Donald Trump reveals he’s too far gone to do damage control
What does Donald Trump hate most? In the larger view, that’s an easy one: the rule of law, the free press, democracy, morality, you name it. But when its comes to his personal pet peeves, one of the things he’s long despised is when one of his own underlings is doing things that – for positive or negative reasons – take the spotlight off him. We’ve seen him railroad people out of his campaign and administration just to stop them from hogging all the attention.
But that seems to be over now. Rudy Giuliani has been out there hogging the spotlight like an idiot, acting like he is the president, and saying one embarrassing and incriminating thing about Donald Trump after another. So what has Trump done about it? Well, nothing. Early on he leaked to the media that he was considering firing Rudy if things didn’t change. But when Rudy only got worse, Trump decided not to do a darn thing. Now Trump has a different kind of problem with a different kind of spotlight grabber.
Trump’s EPA Director Scott Pruitt has come to the forefront for scandalous reasons that read like something out of a bad sitcom. Pruitt’s latest mess involves sending his staffers around looking for a particular kind of lotion that can only be found at the Ritz-Carlton, or something along those idiotic lines. Every few days, Pruitt is exposed for yet another absurd abuse of power and resources.
Even if you believe that Trump’s plan was to let Pruitt take the heat for awhile as a distraction, it’s long worn out its effectiveness, as Trump is now the one facing heat for not doing something about Pruitt. At a time when Trump is facing more negative headlines than ever, he could score points for himself across the political spectrum by firing Pruitt – yet he hasn’t done it. Donald Trump is too far gone, too weak, too distracted, too panicked, too whatever. He can’t even do damage control anymore, on the things that bother him the most.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report