Mr. Trump has committed to so many lies, his own team can’t keep up.
Trump’s team has lost its grip on its already-shaky narrative. With the news cycle closing out this week, it’s clearer than ever that we can’t trust anything we hear from this administration. They’re like The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. We cannot let this type of smoke and mirrors become the new normal for our elected leaders.
Some people like to start new jobs with a boom. Rudy Giuliani prefers sparking a firestorm. As he did when he said Trump had, in fact, paid back Michael Cohen for the $130,000 hush money given to Stormy Daniels — a refutation of Trump’s longstanding denial that would amount to a violation of campaign finance laws, not to mention the public’s trust. Trump then maintained that Giuliani had his facts wrong. It’s a Russian Nesting Doll of contradiction, all fashioned out of lies.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is caught right in the middle of the blaze. Back in March, she asserted Trump did not know about this payment. With the administration’s story falling apart, Michelle Wolf’s remarks at the White House Correspondents Dinner are growing all the more iconic. Will the journalists voicing outrage over Wolf’s courage finally call a spade a spade?
Scott Pruitt, fresh off a congressional hearing into his alleged financial improprieties, faces new allegations that he misused $65,000 from his two runs for Oklahoma attorney general. Add another bead to his weighty necklace of questionable expenses.
Trump’s cabinet secretaries are turning their knives on one another. Desperate to draw attention away from Pruitt, one of his aides has been shopping around negative “news” about Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Most of the mainstream press has taken a pass on the stories, but are watching the increasingly nasty rivalry with interest.
The administration was far too busy focusing on self-preservation to pay any mind to the well-being of the American people. After vowing in the wake of the Parkland shooting to keep gun lobbyists at bay, both Trump and Pence today spoke warmly at the NRA’s annual convention about the group’s “activism and dedication” in support of “freedom” and the Second Amendment.
None of this is surprising. Not only are they all dishonest, they’re also horribly incompetent and haplessly disorganized. Like a group of 12-year-olds huddled around a broken window, they’ve spun a pack of lies to paper over the truth, and none of them hang together. Unlike a group of 12-year-olds, these people run our foreign policy and are preparing to tear up the Iran Deal. It would be comical if it weren’t so serious.
Poor character may not be an impeachable offense on its own, but it creates a serious problem when it affects behavior. This administration is too arrogant to believe they’re bound by the rules. But our representatives continue to insist we have to wait. The longer we wait, the more normalized this absurd circus becomes. It’s time to put our foot down.
