Donald Trump hits the panic button as Signalgate scandal gets even worse for him
Donald Trump is busy wrecking the United States economy with a tidal wave of worldwide tariffs that’s sent the US stock market plummeting by nearly 10% in the past two days. It’s a tragic, pointless, ridiculous exercise in dementia-fueled malignant narcissism. But this morning I want to focus on something else that’s taken a bit of a backseat since Trump started wrecking the economy: Signalgate. There’s news on that front, and it may end up being important.
Earlier this week it was reported that Trump fired three no-names from the National Security Council after right wing loon Laura Loomer told him to. This was equal parts embarrassing for Trump (what President takes personnel advice from Laura Loomer?), and also pointless because scapegoating three no-names isn’t going to make the scandal go away. The minute tariffs stop being the main headline, Signalgate will be right back front and center.
Then late last night Trump fired two higher level national security people as well. It seemed clear that after the Loomer-inspired firings, someone in Trump’s world convinced him that he needed to make a more serious move so he’d look less like an idiot. In any case, the second round of firings twelve hours after the first round of firings came across like a panic move.
But this still isn’t going to get the job done. You can’t make a scandal as big and pervasive as this one go away simply by firing people no one has ever heard of. This scandal will continue being a problem for Trump until he fires Pete Hegseth and/or Mike Waltz. Yet Trump is still unwilling to do that.
With the increasing number of instances where Trump has gotten people confused for each other or failed to recognize people he knows, it’s possible that he’s unwilling to let go of Hegseth and Waltz because they’re among the shrinking number of people he can still remember and identify. In any case, while Trump was always quick to fire and scapegoat anyone necessary the first time around, his tepid stubbornness this time around is turning out to be a growing problem for him.
