Politics
Column: Listen to Trump's former aides: He'd be far more dangerous in a second term
Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, broke a long silence and denounced his former boss as a man who fits “the general definition of fascist.”
The conservative, normally taciturn Kelly was moved to speak out after Trump condemned former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Adam B. Schiff and other Democrats as “the enemy from within” and said he would deploy troops onto the nation’s streets to suppress opposition.
“Using the military on, to go after, American citizens is … a very, very bad thing,” Kelly told the New York Times. “Even to say it for political purposes to get elected, I think it’s a very, very bad thing.”
Kelly wasn’t the only former Trump aide to warn that the GOP candidate shouldn’t be trusted with the nuclear codes. Dozens of people who worked in senior positions in the Trump administration have chimed in. Gen. Mark A. Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called him “fascist to the core … the most dangerous person to the country.” Former national security advisor John Bolton said he was “unfit to be president.”
Trump “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world — and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, any time he wanted,” Kelly said.
Did those warnings from authoritative sources — eminent figures Trump once appointed to high-ranking jobs — have any effect on his voters as election day approaches?
Not as far as anyone can tell.
Readers of this column won’t be surprised to learn that I agree wholeheartedly with Kelly, Milley, Bolton and their colleagues: Trump is a danger to our democracy.
He neither understands nor respects the Constitution. He yearns openly to rule the way China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin do, as an autocrat answerable to no one. “He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist,” he said admiringly of Xi.
Trump revels in divisiveness and cruelty. And his economic “program,” which boils down to massive tariffs on imports plus unlimited drilling for oil and gas, would be disastrous.
Why do millions of voters — many of them, as Trump might put it, very fine people — blow past the warnings of figures like Kelly, Milley and Bolton?
Over the last year, I’ve listened to dozens of Trump voters describe their reasons for sticking with him.
Some, his hardcore base, agree with everything the former president says right down to the coarsest insults.
Others admit to qualms about Trump’s style but say they support him because they hope he can bring back the low-inflation prosperity of his first two years in office.
But a third group, which includes many independents as well as moderate Republicans, is the most perplexing. Not only do they dislike Trump’s style, they worry about some of his positions: his desire to unravel Obamacare, his threats to deploy the military against domestic opponents, his indiscriminate tariffs, his plan to fire thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists.
But many say they don’t think Trump would — or could — actually make those things happen.
In a focus group last week organized for NBC News by the public opinion consulting firm Engagious, for example, an Atlanta home inspector named Kevin said he worried that Trump’s tariffs would make consumer prices go up.
“It’s a bad idea,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s going to really go anywhere. I think it’ll cost too much money. It’ll be too difficult politically.” He’ll probably vote for Trump anyway, he said.
Pollsters have called this Trump’s “believability gap.” Voters hear what he says, but they discount it — they think that “he’s just talking” or that surely somebody will stop his more outlandish ideas.
But there are two problems with those Trump voters’ self-comforting rationalizations.
The first is that Trump already has a track record of trying to do most of those things. He tried to repeal Obamacare, but a handful of moderate Republican senators got in his way. He issued an executive order that would have enabled him to replace civil servants with political appointees, but time ran out on his term before he could use it.
And when demonstrators assembled across the street from the White House, he urged military officials to deploy troops and shoot protesters in the legs — but Gen. Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper stopped him.
“When he starts talking about using the military against people … I think we should take that very seriously,” Olivia Troye, who served as an aide to Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, told my colleague Noah Bierman recently. “He actually talked about shooting Americans. I was there … I witnessed that.”
The second problem with the “believability gap” is that if Trump gets back to the White House, he will be more likely to get his way.
He has frequently complained that he made a mistake in his first term by appointing aides like Kelly, Milley and Bolton, who believed it was their duty to restrain the president’s ill-considered impulses. If he gets a second term, he’ll surround himself with more people who will do his bidding without raising pesky questions.
He’ll run into less opposition from other institutions too.
Republicans in Congress, who occasionally restrained Trump when he was president, have purged most of the moderates from their ranks. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah is retiring. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, an occasional Trump critic, will no longer be his party’s leader in the Senate.
Federal courts may be more hospitable, too, thanks to judges Trump appointed his first time around.
