Over the past 14 hours or so, several White House staffers have turned in their resignations. A small, unconvincing act of political theater, but here we are. Mick Mulvaney resigned, as did Melania Trump’s chief of staff Stephanie Grisham, and the White House social secretary Anna Cristina Niceta turned in her resignation too. There will be more resignations today from people who were only supposed to work at the White House for another week and a half anyway. As you can imagine, the arsonists are shocked that they fire they started might spread to THEIR house. From Vanity Fair:
As the violent mob incited by President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, some West Wing staffers panicked that they were possibly becoming participants in a coup to overthrow the government. “What do I do? Resign?” one nervous White House staffer asked a friend on Wednesday afternoon, shortly after news broke that a woman had been shot and killed inside the Capitol. The West Wing staffer told the friend that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone was urging White House officials not to speak to Trump or enable his coup attempt in any way, so they could reduce the chance they could be prosecuted for treason under the Sedition Act. “They’re being told to stay away from Trump,” the friend said.
Cipollone’s purported concern that Trump was committing treason––a federal crime––illustrates the chaos and fear of Wednesday’s unprecedented events. As staff quit or steer clear, Trump is increasingly isolated and alone. According to a person close to the White House, Trump refused to take calls on Wednesday from business leaders who wanted him to call off the insurrectionists. A former West Wing staffer said Republicans were texting and calling Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to lobby him to intervene, but Meadows wasn’t answering.
In recent days, as Trump’s bid to overturn the election became increasingly desperate, he expressed anarchist comments in private, a second Republican close to the White House told me. The Republican said Trump told people that he wanted David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to lose the Georgia Senate runoff election as a way of punishing them and Mitch McConnell. “Trump told people he is really angry that the senators and McConnell hadn’t stood up for him to challenge the election. He’s happy they lost.” According to the Republican, Trump has said he’ll be the most dominant force in Republican politics if there’s no party leadership.
Other Republicans I spoke to on Wednesday echoed the view that Trump wants to blow things up on his way out the door. “He’ll want to burn the whole thing down,” a Republican strategist said. “Trump doesn’t give a sh-t about anyone but himself.”
Tonight, there was a sense that the ground had shifted. Even Stephen Miller told one person close to the White House that it was a terrible day. Twitter finally suspended Trump’s account—at least for 12 hours. And the immediate question facing Republicans became whether the violent scene today merits them invoking the 25th Amendment and removing Trump from office. The provision in the Constitution requires the vice president to secure support from the majority of the Cabinet or Congress. According to a D.C. strategist close to the White House, some prominent Republicans are lobbying Mike Pence to greenlight the process. “Pence has to initiate it,” the strategist said. Republicans I spoke to were doubtful Pence would take the extraordinary step given his longtime fealty to Trump––even in the face of being humiliated. “Maybe if Trump calls for another protest, then it’s possible,” the former West Wing official said.
In the grand scheme of things, hundreds of millions of Americans are being held hostage by a minority of sh-tbird terrorists and terrorist enablers. The handful of people who could actually do something to stop it are the ones who are incapable of hurting Trump’s little suckbaby feelings. It’s ridiculous. And the idea that a violent coup literally laying siege to the Capitol, as directly ordered by Trump and his White House and congressional enablers is suddenly TOO MUCH for even Stephen Miller… GMAFB. Likewise, the idea that these a–holes will only do something IF TRUMP INCITES ANOTHER TERRORIST ATTACK IN HIS LAST 13 DAYS is pretty reprehensible.
Anyway, I’m now of the belief that they should just impeach him quickly, like TODAY. Don’t even expect Pence to do anything with the 25th. Impeach the motherf–ker.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Once again: no praise for the Republicans who are NOW disowning this. They stood there for 4+ years when Trump was building and stoking his base.
They bowed down and worshipped him. Everyone is complicit. Mitt Romney is trying to portray himself as sea-green incorruptible, but let’s not forget that dinner with the newly-elected Trump where Mittens tried to kiss his day-glo @ss
These folks won’t get any profiles in courage.
James Mattis, John Kelly, Lindsay Graham.. all with weak tea statements yesterday! Where is Halley and Rubio?
Well said.
He can still do harm, so impeachment seems best now.
I am happy they resigned, not because that makes them look better, but because it shows Trump and this mess is more isolated and less accepted.
The thing they, and the sycophants online that wouldn’t be participating in this, but still secretly love Trump, love to say is that lots of people support Trump.
The less, the better.
Absolutely! Call your Reps offices to tell them to vote to Impeach. Today. The Motion has already been drafted by Rep Omar.
Optics.
All the resignations are just pointless empty gestures that mean nothing in any real sense except now the lunatic on the hill is sitting in the white house with his remaining syncophants and no one to stop him from indulging all of his worst deranged impulses.
They all created and nourished this monster and now that they’ve lost control and it has turned on them, they’re all throwing up a Kanye shrug and peacing out like the cowards they are, leaving everyone else to deal with the continuing damage.
Agree completely. They created and enabled this monster over the past 4 years (and before that) and now they’re like, “who me?!?!”
