omarosa Manigault-Newman, came out in August.
Among the reviews of Fire and Fury:
“What makes the book significant is its sly, hilarious portrait of a hollow man, into the black hole of whose needy, greedy ego the whole world has virtually vanished.”―The Guardian
“An undeniably juicy chronicle of a presidential administration that in just one year has been beset by numerous scandals and crises….” ―The San Francisco Chronicle
Wollf is an author, essayist, journalist, and columnist. He was never a member of Trump’s inner circle—yet he was given extraordinary access to those who worked in the West Wing of the White House.
Donald Trump
Manigault-Newman, on the other hand, had known Trump intimately since 2003, when she first appeared on his NBC “reality” series, The Apprentice. She campaigned for him in 2016 and followed him into the White House as director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison—until she was fired in December, 2017.
After her firing, she abruptly underwent a conversion from worshiper to heretic. As a reviewer on Amazon.com put it:
“It’s a story that starts with a starry eyed younger Omarosa, and ends with her freedom from the ‘TrumpWorld cult’.
“Along the way she becomes increasingly aware that her former mentor, friend, and idol, has no empathy for others, is narcissistic to an extreme, does not read or intake new information unless it’s on a favored cable TV channel, and she also sees signs of dementia-like behavior leaving her wondering what, if anything, she can do as an insider.”
And on September 11th, the most devastating book yet to appear on Trump made its debut: Fear: Trump in the White House.
Its author was Bob Woodward, legendary investigative reporter and Washington Post associate editor.
Woodward “made his bones” as a journalist with Carl Bernstein from 1972 to 1974. Their reporting made “Watergate” a household word—and helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon.
Perhaps the most startling secret to be found within Woodward’s book: Nearly every member of Trump’s handpicked staff considers him an idiot.
In The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli raised the question of “whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved.”
And he answered it: “The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved.”
But Machiavelli warned against relying primarily on fear: “Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred, for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.
Niccolo Machiavelli
If Trump ever read Machiavelli, he has ignored this warning with a vengeance.
By repeatedly showing himself ignorant of—and even indifferent to—the realities of Presidential statecraft, Trump quickly forfeited the respect of his top staffers and Cabinet officials.
As a result, Trump has produced a dysfunctional administration constantly teetering on the edge of meltdown.
And by regularly humiliating those staffers and Cabinet officials, he destroyed their ties of loyalty to him as a man and President.
This has produced legions of angry, disillusioned members seeking revenge—and they will eagerly leak Trump’s latest embarrassing secrets to the first reporter who comes asking.
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