Making Sense by Michael Reagan
Has anyone out there written the book “The Art of the Presidency�
If so, please send Donald Trump a copy. Overnight.
Our billionaire president knows what to say or do when he’s making a business deal or running a big business.
But it’s very obvious he still needs to learn that what is OK to say and do when you’re the CEO of the United States is entirely different.
On Thursday it was painfully clear from the testimony of fired FBI Director James Comey that Mr. Trump needs a lot of help from someone who knows how a president should behave.
Comey’s appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee was no day at Palm Beach for Trump. But it was nothing close to the death blow to his presidency that his enemies in the drooling liberal media had hoped for.
What ex-FBI Director Comey said Trump said and did to him didn’t reflect well on Trump’s judgment or his ability to tell the truth, to say the least.
But at least “The Comey Show†made it clear to the whole country that Trump himself was never the target of an FBI investigation and that, according to Comey, some of the worst news stories about the Trump administration’s Russian troubles in the New York Times and Washington Post based were mostly fake.
Trump’s reign will continue for now and MSNBC and CNN’s ratings will stay high.
But before the president gets himself into another unnecessary self-inflicted fiasco, he needs to quickly find a competent chief of staff.
It has to be someone he respects as an equal, who will stand up to him and who he’ll listen to. Then Trump has to have him —- or her — surgically attached to his hip.
If from Day One Trump had hired a savvy and competent chief of stafflike James Baker III, who served my father, the Oval Office drama between Trump and Comey never would have happened.
If a pro like Baker had been on the job instead of an amateur like Reince Priebus, when Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Priebus to leave him alone in the Oval Office with Comey, chief of staff of Baker would have stepped in immediately.
He would have told Trump it was totally improper to meet alone with Comey. Trump and Comey would never have had their awkward and inappropriate chat and “The Comey Show†would never have been aired.
The lack of a strong chief of staff who will stand up to Trump and make him behave like a proper president is the major source of the problems in the Trump White House.
Until the president finds someone to trust, to respect, and to listen to —- like James Baker III —-things are not going to get any better for him.
Meanwhile, it’s becoming harder and harder to support President Trump, who continues to be his administration’s worst enemy and main saboteur.
Earlier this week I watched him make news by launching twitter attacks on his own Justice Department and the Mayor of London when he should have been talking about his plans to reform the VA health system and modernize the country’s clogged-up air-traffic control system.
It’s clear that after six months on the job he doesn’t realize why he came to Washington.
He needs a chief of staff that will remind him every second that it was not to make news with his morning tweets, fight with the liberal media every day or make his White House staff clean up after his mistakes with their Pooper Scoopers.
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Copyright ©2017 Michael Reagan
