The attitude among many Republicans in Washington, D.C. is that while President Donald Trump can be a loose cannon, he’s their loose cannon. But managing a loose cannon who is prone to making unreasonable demands via Twitter can be challenging, and a report by The Atlantic’s Elaina Plott details the tendency among Trump associates to ignore some of those unreasonable demands in the hopes that he will forget about them.
“Since assuming office, Trump has issued many private demands to aides that have either been slow-walked or altogether ignored,” Plott observes. “But when the president dictates those spontaneous orders publicly, officials are suddenly accountable to a much broader audience — at least in theory — to make them a reality.”
Plott cites some examples. In July 2017, for instance, Trump tweeted that he was banning transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. And a former White House official, who agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Plott that previously, Trump had brought up the subject but agreed to hold off on a decision until discussing it with officials in the U.S. Department of Defense such as former Defense Secretary James Mattis or former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.
View the complete May 15 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.