The new Trump campaign spokesperson, I mean White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany tried to defend Trump's hiring of people who are, by Trump's own description, "dumb as a rock," "overrated," "way over their heads," "whacko," and "incompetent" to high profile government jobs by invoking Abraham Lincoln.
I sh*t you not.
Throughout Donald Trump's campaign and election, he and his minions said he would only hire the very best people possible, because he has an instinct about these things. In the last 3-1/2 years, Trump has had three Chiefs of Staff, four Deputy Chiefs of Staff, four Communications Directors, and four Press Secretaries, four National Security Advisors, just to name a few.
Brookings has tracked his folly and writes, "President Trump’s 'A Team' turnover is 88% as of June 19, 2020." Time Magazine writes, "Trump Has Now Had More Cabinet Turnover Than Reagan, Obama and the Two Bushes." His entire administration is in constant flux and chaos, which has resulted in a failed foreign policy, unprepared pandemic responses, and massive protests at home.
John Bolton, the former national security advisor who abruptly quit, and who refused to testify during Trump's impeachment, is the latest high ranking official to come out and say Trump is not fit to lead this country in his new book. Additionally, he offered up more impeachable offenses. Trump, the Tweeter-in-Chief, replied:
Wacko John Bolton’s “exceedingly tedious”(New York Times) book is made up of lies & fake stories. Said all good about me, in print, until the day I fired him. A disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war. Never had a clue, was ostracized & happily dumped. What a dope!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020
Many of his former cabinet members have come out publicly and blasted Trump, which is not the norm, but it is for Trump. During today's press briefing, NBC reporter Peter Alexander asked McEnany this important question:
"Why does the president keep hiring people who are ‘dumb as a rock,’ ‘overrated,’ ‘way over their heads,’ ‘wacko,’ and ‘incompetent’?”
McEnany, who has no defense for Trump's impetuous and destructive behavior, decided to dig deep into the alternative facts folder that Kellyanne Conway has devised, and responded thusly:
“The president makes hiring decisions based on the fact that he likes to have countervailing view points."
McEnany continued, “I spoke to him this morning about the hiring of John Bolton in particular and he said, ‘I like to counterbalance my own opinion with individuals that oftentimes have the very opposite opinion of my own.’ He likes the model of having a team of rivals, like what we saw in President Lincoln’s administration.
“I’ve been a part of that. I often see vigorous debate and the president uses his gut and makes the best decision as to how to move forward. So that’s what goes into his hiring practices and I think the team of rivals with President Lincoln worked quite well.”
Alexander pushed, “There’s obviously value in hiring a team of rivals, it’s worked well in the past, but then if you’re going to hire rivals why hire rivals who are ‘dumb as a rock,’ ‘overrated,’ ‘way over their heads,’ ‘wacko,’ and ‘incompetent’? How does that help the president?”
McEnany obfuscated and said, “Well sometimes the rivals prove those labels to be true and that’s particularly true in the case of John Bolton...I think John Bolton has proven himself to have those labels as true.”
WTF does that mean? it's a mishmash of gibberish. The kind of word salad that makes Sarah Huckabee Sanders look like a genius.