​The other day, I wrote on social media about an interview with Steve Witkoff, another of Trump’s billionaire members of his administration with no experience in his field of government service.  He’s a real estate investor and developer, real estate lawyer, and founder the Witkoff Group that deals with construction and rehab.  When taking office in January, Trump appointed him to be Special Envoy to the Middle East, and now to Russia and Putin.  Because…who knows?  He plays golf with Trump, and perhaps that qualifies as much as any reason.  (Hey, Trump appointed Fox host Mark Hegseth to run the Defense Department.  And see how well that’s worked out so far.
 
But back to his interview.  What stood out – and how could it not? – was when Witkoff said about Putin, "I just don't see he wants to take all of Europe...I take him at his word in this sense. And I think the Europeans are beginning to come to that belief, too. But it sort of doesn't matter."

File this under:  Monumentally naive and problematic dangerous.​ 

“I take Putin at this word” is a phrase that probably no American diplomat has ever used out loud, or even thought.  And the Witkoff follows that up immediately in his next sentence by suggesting that Europeans – who are so terrified of Russia’s plans for expansion that they’ve not only taken up the slack of funding Ukraine after U.S. support has dried up, but held an emergency defense conference in London without the United States involved – supposedly agree with him about Putin not wanting to take all of Europe.  A concept that’s almost inconceivable.  And the only reason it’s “almost” inconceivable is because what is inconceivable is his sentence after that – “But it sort of doesn’t matter.”  (I do love his “sort of,” as if that softens his idiotic statement and makes it palatable.  But no, it’s sickening, and one can’t even imagine European reaction when they read it.)  Three totally disqualifying, horrific, and terminally naïve sentences in a row.  That is some trifecta.

And add that there was of course no outrage or even anger by any MAGOPs in Congress, who are complicit in enabling every bit of un-American or naive or idiotic or fascist tripe that comes out of an anyone in the Trump administration.
 
After writing about this online, my longtime friend (as in “since grade school”) Don Friedman replied with a few possibilities of what Witkoff might have meant.  It was thoughtful and interesting, as conversations with Don always are – and I only wish that Witkoff had Don’s erudition.  But I disagreed with all those as possibilities.  Because this was Team Trump, after all – and the discerning insight of a Don Friedman does not stretch as far as Trump World.
 
To explain himself, Don wrote back:  “I float this as a possible explanation for his statement, but of course I have no idea whether that's right or whether he's just parroting Trump's beliefs or whether he's just an imbecile. I suspect it's the latter. I read elsewhere that, when he met with Putin, Putin kept him waiting for hours, which suggests Putin thinks he's an imbecile too (as well as his boss).”

I understood Don’s perspective completely. But I think the answer is pretty basic, and only one of the options he stated:  that Trump officials parrot his beliefs -- and orders. Witkoff might be an imbecile, too, in diplomacy, but that's only a byproduct.

Side note:  Supporting the "Witkoff is a diplomatic imbecile" byproduct concept, it was reported yesterday by Politico that (based on flight data) one of those government officials on the group chat texting classified war plans on an unsecured app without noticing a journalist invited by mistake...was actually in Moscow!! In fact, he was added to the group chat before meeting with Putin in the Kremlin. And that person was -- say it all together -- Steve Witkoff!

As I’ve discussed with Don, I know that he as an accomplished lawyer likes to look at all sides carefully to discover the evidence and balance the possibilities in uncovering the truth. But me, I just have long-since given up twisting myself in knots trying to divine the meaning behind what reprehensible things come out of the mouths of Trump and the officials who support him. "What he actually meant..." has become an empty bucket to me, with a hole in the bottom. Not only because it only serves to drag one down a tangled, dark cavern -- but also because we too often see that the actions that follow Trump and his minions’ words show they pretty much meant exactly what they said. And ultimately at this point, they've long-lost getting the benefit of the doubt. And if there is confusion in meaning, it's up to them at this point to explain it, not me or others to try hopelessly figure it out. (And by "explain" it, I mean clarify the truth -- not figure out some lie that can hopefully get them out of a disastrous mess.  Like “I didn’t know about it” or “I don’t know him.”  Or…worse -- )

One current example: the other day, Trump said he didn't sign the order invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798  to deport immigrants to El Salvador. When the actual document was found with his actual signature, the White House literally tried to say that "What he really meant was that he didn't sign the original order that created the law in 1798."
 
