The Presidency Brought Trump ‘Rich Friends’

“The question I get asked more than any other question: ‘If you had to do it again, would you have done it?’ The answer is, yeah, I think so. Because here’s the way I look at it. I have so many rich friends and nobody knows who they are.”

— Donald Trump, saying the “rich friends” he acquired from his presidency made it all worth it to him, according to Maggie Haberman’s upcoming book, the HuffPost reports.

Texts Show Hannity Acted as Advisor to Trump

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“Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Fox’s Sean Hannity exchanged more than 80 text messages between Election Day 2020 and Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration, communications that show Hannity’s evolution from staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump’s election lies to being ‘fed up’ with the ‘lunatics’ hurting Trump’s cause in the days before January 6,” CNN reports. “Throughout the logs, Hannity both gives advice and asks for direction, blurring the lines between his Fox show, his radio show and the Trump White House.”

The Human Wreckage of the Trump Years

“Every presidential administration chews up and spits out one or two people. There are always guys who enter an administration looking like normal, upstanding citizens and exit having been revealed as hucksters, frauds, or criminals. G. Gordon Liddy. Pat Buchanan. Cap Weinberger. John Poindexter. Sometimes the people who get rendered by a president are good guys who catch a bad break, like Mike Espy. … But the sheer number of people who had their lives and/or careers destroyed over four years of swimming in Donald Trump’s slipstream is kind of staggering.”

Jonathan Last

Mnuchin Not Foreseeing a Recession

“I don’t think so. The real issue is not the economic situation today… This is a unique situation. We are going to have a slowdown. Later in the year economic activity will pick up as we confront this virus.”

— Despite forecasting an economic slowdown, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told ABC News that he does not think the coronavirus pandemic will cause a recession.

Trump’s Toadies Evolve Into Turncoats

“No one scares President Trump as much as people who used to work for him. They know the truth about him, and some of them tell it. When they do, Trump denies it and smears them. … It’s amazing how many people have turned on Trump in just his first term. He is a man who prizes loyalty above all else, and yet one toady after another has betrayed him.”

Windsor Mann

The Trump Toadies’ Legacy

“Whether these enablers joined his administration in earnest, or aided and abetted it from elite perches in politics, Congress, the media, or the private sector, they will be remembered for cheering on a leader whose record in government (thus far) includes splitting up immigrant families and incarcerating their children in cages; encouraging a spike in racist, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic vigilantes; leveraging American power to promote ethnic cleansing abroad and punish political opponents at home; actively inciting climate change and environmental wreckage; and surrendering America’s national security to an international rogue’s gallery of despots.”

Frank Rich

Booker: Trump Enablers Are ‘Despicable Actors’

“The truth about Donald Trump will come out. I have a very low regard for people who know he’s doing wrong but defend him and empower him to remain in that office.”

— Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) told MSNBC that Republican enablers of President Trump “will go down in history as despicable actors” who are “doing some of the worst things” in the history of the country.

Trump Finally Comfortable with His Basket of Deplorables

“After four national security advisers, three chiefs of staff, three directors of oval office operations and five communications directors, the president is now finding the White House finally functions in a way that fits his personality. Trump doubters have largely been ousted, leaving supporters to cheer him on and execute his directives with fewer constraints than ever before.”

Politico