So moderate Republicans and independents who are tempted to vote for Trump because they hope he will lower taxes or improve the economy should think long and hard about the risks of that bargain.
When Trump says he’ll order prosecutors to go after Joe Biden and “the Pelosis,” he means it. When Trump says he’ll punish businesses like Amazon if he doesn’t like their owners’ views, he means it. When Trump says he believes the Constitution gives him “the right to do whatever I want as president,” he means it.
And this time, he would know better how to turn his wishes into reality. A second Trump term wouldn’t be a benign rerun of the first version. As his former aides are trying their best to warn us, it would be far worse.
new video loaded: Jan. 6 Rioter Hired by Pentagon
transcript
transcript
Jan. 6 Rioter Hired by Pentagon
Elias Irizarry, who pleaded guilty to climbing through a broken window at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, now works for an office responsible for uncovering and defending against terrorism plots at the Pentagon.
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“Full pardon or commutation?” “Full pardon.”
By Alisa Shodiyev Kaff
June 4, 2026
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Democrats splintered over a resolution seeking to block the U.S. from assisting Israel’s war against Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, on Thursday.
The measure, offered by progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., would require President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from Lebanon. For months, Israel and Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group and Iranian proxy, have been at war in southern Lebanon, but the United States has not joined the conflict.
A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., rejected the measure. Critics argued the resolution could aid Hezbollah and potentially hamstring U.S. military operations in the country.
Tlaib’s resolution failed 92-324, with more than half of House Democrats joining nearly all Republicans to vote it down.
The Lebanon war powers resolution divided Democrats, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., joining Republicans in rejecting the measure. (Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg)
REP RASHIDA TLAIB MOVES TO BLOCK US OPERATIONS IN LEBANON BUT IGNORES HEZBOLLAH
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., an Israel critic, was the lone Republican to support Tlaib’s measure. Meanwhile, Reps. Derek Tran, D-Calif., and Betty McCollum, D-Minn., voted present.
House Democratic leaders said shortly before the vote they would oppose Tlaib’s resolution and work with the progressive lawmaker on a narrower measure exempting some U.S. military operations in the country. Their statement also denounced Hezbollah as a “violent terrorist organization” and a “sworn enemy of the United States.”
Tlaib, who has accused Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing” in Lebanon, did not mention Hezbollah in her resolution. She and other proponents of the measure also avoided discussing the Iranian proxy force during heated floor debate over the measure.
Republicans highlighted the omission and accused the legislation’s supporters of serving as “proxies for Hezbollah.”
“Apparently they don’t want to see Israel killing Hezbollah, even though it’s Hezbollah that is killing Israeli children, Israeli adults, Israeli elders,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, R-Fla., said Wednesday, referring to his Democratic colleagues.
Tlaib asserted that her resolution would only affect U.S. forces actively engaged in hostilities. Republicans, however, disputed that claim and suggested it would hurt U.S. efforts to counter Hezbollah.
“It doesn’t say anything about [whether] you can keep the Marines that are in the embassy,” Mast said, referring to the U.S. embassy in Beirut. “That’s a pretty big oversight. It doesn’t say anything about whether we can keep United States armed forces that are training missions with the LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces]. Again, pretty big oversight.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan, attempted to bar U.S. forces from joining Israel’s war in Lebanon. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg)
RASHIDA TLAIB HIT WITH HOUSE CENSURE THREAT, ACCUSED OF ‘CELEBRATING TERRORISM’ IN PRO-PALESTINIAN SPEECH
The debate turned personal when Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, linked Tlaib to Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah is a terrorist organization … and its members are butchers that you like to hang out with to a certain extent,” the Ohio lawmaker said, referring to Tlaib.
A shouting match between the two then broke out, with Tlaib demanding that Miller’s remarks be stricken from the record.
The presiding chair ultimately complied with her request, but Miller doubled down on his remarks.
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“Yes, I said it. I own it, and I stand by it,” Mast said on behalf of Miller on the floor.
Tlaib’s failed war powers resolution comes as Iran has sought to tie Israel’s invasion of Lebanon to its ceasefire negotiations with the United States.
Hezbollah, which has long helped Iran project power in the region, rejected a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon’s government Thursday.
WASHINGTON — Initial efforts in the Senate failed Thursday to block the $1.8-billion fund that the Trump administration has sought to establish to pay people who claim the government wronged them, though further attempts were likely to come Thursday afternoon.
