February 1, 2019: President Trump and His "Team of Vipers"

 

February 1, 2019: After two grueling months, trapped in the White House by his own obstinacy, due to a partial government shutdown which he ordered, the president heads to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend. 

According to The New York Times, quoting one loyal Trump supporter, the president has been suffering. 

“You would have to be insensitive not to be touched by how he has stayed there working,” said Toni Holt Kramer, the founder of Trumpettes USA, a booster group that is planning to welcome him. “I think people will have tears in their eyes because they’re so grateful that he’s come back to his home away from home.”

 

(See: 2/5/19.) 

Yeah. John McCain? Imprisoned for more than five years, and tortured routinely. Not a hero. 

Trump? He binged on TV and enjoyed room service whenever he wanted in the White House for…weeks.

 

*

A NEW BOOK, just out, and written by former White House aide Chris Sims, bears the title Team of Vipers. 

The President of the United States hears about the book and labels Sims “a mess,” says he was nothing more than a “gofer,” and warns that his aide signed a non-disclosure agreement, typically used by businesses to keep critics silent. See for example: Sexual harassment, Fox News, Bill O’Reilly; sexual harassment, Fox News, Roger Ailes; porn star sex and payoffs, Citizen Donald J. Trump. 

No previous president has ever tried to force staffers to sign non-disclosure agreements and it’s not clear they’d be legal. 

You know. Because. History, and such.

 

“As far as I know, it’s never been tried in the White House,” Russell Riley, the co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center tells Time. “I’ve never heard of it. I’ve done oral histories back to the Jimmy Carter presidency.” 

Other books that this president has tried to block include Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House and Fire and Fury: Inside the White House. Someone should explain to Trump fans why this is dangerous; but they’d probably ignore the warning and insist this is all “Fake News.” 

Logic not being their strongest suit. (See: 2/22/19.) 

As for Sims, he writes in part, 

I suspect that posterity will look back on this bizarre time in history like we were living on the pages of a Dickens novel. Lincoln famously had his Team of Rivals. Trump had his Team of Vipers. We served. We fought. We brought our egos. We brought our personal agendas and vendettas. We were ruthless. And some of us, I assume, were good people. 

Donald J. Trump. Team of Vipers. 

It figures. 

BLOGGER’S NOTE (10/29/21): When I check reviews much later, they prove interesting. Sims says near the end of his book, “I’m proud to have worked for the president of the United States. And in spite of the frustrations and misgivings laid out in this book, I’m proud that the president I served was Donald Trump.” He admits that he includes himself as one of the “vipers.” He tells a reporter for The New Yorker, “And I think a lot of what I saw in there came from a very selfish place, and one of the criticisms I have of myself is that I didn’t have a servant’s heart a lot of the time while I was there. And that’s a criticism I would apply to a lot of people there.” 

Sims agrees that the culture of any workplace comes from the top down, but also says that he doesn’t think Trump has “a racist bone in his body,” while agreeing that the president’s comments often sound “racially insensitive.” 

When the reviewer for The New Yorker presses him on what Sims thinks the meaning of “birtherism” was, he responds, “I don’t know.”

 

Prodded repeatedly to answer, Sims repeatedly says he doesn’t understand the point of the questions. Finally, he admits, “So I think that’s, like, a great example of a time where he does not step up to the plate and take on these race issues in an appropriate way, a helpful way for the country. No doubt that that was terrible. I don’t know what else you want me to say about it.” 

Eventually, Sims admits that at times he was “a coward” and might have been wise to quit. And this was long before the Black Lives Matter days, when racially insensitive comments constantly spilled from President Trump’s lips. 

Birtherism? Yeah. That, too, was racism of the worst sort.