A year and a half-ish into Donald Trump's second term as the nation's foremost disgrace, we now have a clear picture into what the ailing narcissist believes the United States government was built for. It isn't complex; even running down a partial list of departments and agencies will reveal it soon enough.
⢠Trump believes the purpose of the Department of Justice is to manufacture scandals against his enemies.
⢠Trump believes the purpose of the FBI is to manufacture scandals against his enemies.
⢠Trump believes the purpose of the FCC is to manufacture scandals against his enemies.
⢠Trump believes the purpose of the Federal Housing Finance Agency is to manufacture scandals against his enemies.
⢠Trump believes the chairmanship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exists to manufactures scandals against his enemies.
⢠Trump believes the purpose of ICE and DHS are to act as props for manufactured scandals against his enemies.
⢠Trump believes the purpose of the IRS is to cover up tax evasion by his allies while manufacturing scandals against his enemies.
⢠Trump believes the Office of the Director of the National Intelligence exists to, of course, manufacture scandals against his enemies.
⢠Trump believes the State Department exists to serve a stable of ambassadors who will go out and manufacture foreign scandals against his enemies (and also facilitate family real estate deals.)
We've all been marveling at the cabinet-level chaos that has seen the duties of State transferred to the "Department of War," or the seeming indifference of the FBI head to that whole solving crimes part, or the unclear chain of command in both civilian law enforcement and military engagements that appears to boil down to "Stephen Miller is in charge of anything he wants to be in charge of," but it makes much more sense when you realize that Donald Trump himself does not know or care what any of these agencies do, because after five nonconsecutive years of running the whole executive branch he has at no point been able to conceive of any of them as anything more than arbitrary fiefdoms to which he can assign pre-humiliated bootlickers to shower him with praise while manufacturing scandals against his enemies.
They're all the same job. That's why Trump can announce, with perfect seriousness, that the new Director of National Intelligence is the guy who spends his days searching through the files at the Federal Housing Financing Agency to see whether anyone on Trump's enemies list might have a mortgage issue that can be scandalizedâand that since heading the FHFA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the coordination of 18-ish U.S. intelligence agencies are all mere part time jobs at best, the mortgage guy can head up national intelligence efforts in his spare time.
It's all the same crap, after all.
President Donald Trump has named Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence, succeeding Tulsi Gabbard who recently announced she plans to resign from the role at the end of June.
Pulte, a close Trump ally who serves as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has âdeep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets, and over 10 Trillion Dollars at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, a substantial increase from where it was just 12 months ago,â the president wrote in a Truth Social post Tuesday morning.
While he serves as acting director of national intelligence, Pulte will remain as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency as well as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Trump wrote. [...]
In his role leading the agency, Pulte has targeted Democrats whom Trump perceives as his political enemies. In March, Pulte made two criminal referrals against New York Attorney General Letitia James, alleging insurance fraud, several months after Trumpâs Justice Department failed to prosecute her for a third time. Jamesâ lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell, called the allegations âbaseless.â
To you, a person who thinks that preventing international terrorism might be a full time position, maybe even a more-than-full-time position, like working for one of those tech companies that expects you to work 16 hour days and sleep under your desk. The sort of job that you have to pack a toothbrush for.
Alternatively, you might at least think that the person tapped to coordinate intelligence gathering across the whole of federal government ought to have some prior experience in working with federal intelligence agencies, not least because the goddamn law requires it.
But you are not Donald Trump, and what you need to understand is that Donald Trump does not give a flying shit whether America is attacked by terrorists. He has no interest whatsoever in preventing foreign states from sabotaging massive chunks of the U.S. electrical grid, or injecting malware that causes a major U.S. pipeline to burst. He does not care even the tiniest little bit whether state-sponsored hackers in Russia, China, Iran, or anywhere else fund themselves with ransomware attacks on U.S. companies.
He doesn't care and you can't make him care, because after five point five years of being in charge of all of this, with full access to as many tutors and experts as the whole of the U.S. government can produce, this delusional malignant narcissist still cannot understand government as anything but a vehicle for glorifying his own supposed greatness while manufacturing scandals against his enemies.
Trump doesn't want Bill Pulte to become Director of National Intelligence because he thinks Pulte knows a damn thing about intelligence, terrorism, espionage, or sabotage. Pulte is, objectively, a raving idiot whose sole qualification as a Trump appointee is being the rich-as-sin son of a sketchy-as-sin homebuilding magnate, a vastly creepy critter who shares Trump's affinity for scamming family members.
