New book details chaos when Trump aide Johnny McEntee tried to start Afghanistan withdrawal

[essentialsaltes]

New book details chaos when Trump aide tried to start Afghanistan withdrawal

In his final days in the White House, President Donald Trump tried to launch a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan -- only he wasn't exactly the person giving the orders, according to a new book by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl. In "Tired of Winning: Donald Trump...

www.yahoo.com

In "Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party,"excerpts of which were released in Vanity Fair on Friday, Karl reports that aide Johnny McEntee, known as Trump's "body guy," led a chaotic attempt to reshape the U.S. military posture abroad.

McEntee, after serving as Trump's "body guy" (or "body man" as some say) -- the staffer responsible for traveling with the president and carrying his bags -- became, at age 30, the director of the Presidential Personnel Office, primarily responsible for overseeing the hiring and firing of executive branch employees, including ensuring staffers were loyal to Trump's political vision.

Macgregor advised McEntee the priority should be the Afghanistan withdrawal and that it should be put in a presidential directive. But when McEntee couldn't figure out how to draft such a document, Macgregor told him and his assistant "to open a cabinet, find an old presidential decision memorandum, and copy it," Karl writes.

[He did so and got Trump to sign it.]

When Milley asked O'Brien, Trump's national security adviser, where the document came from, O'Brien said he'd never seen it before. Also at that meeting was Vice President Mike Pence's national security adviser Keith Kellogg, who looked at the order and told the room: "This doesn't look right," according to the excerpts.

The group eventually asked Trump directly, who confirmed he'd signed it. O'Brien then told Trump it "would be very bad," Karl writes, and advised him not to follow through with the directive.

"As soon as he realized an Afghanistan withdrawal would require more work than having McEntee scribble up a note, he dropped it entirely," Karl reports.

 

[Pommer]

New book details chaos when Trump aide tried to start Afghanistan withdrawal

In his final days in the White House, President Donald Trump tried to launch a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan -- only he wasn't exactly the person giving the orders, according to a new book by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl. In "Tired of Winning: Donald Trump...

www.yahoo.com

In "Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party,"excerpts of which were released in Vanity Fair on Friday, Karl reports that aide Johnny McEntee, known as Trump's "body guy," led a chaotic attempt to reshape the U.S. military posture abroad.

McEntee, after serving as Trump's "body guy" (or "body man" as some say) -- the staffer responsible for traveling with the president and carrying his bags -- became, at age 30, the director of the Presidential Personnel Office, primarily responsible for overseeing the hiring and firing of executive branch employees, including ensuring staffers were loyal to Trump's political vision.

Macgregor advised McEntee the priority should be the Afghanistan withdrawal and that it should be put in a presidential directive. But when McEntee couldn't figure out how to draft such a document, Macgregor told him and his assistant "to open a cabinet, find an old presidential decision memorandum, and copy it," Karl writes.

[He did so and got Trump to sign it.]

When Milley asked O'Brien, Trump's national security adviser, where the document came from, O'Brien said he'd never seen it before. Also at that meeting was Vice President Mike Pence's national security adviser Keith Kellogg, who looked at the order and told the room: "This doesn't look right," according to the excerpts.

The group eventually asked Trump directly, who confirmed he'd signed it. O'Brien then told Trump it "would be very bad," Karl writes, and advised him not to follow through with the directive.

"As soon as he realized an Afghanistan withdrawal would require more work than having McEntee scribble up a note, he dropped it entirely," Karl reports.

“The best people“.

 

[DaisyDay]

McEntee is the youngster who ran the loyalty purges of the Trump admin.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Also from the book.

Trump ‘demanded a straight-up quid pro quo’ from Kim Kardashian for commutation favor, later broke with her over Biden: Book​

Kardashian made headlines in 2018 when she met with Trump in the Oval Office to discuss prison reform and sentencing. Days after the meeting, Trump granted clemency to Alice Johnson, who was serving a life sentence on nonviolent drug and money laundering charges.

“A source familiar with the conversations tells me Trump listened to her requests and demanded a straight-up quid pro quo,” Karl said in his book.

“[Trump] would grant the commutations, he told Kardashian, if she leveraged her celebrity connections to get football stars who were friends of hers to come visit him at the White House.”

The 43-year-old SKIMS founder “actually tried to do what Trump demanded,” according to Karl, “seeing it as a small price to pay to get justice for people she believed were serving unjust sentences. But all the players she approached declined. Trump had become too toxic.”

 

[The Barbarian]

"As soon as he realized an Afghanistan withdrawal would require more work than having McEntee scribble up a note, he dropped it entirely," Karl reports.

We owe guys like Pence and O'Brien a huge thanks for keeping things from going completely off the rails.

 

[essentialsaltes]

We owe guys like Pence and O'Brien a huge thanks for keeping things from going completely off the rails.

The saving grace of Trump's one and only (I fervently hope) term is that he (and the people closest to him) knew so little about how the government functions that they had to surround themselves with plenty of ordinary Republican officials who were largely competent and law-abiding.

We'll have no such luck if there's another term.