Yes, really.  That’s what I mean by just using words to lie doesn’t count as an “explanation.  Especially a lie that’s the equivalent of a six-year old child standing by a cookie jar with crumbs on his face saying, “I didn’t take a cookie.”
 
(And then adding, when asked to explain the cookie crumbs, “I meant I didn’t take a cookie in 1798.”)

And we're now seeing the result of MAGOPs who for years "reinterpreted Trump" and said, "Libs listen to what Trump says, but we listen to what he means." (Which always gets me rolling my head thinking how empty you must be to vote for someone as president who you can’t trust what he says.)  This is why we hear so many Trump voters now saying how they regret their vote for him in 2024 because they didn't think he meant what he said.  During all that time they tried to reinterpret what he “really meant” so that it fit their nice, false worldview and could claim they weren’t really fascist.  Without bothering to find out what “fascism” was.
 
Honestly, I’m not sure if Trump always knows what he means.  So, anyone else trying to explain it is on a fool’s errand.  It's an exercise in futility.
 
And trying to figure out what a Trump lackey really meant falls into the same trash bin.  The only starting point that anyone can truly count on is that they meant whatever it was Trump told them to say.
 
And in the end, they – like all the MAGOPs in Congress – make Trump’s words and policies and rants their own.  As they enable them and are complicit in everything.

If you didn't see Jon Stewart's Monday hosting of The Daily Show, his Main Story was about the egregious MAGOP hypocrisy when it comes to free speech.

I was SO glad to see it, since it's one of my big bugaboo's and something I've written about.  He hit all the points I've noted -- and more.  And much better and far funnier.
​

 
As numbingly reckless as the mess (the very polite term) is with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in which Trump officials were not only discussing detailed war plans on an unsecured texting app -- but also accidentally invited a journalist into the group chat -- I love that it at least is getting the massive attention it deserves, including calls in Congress for an investigation (at least called for by Democrats, silence by the supposed national defense-loving MAGOPs), rather then being swept under the rug, overshadowed by other Trump disaster stories.  This is the Trump administration Disaster Story of the Day.

Oh, I should note Defense Secretary Hegseth's chat group discussing sensitive war plans over an unsecured text app included VP "Vance," Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles.  The gang that couldn't govern straight.
 
Beyond just the ghastly sloppiness of such an action and danger it risked putting the lives of military personnel in, as well as naming an active CIA agent, and the inclusion of operational details of strikes against Yemen, what the story overlaps with, too, is the Constitutional issue that it’s Congress who declares war, not the White House which the officials’ discussion suggests, the potential criminal issue of passing classified material on mobile phones outside of a protected SCIF (which doesn't allow mobile phones that could have malware or be hacked), and also the intense hypocrisy of MAGOPs weeping tears at Hilary Clinton using private email...while this, on the other hand, was discussing actual war plans!
 
Man, who could have imagined seeing this happening with Pete Hegseth…?!  The Secretary of Defense with zero experience running an organization anywhere near the size of the Pentagon, the former Fox TV host, the accused rapist, the guy whose mother wrote him about his irresponsible behavior, the guy who had such a widely-known drinking problem that he had to promise he wouldn’t drink if he was confirmed to be Defense Secretary – because, yeah, that’s how stopping a drinking problem works.
 
And what was Hegseth’s response when asked about the security breach?  No, not calling for an investigation into how this could happen and if there were any ramifications of it.  Instead, he made a rant attacking what he called this “so-called reporter” who he claimed writes hoax stories.  Never mind that The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg is a long-admired journalist and editor of the magazine – and that even the White House confirmed the breach.  Never mind, too, that Goldberg patriotically left out of his article all the specifics of the attack that he heard.  And even quit the chat group when he was able to confirm that it was real.

Trump, on the other hand, pled his traditional "ignorance."  Not terribly unbelievable, given the source, though still improbable given the national security risk.  And ludicrous to claim it since it's more damning if true that he wasn't told.  (But then, of course, he knew.  After all, in response to Trump's claim, Jeffrey Goldberg has said, "I alerted the White House shortly after 9 in the morning.")

