Trump Reveals the Biggest Lesson Learned From His First Term
“But I got to know ’em, and I got to know ’em the hard way. And I know the good ones, the bad ones, the weak ones, the smart ones, the dumb ones. I know ’em all now.”
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On Wednesday night, former President Donald Trump joined Fox News host Sean Hannity for a town hall in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Due to time limitations, Fox aired the remaining portion of the event on Thursday night.
One woman asked Trump, “What could you share that you’ve learned from your first time being in the Oval Office for those who are hesitant to vote for you now?”
So, we need a strong president and you know, I actually think we had a very stable administration. But we were hit with this weaponization. … All of the different Russia, Russia, Russia hoaxes and we won every single one of them. The most important thing and I found – and you can say this is true in business also – we have to get the right people. When I first went there, 2016, I had a lot of good people, I had a lot of good advice, but I put people in that, in some cases, were not what I really wanted.
I didn’t know much about Washington. I was there 17 times in my whole life. And I wasn’t in D.C. very much.
But I got to know ’em, and I got to know ’em the hard way. And I know the good ones, the bad ones, the weak ones, the smart ones, the dumb ones. I know ’em all now.
…
But a big key to running it is: Get the right people. You put the right person and the right group of people at the heads of these massive agencies, you’re going to have tremendous success. And I know now the people better than anyone would know them.
Trump was spot on. As difficult as it may be to believe that the brash billionaire from New York had little or no idea of the traps being set for him by the administrative state (or whatever one chooses to call the permanent group of unelected government officials who run Washington, D.C.), Trump did not exaggerate. His unfamiliarity with how things worked in the Capital City left him completely unprepared for the injustices already in place or the outrages to come. It’s fair to say he was naive. He took advice from those who wanted him to fail and trusted the wrong people.
By the spring of 2016, it was apparent that Trump would likely win the Republican presidential nomination, and the Democratic machine went into overdrive to derail his candidacy. And following his shock victory that November, they set out to destroy his presidency by any means necessary, including the weaponization of federal agencies against him.
The Democrats’ persecution of Trump had begun. Here are a few examples of what happened behind closed doors during the 2016 election cycle.
The Steele dossier:
Washington attorney Marc Elias, then a partner at the Perkins Coie law firm, represented both the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
[Prior to April 2016, opposition research firm Fusion GPS had been commissioned by the Washington Free Beacon to provide dirt on Trump. In April, the Free Beacon ended its relationship with Fusion, and the firm’s founder, Glenn Simpson, approached Elias to see if he might be interested in continuing the research. Needless to say, he was.]
Elias hired Fusion GPS and laundered funds from the DNC and the Clinton campaign through his law firm to pay Simpson. Simpson hired former British spy Christopher Steele to create the bogus collection of derogatory stories about Trump that would come to be known as the Steele dossier.
Simpson also hired Nellie Ohr, who was married to Bruce Ohr, the fourth highest ranking DOJ official at the time. Bruce Ohr acted as a back channel between Steele and the FBI.
The first stories from the fictitious dossier were leaked to the press in September 2016.
Bruce Ohr testified in an August 2018 Congressional hearing that he had warned the FBI that none of the information in the dossier had been verified. Moreover, during a January 2017 interview, Steele’s primary subsource, Igor Danchenko, told the FBI that the stories had been “made up” in a Russian bar. Yet the bureau still used the dossier as the basis of their FISA Court application for a warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in October 2016 and for three renewals.
The DNC’s server was hacked:
In late April 2016, the DNC noticed unusual network activity and called in cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. As the story goes, technicians told the DNC the Russians had hacked their servers, and their emails had been leaked to Wikileaks. Strangely, the DNC refused to let the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security conduct forensic examinations of their server. Additionally, the FBI accepted CrowdStrike’s unverified and redacted report, even passing it on to the Mueller team.
After the emails were released the weekend before the Democratic Convention, Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook told reporters, “some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.”
Democratic lawmakers and the media ran with this narrative.
The New York Times wrote an article supporting the DNC’s version of the story in July 2016. The FBI leaked information to bolster this narrative and the Times ran a second story.
