To no one’s surprise, the soon-to-be-former Acting President has already checked out of the job he never really did anyway. In the private sector, employers let you clear out your desk and escort you to the door after you’ve been RIFed or fired. Not so in Washington, D.C. We let you hang around to sabotage the national security apparatus and “misplace” key files. This is euphemistically called “transition.”
Six Americans die in a helicopter accident in Egypt? Tropical Storm Eta causes flooding in Florida? Another record-setting day of coronavirus infections after a string of record-setting days? Donald Trump, if he is busy at all, is somewhere in the White House picking at his grievances until they bleed, spreading misinformation via Twitter and, naturally, scamming people.
All of which bodes ill for the federal response to the latest spike in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations between now and January.
“It seems clear Trump has checked out,” said Norman Ornstein, a political scientist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who has criticized Trump. “It’s not like this guy has shown a great interest in governing for four years, so to expect he will now accelerate the pace is a little fanciful. It’s pretty clear he feels wounded. Under those circumstances, the idea he’s going to pay more attention to the details of governance is ridiculous.”
White House aides disputed the notion that Trump was reneging on his responsibilities as president, releasing a list of executive actions he has taken since the election. The list included an order Thursday banning U.S. investment in Chinese military companies, an emergency declaration for Florida over the storm damage and several presidential proclamations, including celebrating the 245th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps.
“Any suggestion that the President has given up on governing is false,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. “Just as he promised, President Trump is fighting hard for a free and fair election while at the same time carrying out all of his duties to put America First.”
Pretty much what you’d expect a White House aide named Judd Deere to say in an Ivan Reitman film as the president is humping his secretary.
White House aides know better than to mention President-elect Joe Biden’s name, the Daily Beast reports:
“If you even mention Biden’s name… that’s a no-go, you’d be fired,” one national security official said. “Everyone is scared of even talking about the chance of working with the [Biden] transition.”
Everyone is afraid to tell Trump the race is over and he lost.
“It’s like dealing with a lunatic on the subway. Everyone just kind of sits and stares ahead, pretends they can’t hear him, and waits for him to eventually get off,” said a “GOP source close to the administration.”
The result is chaos in the national security apparatus, a surging pandemic left to run wild, with rampant spread across the the top half of the country and a “catastrophic” lack of ICU beds in the Twin Cities.
Michael T. Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy told the Washington Post on Tuesday, “This is like one huge coronavirus forest fire, and I don’t think it’s going to spare much human wood out there unless we change our behavior.”
Just don’t expect the soon-to-be-former Acting President to change his.
Sixty-seven thousand hospitalized and 1,100 dead per day, you say? This isn’t a transition, it’s a death march to January 20th.