On Tuesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Gill and Leahy talked to One America News Networks Neil McCabe about the recent Trump Administration firings and why they didn’t last.
Further into the segment the men talked about the leaks coming from the White House and the non-committed holdovers from Obama’s administration that are allegedly sabotaging the Trump agenda.
Leahy: We are joined now on the line as we are every Tuesday morning at this time by our very good friend Neil McCabe the Washington correspondent from One America News Network. Welcome Neil!
McCabe: How you doing men? We’re all very excited about what’s going on in DC this week.
(Leahy laughs)
Leahy: Has anyone been fired in the last twelve hours? (Laughing)
McCabe: You know I think it’s interesting that in the first few years of a presidential administration, doesn’t matter who it is, there’s a lot of people who get white house jobs because they did a great job on the campaign.
Leahy: Hmmhm..
McCabe: And they were sort of like loyal soldiers. And then they get to the White House and they just can’t handle it. And then there’s that sort of flush guys out party regulars.
Leahy: Neil, what is it that they can’t handle?
McCabe: Let me just say this. The weird thing about the Trump White House.
Leahy: There’s just one weird thing about it Neil? (Laughs)
McCabe: Yeah. The one weird thing is that all of the loyal Trump guys got boxed out and it was Washington people who got all the great jobs.
Leahy: Exactly.
McCabe: They’re getting flushed out and now going into year three, it’s the Trumpians who are getting the jobs. Guys like Peter Navarro and Steven Miller. These guys were absolutely boxed out the first two years and now they’re running the show.
Gill: And you still have agencies and departments throughout Washington that Trump hasn’t staffed up because you know, “I don’t really care about these alphabet agencies we’re gong to save money by not filling them with people who want to advance the Trump agenda.” So you’ve had the holdovers from Obamaville running the show at all these bureaucratic agencies and the Trump supporters and conservatives going, “Why aren’t we getting anything done?” It’s because Trump left the Obama people in and as you’ve pointed out, surrounded himself with the Reince Prebibus’s and the Sean Spicer’s and people who were never-Trumpers from the RNC that he filled the White House with initially.
McCabe: Well, yeah. And it’s like three things going on: One, Trump thought he could make peace and run a coalition government which was…
Leahy: Nope.
McCabe: Which was crazy.
Leahy: Nope, never going to happen.
McCabe: Also he put, he was unable to tell Ivanka and Jared to stay in New York and Ivanka and Jared they insist on manipulating her father and they just, it’s like he doesn’t know how to say no to her. And there we are. And then the other thing is that Trump, for all of his reputations being this tough guy who fires everybody, he certainly fired a few people in the last few days.
He really does not know how to get rid of snakes. And there are people around him to this day in his White House who are tearing him apart. Everyday when you read the leaks from the White House, other administrations the leaks are this fraction versus that fraction. Pentagon versus State Department. And in this White House all of the leaks are from his own people saying, “I can’t believe what a jerk I’m working for.” (Leahy laughs) It’s like crazy!
Leahy: Yeah.
McCabe: That his own people are the one’s knee capping him all the time.
Leahy: So, back to the recent firings. So we’ve had a flurry of activity all around homeland security and secret service. The first news is this guy whose going to head up Vitiello. What was he going to head up? Border Patrol? Is that what he’s scheduled to head up?
Gill: Customs and border.
Leahy: Customs and border patrol.
McCabe: Yeah.
Leahy: He’d been nominated. Then all of a sudden he was un-nominated and then the next day Bridgette Nielsen is fired, I mean…
Gill: Kirjsten Nielsen.
Leahy: Sorry, Kirjsten Nielsen (Laughter) Kirjsten Nielsen. Thank you.
McCabe: What did you say? Bridgette Nielsen.
(Leahy laughing)
Gill: She would be a good choice.
McCabe: Awwww.
(Laugher)
Gill: I mean, she’s tall, hot. I saw her in a boxing match on the sidelines a few months ago.
McCabe: Right? (Inaudible talk)
Gill: That’s right.
Leahy: Yeah exactly and Sylvester Stallone the whole deal.
(McCabe chuckles)
Leahy: So anyways, then fires the secret service director. I mean boom, boom, boom.
Gill: Well I mean when you let some Chinese spy penetrate all the way into Mar-a-Lago with all sorts of Malware and everything. There’s some breakdown in the secret service.
