The Trump White House wants you to know that Olivia Troye, the latest former administration aide to tell the public how bad President Trump is at his job, is a “disgruntled” former employee.
“Disgruntled” is the same word Trump used for former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, former chief of staff John Kelly, and former national security adviser John Bolton.
Trump called Mattis “the world’s most overrated general.” He called Bolton “incompetent,” “wacko,” and a “dope.” Kelly couldn’t “handle the pressure.”
According to Trump, former Homeland Security official Miles Taylor is a “lowlife.” Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is “dumb as a rock.” Anthony Scaramucci “made a fool of himself.” Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, is a liar. West Wing aide Omarosa Newman is a “dog.”
This is a lot of really bad professional relationships, and maybe it says something about more than just Trump’s vetting process. It reminds me of a conversation I had in my 20s.
A group of us was telling roommate stories. Some were nightmares. Some were hilarious. This one young woman, about three years out of college, explained her horrible luck. All her college roommates were impossible to get along with. She had lived in three or four different apartments since college, and always, the roommate situation was dreadful.
I was tempted to ask her, “Across seven years, three states, and seven or eight houses, what do you think was the common denominator in these toxic situations you’ve found yourself in?”
I didn’t ask that because I didn’t really know the woman, and that would be rude. But we kind of know Trump. We see his narcissism. We see how quickly he gets petty and personal. We see his lack of concern for the truth.
So, when we see people who worked closely with him walk away and both Trump and the former aide have nothing good to say about the whole arrangement, it’s possible that Trump just has had bad luck and hired all these “dopes.”
But it seems more likely that the fault lies with the common denominator in all of these broken professional relationships Trump has had.
Raylan Givens had his own way of putting it.