Almost more adorable is Trump saying that National Security Advisor Mike Walz, the one who accidentally invited reporter Goldberg into the group chat, had "learned his lesson."  As if this was a third-grader caught calling a classmate a mean name.  And coming from someone, found guilty of 34 felonies, twice found liable of rape, and been impeached twice who has shown he has no concept of "learning his lesson."
 
Mainly, though, what I love most is that this adds to the perception that the Trump team is wildly incompetent and out of control.  And this is something very easy for the public to grasp – discussing war plans over an unsecure texting app and including a reporter by mistake.
 
Of course, there are many other serious issues at play here, high among them whether the chat group broke the law in what they were doing. 
 
“Most certainly it did,” said Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “And it reflects a general sloppiness and negligence in the whole approach of the administration as they've gotten started here.”
 
Raskin went on --
 
“If you look at what the underlying plan was, it's Congress that declares war on Venezuela or on Yemen. It's not the President of the United States. So it's both this tremendous operational negligence and sloppiness that has been shown, but also the idea that they act in complete defiance of what the Constitution says and what the rule of law stands for.”
 
And it didn’t escape Raskin’s memory of how this all overlapped with MAGOP “outrage” with Hillary Clinton.  “Well, it'll be child's play to go back and find all of the Republicans who were demanding congressional investigations, and that Hillary Clinton apologize and leave the campaign and so on, based over her handling of the information, most of which was not classified."  Unlike, well…y’know, discussing detailed war plans.  On an unsecured app.  With a reporter accidentally invited in.
 
The Hegseth breach transcends bizarre.  But it once again confirms the biggest problem Trump has:  that he is not surrounded by the best who can help him get out of the disasters the administration is creating.  He's surrounded by incompetents, with little to no experience, whose main qualification is kissing the feet of Trump and doing his bidding, no matter how incompetent, disastrous or criminal.

​The other day, a friend wrote me, gnashing his teeth about “the appalling Social Security chaos.”  And then asked, basically rhetorically, addressing his own views on how problematic he felt this would be for Trump, “Why do I expect that to destroy him in the next round of polling?”
 
Though it was more a statement than question, it deserved a response.  In large part because it allowed me to address a little-remembered quote I’ve had in mind for many years, most especially every time Republicans – and now MAGOPs – raise their fevered dream of ending Social Security by privatizing it.
 
It’s an answer that comes from 71 years ago by President Dwight Eisenhower who wrote in a letter to his brother –
 
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
 
Well, that’s pretty pointed.
 
It's a quote I’ve long remembered.  Far more importantly, it’s one that MAGOPs, given that they are heirs of President Eisenhower’s party, seem to have long ago forgotten.

By the way, the problem for MAGOPs with their efforts this time is they seem to think that the public will be experience all the new problems brewing with Social Security and blame them on the system and create outrage, in order to privatize it -- but I think it's overwhelmingly more likely that Trump, Musk and the MAGOPs is who will be blamed, since they are who very publicly have been making all the unnecessary changes and trying to dismantle it.  Which returns us to Dwight Eisenhower's quote they've overlooked.
 
Most every news story these days that comes out of Trump and embraced by MAGOPs in Congress these days as their own ranges between reprehensible on the low end and fascist at the top.  But I feel encouraged in my belief, closing on near certainty that as hellish as it is, it will come back to bite them all.  Most especially about Social Security.  That’s because a great many people rely on those payments to…well, y’know, actually live.  And because those most affected by Social Security are seniors, who are the demographic that votes the most.  And because it’s called an “entitlement” – though not, as MAGOPs seem to presume and hate it for being an elitist privilege abused by the undeserving, but -- because people spent their working years putting their own money into the system, which is why they are quite literally entitled to getting it back.
 
Which is why Dwight Eisenhower, a president of their own party, said that if any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, “you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”  And MAGOPs have forgotten their own history.
 
That’s one major reason why the tone-deaf giddiness of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutkin – a billionaire who never seems to miss an opportunity to be his own worst enemy – is so problematic.  There he is on video, cavalierly explaining why his sweet, gentle mother-in-law wouldn’t ever complain if she missed a Social Security payment (cushioned, no doubt, he fails to grasp, by having a billionaire son-in-law), while he slams those who critically rely on Social Security and who, he insists, would complain if there was a problem receiving their checks – making them, in Lukin’s snarky words, “fraudsters.  All of which only serves to highlight how much the party of Eisenhower has totally forgotten the words of its former leader, who as a general helped defeat fascism.
 