McCabe: Well that guy running secret service he has no business running secret service other than the fact he was pals with John Kelly.
Leahy: That was it.
McCabe: So, yeah. There was a lot of discourse inside secret service that he just wasn’t leading the department. So there’s a lot of people in the State Department who don’t appreciate Trump’s policies. You know and what he’s trying to do. But they you know, Mike Pompeo, they’re in a good mood. Mike Pompeo is a good leader and he’s turned the moral around.
Leahy: That’s my take on it as well. It looks like to me Neil, from what you say, this is basically the John Kelly purge right? Nielsen.
McCabe: Well a lot of that. And you know you get John Kelly who goes to Duke and says, “Well yeah I worked for Trump, I would have worked for Hillary, I’m just a guy, I’m just here to do my job.” This is like the Chief of Staff. He was Homeland Security and then White House Chief of Staff and now we find out he didn’t even care what the agenda was and he didn’t even particularly trust the President of the United States. This is crazy.
Leahy: So why? Why the question would be, what’s Trumps problem in terms of selecting people in his cabinet and work at White House?
McCabe: Well, I think that the problem is because he’s a New York real estate guy he’s always very overconfident that he can win people over personally. And that once he wins them over personally with a handshake and a meeting that then they can sort of work together. He’s doesn’t really see anybody as a permanent enemy as a permanent friend. He just says I sued you last year but we’re going to build a building this year.
He just wants to get stuff done and what he doesn’t’ understand is that people in Washington are toxic, evil, horrible human beings. (Leahy laughs) And he can’t work with these people. He had dinner what three times with Comey? He’s texting Comey, he’s calling Comey. It’s like he was courting Comey. And then one day he’s having dinner with Comey, he looks across the table and he’s like, “Omg, my FBI director hates me and wants to put me in jail.” It’s like it finally dawns on him.
Gill: He was really doing the same thing wasn’t he Neil, he figured he could meet with Kim Jong-un in North Korea and he would get them to agree because of the power of his personality. The same thing with President Xi of China. I can get a trade deal. I’m not going to let these underlings negotiate it. The power of my personality when I meet with this guy is going to overwhelm him. I can strike a deal. And he’s learning that that’s not how it actually works in this arena.
McCabe: Well, in his world it worked. And it does work to create effect as President of the United States. There are people he’s won over but it’s like there’s so many other things in play. Paul Ryan was never going to stop hating him or his agenda. Paul Ryan was never going to do what Donald Trump wanted if it wasn’t what the Chamber of Commerce and the Coke brothers told him to do. It was never going to happen. And if you look at the Coke brothers agenda, they had a very good year. Of the first two years rather. The Coke brothers have no complaints with the Trump Administration right? It’s just the only people who lost were the Trump voters.
Gill: The other thing Neil, I think that and Doug and Mike were talking about in the last hour, you have a very accomplished smart person in Kirjsten Nielsen who’s a lawyer. I think she went to the University of Virginia law school.
Leahy: She did.
Gill: But she’s been a bureaucratic government lawyer her whole career. Trump comes from New York and I’ll say this as a lawyer. One of my big pet peeves with lawyers is that they’ll generally give you the, “Oh, you can’t do that,” answer. Rather than answering to a person like Trump and saying, “Look, what are you trying to accomplish. Let’s figure out how to accomplish what you want. But what you’ve said you want to do. We can’t do that because it’s illegal.” And Kirjsten never said, “Ok, let’s figure out how to do what you want to do.” Rather than just use legal speak and say, “Oh, I’m sorry we can’t do that.” And she stopped there.
Leahy: Neil we have thirty seconds. Wrap it up for us.
McCabe: One America News! If you don’t have it you should call your cable providers because my kids need a bike for Christmas.
(Leahy and Gill bellow)Â
Leahy: I love that Neil. That’s straight forward and honest and to the point. Neil we look forward to having you back next Tuesday at six fifteen. Any predictions on how many more Trump administration executives will be fired?
McCabe: There will be more.
(Laughter)
Leahy: Neil McCabe.
Gill: What was the movie? There will be blood.
Leahy: There will be blood. Neil McCabe, One America News Network correspondent from Washington. Thanks for joining us.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