The DNC version of events was repeated so frequently and with such conviction that, ultimately, it became accepted as the truth.
The Russian collusion scandal was born.
And simultaneously:
In 2014, Admiral Mike Rogers, who served as the Director of the National Security Agency under President Obama, discovered that American citizens were being spied upon and drew attention to the abuse of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the Obama administration. Used as intended, it’s a useful law enforcement tool. Abused as it had been by Obama administration officials up until Rogers’ discovery in 2014, it became a weapon.
The Obama White House used these intercepts, which are meant to be used to thwart terrorist attacks, against their opponents for political purposes.
It was Mike Rogers who traveled to Trump Tower on November 17, 2016, to brief then-President-elect Donald Trump that communications from the building were being tapped. Later that day, the Trump transition team announced they were moving their operations to a new location in New Jersey. Within days, The Washington Post reported that “[then-Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter had recommended the removal of Mike Rogers from his NSA position.” Rogers was not fired, for obvious reasons.
Trump is still standing:
In January 2017, then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, “Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” Unfortunately, that’s true, and no one knows that better than Trump.
Yet, despite the Democrats’ nine-year campaign to destroy him, Trump is still standing. His eyes are wide open. As he said during the town hall, “But I got to know ’em, and I got to know ’em the hard way. And I know the good ones, the bad ones, the weak ones, the smart ones, the dumb ones. I know ’em all now.”
If he wins, with people like J.D. Vance, Elon Musk, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. by his side, he will be formidable.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Let’s pray
Amen
If Trump is elected, I hope he will select a rock-solid conservative Attorney General who will not be afraid to do what is right.
Unless the GOP takes back the Senate (probably with at least a two or three seat majority), there is no way an AG you’re describing could ever get confirmed, unfortunately. Romney, Murkowski and probably Collins should be viewed as wholly unreliable. In addition to WV (a certain pickup) winning senate seats in MT, PA, OH and maybe even AZ is really, really important.
So just keep appointing the same interim AG while the one you want confirmed is held up for 2-4 years by the senate.
While the senate fucks about with the one you want, you got your other guy in there getting their hands dirty in preparation for the other guy coming in.
I would imagine they could still get a lot of shit sorted out while the senate shows us how irrelevant they really are.
The only way that could work is if the GOP takes back the Senate (which seems very likely ATM) AND the GOP Leader actually recesses the Senate…something McConnell never did specifically to deny Trump the ability to make recess appointments. Recess appointments are then good for 12 calendar months.
I believe that recess appointments are good for the entire period of the Congessional session (two years) unless confirmed or denied.
Yeah, that may be correct.
The senate can’t adjourn for more than three days without the house’s permission. Once the Dems controlled the House that was certainly not going to happen.
Even in the first two years, when the Reps controlled the House, and might have given permission, it’s likely that an adjournment motion in the senate would not have received a majority.
A congressional session is one year. But recess appointments last until the end of the next session, so the end of the calendar year after the one in which they’re made.
But didn’t that depend on the adoption of a pro forma session resolution, which purported to convene the Senate every three days, and which resolution required unanimous consent?
As I recall, McConnell’s tactic to block Pres.Trump’s recess appointment authority could have been countered by a single (presumably Republican) senator’s nay vote on unanimous consent. A vote which never came, and which went some distance in justifying the term, “uniparty.”
Meaning that if I’m recalling correctly, a single Trump loyalist could force either a true continuous (non-recessed) Senate session or stymy the pro forma session ploy by negating unanimous consent.
If the GOP wins both houses and McConnell (he says he is going to step aside) or another rino is not Senate majority leader declare a recess and make key recess appointments to positions like AG. Clean house as rapidly as possible.
Hard to believe what a disappointment Romney is. I’m happy he never became president.
“Hard to believe what a disappointment Romney is.”
Tell me you’re not from Massachusetts, without telling me…
A real ball buster
Well at least Trump’s first Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III had the good sense to bat Bad Touch Biden’s hands away from his granddaughter in that one ceremony they were in together.
I hope he appoints an AG who will rain payback down on Obama, Hillary, Brennan, Clapper, Comey for a start. Put them through the same law fare that DJT is dealing with. No more Mr. nice guy.