Republicans narrowly voted down a Democratic amendment to ban the payout fund and then Democrats killed a Republican amendment, which would have prohibited the use of federal money for the fund but would have sent $1.7 billion to the Justice Department’s fraud division.
It was the second effort in Congress to rebuke President Trump in two days, following the House vote Wednesday to rein in Trump’s war powers in Iran.
The dueling amendments were proposed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). They were attached to the reconciliation bill that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, a high priority for Republicans.
The votes came as the Senate began a “vote-a-rama,” during which lawmakers were expected to propose a stream of amendments to the immigration bill on various topics.
The Trump administration’s plan for the payment fund — widely seen as a way for Trump to compensate his political allies, including those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — set off particular ire from some GOP lawmakers.
The plan has fueled growing unrest within parts of Trump’s party over his governance, compounded by the president’s endorsement of primary challengers to Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), as well as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), which angered some Republican senators.
Cassidy, who lost his primary and has since voiced strong opposition to Trump’s $1.8-billion fund, became a key player in the Thursday votes, voting down Schumer’s amendment but supporting Tillis’.
On Wednesday, Cassidy joined with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to argue in a court filing that the $1.8-billion fund circumvents Congress’ authority and violates the Constitution’s spending and appropriations clauses.
“It is an unconstitutional attempt to spend the People’s money without Congressional approval,” Cassidy and Booker wrote in an amicus brief filed in the federal court case challenging the fund.
The fund was created by the Justice Department to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. Trump and his sons agreed to drop their personal lawsuit against the government in exchange for the creation of the $1.776-billion fund. Critics immediately questioned the plan, and it drew a rare backlash from Republicans.
In late May, GOP senators derailed plans to vote on the immigration bill over their displeasure with the payout fund and with Trump’s desire to use taxpayer funds for his planned White House ballroom. Senate Republicans removed the ballroom funding from the immigration package Wednesday, another setback for Trump.
The Trump administration sought to back away from its plans for the fund this week, following bipartisan outcry and a federal court ruling that temporarily blocked any payouts from the fund. Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said Tuesday the administration would end its plans to move ahead with the concept.
But Trump on Wednesday told reporters he didn’t know whether the fund was dead, calling it “a beautiful thing.”
After Schumer proposed the first amendment to ban the fund Thursday morning, the Senate came to a standstill as three key Republican senators deliberated. Schumer framed his effort to ban the fund Thursday as a way to force a referendum on Trump’s plan.
The amendment “offers Republicans a choice: Do you support Donald Trump’s $2 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund, or do you want to protect the American people and their paychecks?” Schumer said on the Senate floor before the vote.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) urged Republicans to reject the amendment, saying Democrats were planning to “play so many games” on Thursday during the marathon session.
“We are going to fund immigration enforcement and border patrol, and I urge my Republican colleagues to stay united on that singular mission,” Moreno said.
The amendment failed after Cassidy voted against it. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska voted in favor.
Schumer’s amendment was uniformly supported by Democrats, including California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla.
Tillis, who also voted against Schumer’s amendment, immediately proposed his amendment. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) urged Democrats to oppose it, saying that the proposal would create “a new slush fund” by giving the money to the Justice Department.
“We heard over the last 48 hours that the acting attorney general said that this fund’s not moving forward. All this amendment does is codify what I believe the policy of the DOJ is,” Tillis said on the floor before voting began on his amendment. “This [fund] is unpopular, this administration has said they’re not moving forward with it; this is an opportunity for us to put it to bed.”
Responded Merkley: “Taking one slush fund and eliminating it and then creating a new slush fund still under control of the attorney general is not the way to go. The way to go is to get rid of these slush funds altogether.”
Trump has faced a recent string of failures, including the House vote Wednesday, a court ruling to remove his name from the Kennedy Center and a record-low approval rating among Americans as concern rises about economic issues, gas prices and Trump’s war with Iran.
On Wednesday, Trump lashed out against the four Republicans who backed the House war powers resolution, calling it “an unpatriotic thing” to do and calling the vote “meaningless.”
“They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves. MAGA!!! President DJT,” Trump wrote.
Times staff writer Ana Ceballos, in Washington, contributed to this report.
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