Trump Seems Perfectly Fine Using Reporters and White House Staff as Collateral Damage, and I’m Totally Disgusted

3 min readOkay, the part to be angry about is that he used some of his own staff and some people in my business to save his own desiccated hide.An Iranian assassination threat against President Donald Trump prompted an extraordinary operation last month in which he flew secretly from Turkey on an alternate military aircraft while the White House said he was aboard Air Force One, The Washington Post has learned.The clandestine mission, which has not been reported previously, was carried out unbeknownst to journalists and some White House staff members who believed they were on the same plane as the president, according to material reviewed by The Post, a U.S. official familiar with the operation and another person with knowledge of the president’s travel. These people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the matter.What a reckless, overboiling pot of molten sociopathy this man is.Now, back to the comedy.The administration has claimed that Trump departed Turkey on July 8 on the former Air Force One. Trump announced on social media that he would use the “former Air Force One” rather than the plane that flew him there, a newer Boeing 747-8 gifted to the United States by Qatar. The security of the Qatar-provided aircraft has been called into question, and Trump said last month after the trip that it would undergo additional upgrades. In Ankara, Trump boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras. He was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane—an Air Force C-32A—via an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies preflight, according to the U.S. official and corroborating material reviewed by The Post. That made Air Force One a “decoy” with media and some White House staff aboard, the official said.President Lincoln came to Washington on a heavily fortified train disguised by a wool hat instead of his trademark stovepipe. President Trump came back to Washington disguised as a load of Bud Light.I do not minimize the possibility of an active threat to the president on behalf of Iran due to the incredibly stupid war of choice he launched with no apparent plan beyond lying about it on social media. As I said, I object to using reporters and White House staff as collateral damage. And, of course, much of the entire comic opera can be attributed to the Super Cool Jet Aeroplane—Bribe Force One—gifted to the president by the oil sheikhs of Qatar. This gaudy lemon had to be retooled so that some kid in Maine couldn’t accidentally pick up national-security discussions on his laptop. Once again, the lies point the way.“The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the President and his staff,” Cheung’s statement said. “As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats.”Including, apparently, state-of-the-art, high-level-security booze carts. There are many ways to fight a war. Some of them are stranger than others.