Politics –
National Security Vets
To Trump: NO THANKS!
Donald Trump promised he had the ability and know-how to “hire all the best people” for a Trump administration. However, now that he’s actually having to approach some of the top National Security veterans to help him do a job he is grossly underqualified to do, they have a clear message for the incoming White House occupant: Â NO THANK YOU!
Politics
Most of Trump’s transition team are political outsiders with no real knowledge of Washington or White House operations. Oddly, most of this same team also had no clue that President Obama’s entire West Wing staff would need to be replaced, which now has the Trump people scrambling to fill critical posts prior to Inauguration Day.
Trump has since found himself between a rock and a hard place, having already alienated much of the nation’s senior national security officials and veteran foreign policy minds. For example, Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent and Michigan representative who chaired the House Intelligence Committee, had been leading Trump’s national security transition team — that is until he left earlier this week amid extreme differences and infighting. Additionally, several members of the current National Security Council are considering quitting before Trump even sets foot on White House grounds.
If that’s not enough, 100 of Washington’s best and brightest national security experts penned an open letter prior to the election, calling Trump “hateful,” “dishonest,” “dangerous,” “erratic,” and generally unfit for the presidency, while urging Americans not to elect a man dangerously unprepared to be Commander-In-Chief. These same experts remain committed to wanting nothing to do with Donald Trump or his struggling administration-in-the-making, leaving “The Donald” with an apparent shortage of qualified personnel willing to work for him.
In short, nobody wants to play president with Donald.
In typical Trump-defensive style, he has brushed off criticism from establishment figures and dismissed the 100 national security figures, calling them the “failed Washington elite looking to hold onto their power,” and thanking them for “coming forward so everyone in the country knows who deserves the blame for making the world such a dangerous place.”
Eric Edelman, a former US ambassador to Turkey and senior staff member at the State Department, Defense Department, and White House who signed the anti-Trump letter was undeterred by the incoming leader, saying he was NEVER willing to serve in a Trump administration.
“They just won an unexpected victory. They were reviled by people like me, and now they are exulting in their success,” Edelman said of Trump’s notoriously vengeful nature and difficulty in finding qualified personnel. “That is politics and, as the saying goes, it ain’t beanbag.”
Paul Rosenzweig, a former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, was a bit more blunt in an interview with The Daily Beast.
“Everybody who has signed a Never Trump letter or indicated an anti-Trump attitude is not going to get a job,” he said. “And that’s most of the Republican foreign policy, national security, intelligence, homeland security, and Department of Justice experience.”
Peter Feaver, who served on the National Security Council under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and now teaches political science and public policy at Duke University, said that when he and his peers signed the letter in August they understood they were moving their names from the “available to be considered” list to the “very unlikely to be considered” list.
“While every administration reaches beyond its narrow base of hardcore supporters to build out its staff, it would be very rare for an administration to hire people who actively spoke out against the president-elect during the campaign,” Feaver said.
Politics
With so many qualified national security vets unwilling to work for Donald Trump, his team is now being forced to consider people with no prior knowledge of how to navigate the politics of Washington’s intelligence community.
For example, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is said to be under consideration for secretary of state. However, Giuliani’s only claim to fame is serving as mayor during the 9/11 terror attacks. He has zero foreign policy experience whatsoever and would only be nominated for the position as political payback for supporting Trump — and because not many people want to be connected to a Trump administration.
Several national security veterans are prepared — and even proud — to not be associated with a Trump White House.
Eliot Cohen, a former State Department officer and Defense Department official who signed the anti-Trump letter, Â said it would not surprise him “in the slightest” if Trump had effectively blacklisted those in the national security community who had spoken out against him.
“If it’s true, I’ll wear it as a badge of honor, though,” Cohen said on Monday. “And you can quote me on that.”
Following a recent exchange with the Trump transition team, Cohen tweeted this recommendation to his national security colleagues: Stay away. They’re angry, arrogant, screaming ‘you LOST!’ Will be ugly.”
With so many qualified national security vets unwilling to work for Donald Trump, his team is now being forced to consider people with no prior knowledge of how to navigate the politics of Washington’s intelligence community. [….]
Now DJ. Of course most people with a tap of sense and integrity would decline being associated with the Trump administration.
But you see…THAT's exactly what Trump voters find so appealing. They didn't vote for Experience or Knowledge or Professionalism or even Civility. Puleeze. Indeed, Trump voters voted for just the Opposite of all that.
And THAT's exactly what they're going to get …for at least the next 4 years.