They are mad at the arsonist only because he is setting their house on fire now.
A few days ago I called a potential Waco style siege of the WH by Trump, in refusal to leave.
Some scoffed in disbelief. But it’s playing out. There’s no bottom with this man. My daddy said yesterday he thinks this will end with the 25th amendment and Trump’s arrest. My daddy is usually right. He’s called Trump all along. This isn’t over yet.
I hope this fire consumes the whole Republican Party.
Too little, too late. Most of those people would’ve been out of a job when Biden took over with his own administration anyway.
These resignations have come too late and had there not been an attempted coup yesterday, these people would still be in their jobs encouraging Trump to find a way to steal the elections.
The 25th should be used immediately but Pence is a wuss & won’t do it. He doesn’t want to piss off the maga-maniacs who he wants to support him in 2024.
They’re just trying to save their resumes at this point, aren’t they?
Yep! Just giving 2 weeks notice
Pure BS. They allowed this, stoked the fires even, for the past how many years? SInce the birther crap.
They get no cookies for bailing when the leopards started eating their faces.
Pence? A man who calls his wife “Mother” is NEVER gonna have the huevos to invoke the 25th to rid us of Trump.
I still, 4 years in, cannot comprehend the blind fealty to Trump. People he’s openly mocked (Cruz, Graham), people who are significantly worse off than they were when he was inaugurated, people who espouse their honesty and Christianity, heck, even people who understand basic math, that 81 million will always be bigger than 74 million, 306 greater than 232. I just do not get it.
These resignations are empty gestures. And I think an impeachment at this point is bloody useless–there’s no jail time for impeachment, right? Actual prosecutors need to pursue him for all his many crimes in the slim chance we might actually see some justice. I’m not holding my breath.
So this is the base that Trump’s enablers want? The Q-anon crowd storming the Capitol yesterday will be the next mainstays and base of the Republican party? All the people we saw desecrate everything yesterday? They are what all these Trump cultists in the Senate and House are putting their careers on the line for? Well, yes they apparently are.
The resignations are to limit their legal culpability, not based on principle. They were getting legal advice to quit or otherwise distance themselves from him to avoid being prosecuted as accomplices.
I wondered about this. Why resign when you have less than 14 days to go, after all the other things that have happened? Has to be related to potential legal entanglements. Lawyers don’t come cheap.
Impeachment does nothing unless they ALSO remove him from office.
He’s already been impeached once.
You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Words have consequences, GOO weasels. You are reprehensible.
I don’t see Pence doing anything and I’m scared that what happened yesterday was just a warm up for Inauguration Day. I’ll literally terrified.
Yes, I understand your fear.
Keep in mind DC is now on high alert and covid already altered Inauguration day/process several months ago.
No guarantees with anything in life but it should be ok.
I’m pretty sure the Capitol was on high alert yesterday too, and it still took the NG and the cops hours to respond, if you can call what the cops did responding.
There was always going to be an additional NG presence as the Inauguration approached. NY will be sending 1,000 NG to arrive early next week, NJ is sending either NG or members of the state police, not sure which. I think guardsmen from MD and VA may already be in DC.
DC is under a state of emergency until after the Inauguration.
Many members of Congress found themselves crawling around on the floor of their chambers yesterday. That’s the best bet that someone will make sure to light a fire under multiple butts to ensure members of the government are safe. Tim Ryan (D), who heads the subcommittee that funds the Capitol police, is ready to rip off more than a few heads. He had previously been assured plans were in place, and no one would even be able to get near the Capitol.
So, I think it should be ok.
MA Representative Ayana Pressley tweeted back in December “Move, Mitch, get out the way” in response to his stalling over the $2000 checks. I then posted a video of Mitch addressing the Senate last night after the day’s events and posted Ludacris’s song “Move, B****, Get Out the Way” over his speech (the song Ayana was clearly referencing) on my Instagram. Trump obviously needs to go, all his aides need to go, Mitch needs to go, all of them. I was actually sort of hoping to see that headline on Celebitchy (feel free to steal if you want haha) because it’s pretty much the only song that will be going through my head until January 20th.
Impeach or invoke the 25th amendment, which is faster.
Van Jones was asking people still working in the administration to stay incase he continues so that they can stop him. But at this point, if that is a concern he needs to be removed. They remove employees all the time who are disgruntled ……this is no different and we have much more to lose.
They lit a fuse and were surprised that it went boom?
I’m not buying that for a second. Trump has sowed the seeds of discontent from the day he started his campaign to yesterday when he told those people to march over to the US Capitol. Those people had every intention of carrying out threats that they had made. They raised a scaffold and they had zip ties. They were banging on doors and the outside windows. They broke windows. This went beyond a bunch of crying snowflakes showing their displeasure. Even Mitch was shaking in his boots because he knew they were after him too for not supporting the coup.
They need to do something because if the security in that building is so lax, I fear for Biden and Kamala’s safety.
They really need to burn with the fires they started.
Wow. Stupid games earn you stupid prizes. Who knew!