The only thing wrong about this post is that it could have been a book. Thanks for writing it!
The only questions I have:
Will Trump be allowed to win?
If so, will Trump be allowed to take office?
If so, will Trump be allowed to survive an entire four year presidency?
1. Yes
2. Not without a fight
3. No, it will be the impetus for WWIII.
On #3, I am not so sure. Trump is a lame duck from day one. Knocking him off puts in place a more conservative, sharp, young guy who can serve possibly two more terms.
To this day, I don’t understand why no one wants to discuss Obama’s culpability in all this. The Trump campaign was being surveilled under the express permission of Obama. It was Obama who twisted the law to spy on Trump. Why the hell does everyone from republicans in Congress to the media pretend he had nothing to do with it?
have said the same many a times
of course they know that obama being black gives him protection from “too much” criticism
It gave him much more protection until people came to understand his nature. Now we can ignore his race and focus on his lack of merit and his POS character.
black God
Magic Negro
Black baby Jesus
HNIC
Black charlatan.
“Trump Reveals the Biggest Lesson Learned From His First Term”
“I know ’em all now.”
Sigh.
He hasn’t learned the lesson.
and he doesnt go fror that civil servant aka unions bulll
he puts people in and if they dont perfrom their duties correctly….FIRED
THATS A BOSS
Except he replaced those he fired with worse people
Not at all. Some were very good at their jobs.
As already mentioned, we all knew the swamp was deep but we had no idea just how truly decrepit it really is!
No prisoners in the next administration! Gotta move on as there is no point crying about a past you can’t change.
Pompeo was fantastic and he should be picked again.
I’m impressed with Trump’s humble, honest assessment of his first term.
Yes. He seems to have learned a bunch over two years. I was thinking about this yesterday when I was watching Megan Kelly discussing Harris’s debate prep strategy. It sounded like a decent prep for Trump 2016 (get him rattled and off kilter), but to day isn’t 2016, and I doubt that strategy will be effective next Tuesday.
What he must on day one is what the Dems always do and that is act first and apologize later. Fire all the lying SOBs in every department and replace them. Of course, they will get their jobs back but not for a long time. Concentrate on the CIA, FBI, NSA, and DOJ. Fire the heads immediately and vet with lie detector test replacements. I pray that he has help selecting new people but I’m not holding my breath because so many will still be in DC after he leaves and do not want their careers ruined.
RFK Jr., Dianne Feinstein, the Mojave desert, the Desert Protection Act (DPA), BrightSource Inc, Silicon Valley venture capitalists, solar panels and patronage.
For years RFK Jr. helped to expropriate “sagebrush” cattle rancher land via environmental lawfare. Mid 1990’s Dianne Feinstein snatched Mojave Desert public property and access to that land via the DPA. Then Big Solar happened. 2009ish Queen Dianne was rewriting the DSA to allow energy development on her “protected” desert land.
RFK Jr. was hired to front solar projects on previously expropriated sagebrush desert land by SV venture capitalists. He tried to muscle in on Queen Dianne’s patronage. No one muscles QDI. The fight spilled into the public square. Squabbling over political patronage projects – by tacit agreement – should never become a feature seen and heard by the peasantry.
2010 Fresno-Bakersfield, LAT’s and NYT newspapers followed the nasty patronage fight closely. Then the unthinkable happened – Democrats lost control of the Senate and QDI deposed.
Let’s all agree that at some point we all were a bit shocked at the depth of the betrayals…. lest we forget Generals undermining Trump with China, Republicans in Congress fighting to undermine his legislative initiatives out of spite and the number of “good conservatives” who were lying to him and betraying him.
And most of all…… no one seems to want to talk about the fact that the FBI is now owning up to the fact that the questions Trump asked about Ukraine were in fact true and documented – and they helped the House run an impeachment anyway.
Methinks one of the first things Trump would do on Day One would be to reimplement Schedule F. In short, making every DC bureaucrat in a policy-making position dependent on the pleasure of the president for his/her continued employment. It wouldn’t go as far as a complete reform of the Civil Service system or a return to a modified patronage arrangement, but it would have a dramatic and immediate effect in quashing a Dem-led “resistance”.
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