Mike Pence just made Donald Trump’s mess even worse
Leave it to Donald Trump to face impeachment one week, and have him say something so idiotic and vile that it causes a whole other scandal completely removed from his impeachment. It has nothing to do with Ukraine, Russia, or even any of his draconian policies that are happening right now and ruining peoples’ lives.
While Trump was at one of his usual hate rallies on Wednesday night, pretending that the impeachment vote against him happening at that exact moment wasn’t actually happening, he decided to go beyond the pale yet again – no, not the part where he called on his former political opponent to be locked up and accused her of plotting against him, nor the part where he called on his own security detail to rough up protesters. It was where he decided to spit on the memory of a late congressman because of the way his wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell voted – implying that the former Rep. John Dingell was currently in Hell.
While even the Republicans and a few conservative pundits decided to not have his back at this moment, White House staffers decided to go there and double down on Trump’s despicable remarks. Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short appeared on Fox News Sunday to shamelessly issue not an apology for Trump’s vile attack, but an actual defense, which was about as pathetic as you would expect it to be.
Short laughably said that he thinks the administration respects the service of John Dingell. He didn’t even bother to say he was certain, because we all know that Trump sees people who disparage him as nothing but sworn enemies. This would’ve been idiotic enough, with him clearly shoveling things under the rug, but it actually manages to get worse. He claimed that because Dingell once called Trump an imbecile, and was routinely critical of his presidency, it’s understandable that Trump would be angry with him, especially under the shadow of impeachment.
So because Donald Trump can’t take criticism, it’s okay to tarnish the legacy of people who spend their life in public service? This single act shows why someone as thin-skinned as Trump is unfit to be president.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making