If Donald Trump’s near-death experience had really triggered a life change or religious epiphany, he would not have repeatedly lied in his RNC acceptance speech.
But every fact check of the speech counted dozens of falsehoods – about immigration, crime, the economy, taxes, inflation, electric vehicles, US energy production, foreign policy, the alleged “weaponization” of the Biden Justice Department against him, and of course the 2020 election.
You could also tell Trump hadn’t changed when he didn’t require his Vice Presidential selection, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, to retract his post on Twitter/X that “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance posted on X shortly after the shooting, adding, “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Immediately after Vance’s post, Trump named him as his running mate. And Vance, once one of Trump’s most outspoken critics, defended his actions on Jan. 6 and has said he would not have certified election results showing Trump had lost the 2020 election, as Vice President Mike Pence did.
But Trump’s speech segment that really caught my attention – and suggested an untried Democratic counter-strategy – was his lavish extolling of the “immortal heroes” who’ve fought and died to “keep alive the flame of freedom.” This was at odds with his 2016 deprecation of John McCain for his imprisonment in North Vietnam and his calling service persons and the war dead as “suckers” and “losers.”
This was first reported in The Atlantic, then confirmed – scathingly – by retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff and is now one of the highest-profile former Trump officials who’ve turned against him.
Kelly’s son, Robert, a Marine lieutenant, was killed in Afghanistan. When Trump and Kelly visited Arlington National Cemetery, where Robert is buried, Trump said of the dead, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
Kelly called Trump “a person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family — for all Gold Star families — on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”
Kelly also blasted Trump for suggesting that former Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley should be executed for treason because he assured Chinese officials after the Trump-instigated Jan. 6 Capitol riot that the U.S. was stable and would not attack China.
My suggestion is that the Democratic Party should try to enlist Kelly and other former Trump officials to repeat the reasons for their defections. It’d be best if they were willing to appear in a campaign ad, but they wouldn’t have to. And they wouldn’t have to speak out as a group, just talking as individuals. If they declined, Democrats could merely quote them.
I doubt the strategy – or anything else – can rescue Joe Biden’s candidacy. He needs to withdraw, and the party should adopt former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to select a new candidate in an “open competition.”
Democrats need a younger, more vigorous candidate unburdened by Biden’s dismal approval ratings, doubts about his mental and physical strength, and underwater polls in swing states. Trump is just as unpopular as Biden – 57 percent to Biden’s 58 percent – so a new candidate and a skillful campaign could defeat him.
Testimonials from former officials could help. Kelly, for example, described Trump as “a person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”
Others who have come out against Trump include former Defense Sec. James Mattis, another retired Marine Corps four-star, who charged that Trump was “the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people.”
Mattis continued, “We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy… but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children,” Mattis wrote. “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.” This is the voters’ opportunity to do so.
Trump also had two of his White House National Security advisers come out against him. One is John Bolton, who wrote in his book that Trump directed Bolton to help with his pressure campaign in Ukraine to dig up dirt on Democrats. He also charged that Trump directed him to set up a meeting between the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Bolton concluded that Trump was “unfit to be President.”
The other security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said it was “absolutely inappropriate” for Trump to enlist a foreign head of government to interfere in a US political process.
Other former officials who quit or were fired and have spoken out against him include former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who said Trump’s careless handling of important national secrets could put US troops in danger, and rejected Trump’s plans to fire missiles against Mexican drug cartels. Esper called Trump a “threat to democracy.”
Also, there are the officials who testified against him at the House Jan. 6 hearings: former White House press secretaries Sarah Matthews and Stephanie Grisham; communications directors Anthony Scaramucci and Alyssa Griffin; White House lawyers who said they’d told Trump he lost the 2020 election; and White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson, who vividly described Trump’s behavior on Jan 6.
All of these ex-officials have credibility – certainly more than the pre-vetted Trump loyalists that Trumpist planners intend to install in every policy position in a second Trump administration. Such lackeys and sycophants will serve his personal political, financial, judicial, and foreign-policy interests, not the public’s.
Thus courtiers serve a king.
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Agreed on both counts. Highlight these decent people and their truth about Trump. And Dem’s get a stronger ticket.
The first step in defeating Trump is for Biden to resign and allow Harris to become POTUS.
I’m not particularly excited about Harris but I am excited about defeating Trump and the best way to do that in my mind is to have the Democratic candidate be seen as president! Demonstrate to people, even in the very few months before the election, that she is “Presidential”.
President Biden’s laudable withdrawal occurred after my column was published—and changes the political picture considerably. But it doesn’t affect my suggestion that Democrats try to get ex-Trump administration officials to repeat—often— why they came to regard him as unfit for office. I’d have preferred that Democrats hold an open competition before they anoint Biden’s replacement, as suggested by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and briefly endorsed by Kamala Harris. But instead they’re rallying around Harris, so it looks like she’ll be the nominee. Polls indicate she’s as unpopular as both Biden and Trump, so she has to wage a smart campaign to win. It’d help to have disillusioned ex-Trump aides say why they became Never Trumpers.
I don’t think the Democrats have the time to look indecisive. I had thought that an open convention would be a good idea, but I changed my mind today.
I’m happy with Harris. She will be a team player and be a conservative Democrat if she gets in.(and I’m not particularly impressed with her because of the very first debate back in 2015 or 2016, …..but there are priorities.)
I just hope she can be funny because the first thing the Trump will do will make fun of her so she’s got to throw it back at him, sharp & humorous so he freaks.
I second your comments, and I will support Kamala Harris if and/or when she becomes the Democratic nominee.
My husband is retired military.
He and his retired friends, Vietnam era veterans, are utterly stymied by the thought of any woman as Commander-in-Chief. They do not believe that a woman has the ability to make military decisions. They also do not understand that any President is NOT going to make major crisis military decisions without advice from her/his military command leaders.
Kelly, Mattis, Esper, and McMaster could positively impact Harris’s candidacy with this set of vets by getting together and supporting her – explaining that any Commander-in Chief is going to be guided by her military experts in every crisis.