Pulte is, if anything, a reminder that if you're delusional and poor America will shun you, but if you're even more delusional and have a rich dad then some other delusional freak who had a rich dad will invariably assign you a top government position.
the current director of national intelligence is a guy who two years ago received a trophy declaring he âFucks Only The Youngâ at an (oddly dildo focused) event he organized dedicated to the conspiracy that Bed Bath and Beyond never actually went bankrupt
paris martineau
another fun fact is that Pulte used to host meetups for fellow memestock fans and went through a period where he unironically wore a "bulletproof vest" to bars because he was concerned his Enemies would Stop Him
paris martineau
The extent of Pulte's prior government experience can be measured solely by whether or not he ever managed to wander into one of the curtained-off corners of Mar-a-Lago that Trump insists count as popup SCIFs. But Pulte isn't expected to coordinate intelligence across government agencies to begin with; Trump doesn't give a flying damn what happens to or with the intelligence. Trump nominated Pulte to the position so that Pulte would be in a position to thumb through national security secrets the same way he's thumbed through mortgage records.
Trump considers the weaponization of federal agencies to be the only job any of his various toadies can be judged on, and Pulte has proven a willingness to weaponize even the most boring agency and put forward even the stupidest of supposed conspiracies.
Will Iranian-linked terrorists pull off a major attack on U.S. soil under Donald Trump's watch? We won't know unless it happens. But if you're looking to expose a good chunk of the American espionage apparatus in a fevered effort to tie any random Democratic senator to a confusingly dildo-riddled conspiracy to trick Americans into thinking Bed Bath and Beyond had gone bankrupt, this real estate failson is your guy.
Trump doesn't care. That's what we all need to internalize here. It's not that Trump is sabotaging the economy, the military, intelligence agencies, scientific research, medical research, public health in general, food supplies, fuel supplies, and every U.S. agency you can name because he has some vision for how America should operate either now or after he's gone. He doesn't give the slightest shit. For all he cares, the United States might as well cease to exist if it's not going to exist as a tacky gilded monument to him and him alone.
As with the $1.8 billion proposed slush fund for Trump-allied violent felons, there is a good chance that Pulte may not be long for the job. Senate Republicans still recovering from the previous Obvious Fking Crime are reeling from Trump's new announcement, and for the same reasons: These Republicans have staked their entire careers on being the tough-on-crime tough-on-terrorists lets-bomb-everybody daddy party, and nominating an obvious hack fresh off the Dildo & Memestock World Tour to be the new DNI after Tulsi Gabbard already made a wreck of the office might be too much for some senators.
Aaron Rupar
Meanwhile, Democratic senators are threatening to nix any new FISA deal if Pulte is installed. There's also a very good case to be made for impeaching Pulte right-the-hell-now, stripping him of the prior Senate confirmation that allows him to sail into the "acting" DNI role without new Senate approval.
So we'll see. Trump has used the DNI position as a dumping ground for hyperpartisan possibly-crooked cranks ranging from Gabbard to Rick Grenell; it has been obvious for nearly a decade that Trump sees the position as valuable solely as a way to wedge his most loyal of toadies into the U.S. intelligence apparatus.
And it's not a surprise anymore, because that is who Trump is. Trump has never, ever given a damn about terrorism, foreign espionage, or other threats to America. He truly and sincerely does not care, and you cannot make him care.
Watch any cabinet meeting and it becomes perfectly clear: Trump doesn't know what any of these agencies actually do. He only wants to know what each big-shoed bootlicker has been doing to glorify him and rout his infinitely many enemies, and if you take longer than ninety seconds to tell him there's a good chance he's going to fall asleep in his chair.
He is too stupid to ever learn, too mired in narcissism to ever care, and too fragile to ever change. So no: Given all of that, we are never going to convince the man to take international terrorism more seriously than he takes his own petty personal vendettas. And we will never, ever get him to agree that stuffing federal agencies with whichever random real estate dildo memestock failsons last wandered into his private Florida club is not, in the end, a viable system of government.
Comments
We want Uncharted Blue to be a welcoming and progressive space.
Before commenting, make sure you've read our Community Guidelines.