When the first Social Security payment is delayed in any way, or there is any hiccup in the new set-up, I can’t wait to see Democratic ads with the deeply smug Commerce Secretary Lutkin flooding the airwaves.
 
But it’s far worse than all that.  Because the disaster-in-waiting is a tsunami about to hit the shores in just days, on April 1.  (And don’t tell me that isn’t God having a laugh at the irony of it all.)  That’s the day new claimants and any existing recipients of Social Security who wants to change where their payment goes must either validate their personal account online – or go in person to a local Social Security office.  And wait in line to do so.  Providing they can find a local office, since Trump/Musk are shutting them down.  (No word from Mr. Lutkin if his mother-in-law would be okay with that.)

I should add here – for reasons unrelated to this – that I’ve previously validated my account online.  And while at heart it’s easy – as long as you’re not in your 80s or 90s (y’know, core members of Social Security) and you also have a computer – it can be a convoluted process.  And actually was for me -- and I wrote a tech column for 18 years.  And am not in my 90s.  First issue: it requires taking a photo of your driver’s license and attaching that to the online form to send to a validation service.  Second issue:  It took me 30-45 minutes because I kept getting an error message because the photo has to be taken near-perfectly so that their validation software can read it properly.  The actions needed are easy, but reality has a way of rearing its ugly head.  And it was hugely frustrating.  That's for me.  For many others, the world of computers and technology is terrifying.

This shouldn’t be a common problem for most people – but when there are tens of million people in the system, even an uncommon problem risks being a calamity.   Even if everything goes perfectly, with all those millions trying to find a local office (that hasn’t closed to wait at), and all the people trying to validate online at the same time, since that raises the question -- at what point does the website crash?

Now add in the only alternative of going out, finding the nearest office, and waiting in a very long line.  And then add in if you no longer drive

Get those TV ads with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutkin ready…

This utterly unnecessary process risks being a cruel mess.  (But then, as it’s often been said with most Trump actions, cruelty is the point.)  But it’s not just a mess to those directly affected.  Because all those seniors affected have adult children (and grandchildren) they’ll be calling for help so that mom and dad, and grandpa and grandma can get their Social Security money to help them live.
 
This has all the signs of a major disaster for Trump, Musk and the MAGOPs in Congress who support it, are complicit and who’ve made Trump’s policies their own.
 
And because it can’t be said too often, in the words of Dwight Eisenhower – ““Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”

We're going to turn this over to Trump himself.  Appearing on Fox, he's asked about his son Barron's skills.  And Trump enthuses about how "amazingly skilled" the young man is with computers.
 
When I first saw this, I started to type about how “Imagine the reaction from the far right if President Biden said something this creepily inept and out of touch with reality.”  But I stopped and held off, because I realized it's not a case of that at all, but rather…imagine the reaction from everybody if anyone over the age of three said something so creepily inept and out of touch with reality.

And after watching this short video, I feel comfortable with next to no one thinking that I am exaggerating.

This is the president of the United States.  In charge of the nuclear bomb.  Overseeing the dismantling of U.S. government.  Ordering the closure of the Department of Education.  Deporting suspected illegal immigrants without a trial or hearing.  Creating an enemy with Canada...wanting to make Canada the 51st state.  Wanting to buy Greenland.  Wanting to put tariffs on many of our allies.  Throwing our ally Ukraine under the bus. And embracing Putin and Russia. 

The president of the United States.

This is so unearthly inexplicable that it may even transcend repeating that he has early dementia.  This is on another level of total cluelessness.  Though having dementia doesn't help...

​Yes, really.

Trump is amazed by his son's "amazing aptitude" with technology, because he knows how to turn on his computer.

This is a pretty much the equivalent of knowing how to turn on a lightbulb.

My mother was a technophobe.  But if you showed her once how to turn a computer on, she'd know how from then on.

I'm sure that defenders of Trump will have some explanation of what Trump "was really saying."  (tm)  But not only can everyone hear what he was "really saying," if someone needs translators to explain what you were "really saying" about how "amazingly skilled" one has to be to to turn on a computer, then you've already lost the battle.