The Enemy of My Enemy Is RFK

November 20, 2024/in General/by Ann Coulter

LOOKING FOR: A wild-eyed, former-junkie to dynamite the entire FDA/CDC/Pfizer/McDonald/CocaCola industrial complex.

With great leadership like that, for two years, most of the country dutifully (or by legal sanction) walked around masked all the time — indoors, outdoors, on playgrounds, beaches and bikes. Day care centers tortured infants by forcing them into the completely useless masks; fist fights broke out on airplanes because the government was requiring flight attendants to make everyone over the age of 2 wear a mask; and public school teachers sadistically taped masks to kids’ faces.

To this day, you still sometimes see the 6-foot markers on floors at airports, post offices and government buildings, mementos of the made-up distancing rule that “just sort of appeared,” according to Fauci. They’re like phrenology skulls or Aztec human sacrifice temples — artifacts of an odd and discredited belief system.

In the face of 100 years of scientific knowledge, “I Am the Science” Fauci stubbornly denied the existence of natural immunity. Although studies consistently showed that prior COVID infection provided better protection than the vaccine — something even the E.U. recognized — our public health mandarins remained studiously ignorant of the science. (Not to be confused with “The Science,” which apparently is a small, egotistical Italian man with a godawful Brooklyn accent.)

Nearly alone in the world, our government’s medical “experts” recommended repeated vaccine shots for healthy young people, age 5 and up, despite their facing near-zero risk from COVID, but serious risks from the vaccine, such as anaphylaxis, myocarditis, pericarditis and/or early death. Ask your doctor if the COVID vaccine is right for you!

Fauci and Francis Collins, then head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), were so devoted to the scientific method that they conspired to manufacture a “quick and devastating published takedown” of scientists who dissented from their demand that the entire country be shut down — specifically, the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued against universal shutdowns, advocating instead for focused protection for the elderly, i.e., the only people at risk of death from COVID.

Obviously — thank you Sweden and Florida — the dissenters were 100% correct, while Fauci, Collins and the rest of our health bureaucracy were 100% wrong. But at the time, the declaration’s principal authors, from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford, were smeared by Collins as “fringe epidemiologists” and blacklisted from social media with the connivance of the federal government.

It isn’t just that these “public health” experts failed spectacularly and never apologized. They’re still bragging about ruining millions of lives for no reason. Fauci was paid nearly $5 million for his memoir about his “journey in public service.” Collins delivered his letter of resignation in the form of a whimsical ditty, sung by himself, accompanied by himself on acoustic guitar. The guy is nuttier than Lizzo’s personal trainer.

Our constitutionally protected watchdog media lavishly praised these bozos while ginning up nonstop COVID hysteria.

In addition to The New York Times’ lachrymose “Those We’ve Lost” series, producing obituaries for every COVID death (average age of the dead: 120), the paper told an alarmist story about a “26-year-old physician” who died of COVID in a New York City hospital early in the pandemic. His death was somberly reported in the magazine section by Times contributor, Dr. Helen Ouyang.

In response to repeated requests from an alert reader for evidence that such a death had occurred, the editors indignantly claimed that Ouyang had spoken “with the man’s attending physician,” and the death was “confirmed by fact-checkers.” Executive Editor Dean Baquet snapped at the persistent skeptic: “Enough. … [W]e have answered and we are done.”

Then it turned out that, of course, the doctor who died of COVID was made up. After The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple got on the case, the Times admitted as much in an “Editor’s Note.” Baquet owned up to an “error.”

But even the “Trust the Science!” Times expressed outrage when it discovered the CDC had been hiding data that proved booster shots did absolutely nothing for adults between the ages of 18 and 49. Nothing, that is, other than put them at risk of death and other side effects.

Outside physicians, who’d been begging for this data, “were stunned to hear that information exists.” But CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund explained they’d withheld the data because it “might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective.”

Although nothing can compare to the Chinese water torture brought to us by the COVID autocrats, let’s not forget that, to this day, all major medical associations support the Mengele-like poisoning and mutilating of adolescents who think they’re the opposite gender. This includes the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

This will be at least the second medical catastrophe foisted on the country by the pediatric academy. These same geniuses single-handedly created the peanut allergy epidemic. Based on pure speculation — not research or studies — in 2000, the academy began recommending that children under 3 not consume peanut products in order to reduce the possibility of their developing a peanut allergy.

They had the cause exactly backwards. Studies — yes, eventually, actual studies were performed — later showed that infants exposed to peanuts before age 3 are 86% less likely to develop a peanut allergy than those denied peanut products. But because a few pediatricians had a hunch, the number of kids ending up in the emergency room due to peanut allergies tripled from 2005 to 2014. By now, about 1 in 18 American children have peanut allergies.

I haven’t even mentioned the opioid epidemic, brought to us by Big Pharma. Oh well, at least they learned their lesson.

Except they didn’t. Not at all. A recent Times article reports that, in 2022, nearly 80 million Americans were taking prescription stimulants. That was a mere aside in a story about a study that found a five-fold increase in psychosis among those taking high doses of Adderall and other stimulants. (If that makes you worried, there’s something you can take for it.)

As our mind-boggling rates of obesity and diabetes attest, there’s no question but that Americans are consuming vastly too much sugar and overprocessed food. What’s the medical establishment’s answer? Put fat kids on a weekly nausea-causing injection for life that costs a thousand bucks a month.

The whole lot of them — the public health bureaucrats, the phony scientists sucking up grant money, the pharmaceutical and food industries — must be punished, and RFK is the man to do it.

Real scientists like Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff (the Great Barrington Declaration guys) should be brought in to run the CDC, NIH, FDA and so on. But at the top, overseeing the whole public health apparatus as head of Health and Human Services, we need someone whose overall approach is driven by utter contempt for the arrogant “health” bureaucrats who’ve done so much damage to our country.

Israel Lobby discussed on Japanese TV

November 18, 2024/3 Comments/in General/by Kevin MacDonald

Other countries can’t fool themselves about who really runs America. The Japanese get it, but I am sure the rest of the world’s governments do too.

https://t.me/keith_woods/5751

Alan MacLeod at Mintpress: Revealed: The Israel Lobbyists Writing America’s News

November 18, 2024/6 Comments/in General/by Kevin MacDonald

Investigation

Revealed: The Israel Lobbyists Writing America’s News

A MintPress News investigation has found hundreds of former employees of Israel lobbying groups such as AIPAC, StandWithUs and CAMERA working in top newsrooms across the country, writing and producing America’s news – including on Israel-Palestine. These outlets include MSNBC, The New York Times, CNN and Fox News.

Some of these former lobbyists are responsible for producing content on Israel and Palestine – a gigantic and undisclosed conflict of interest. Many key U.S. newsroom staff were also formerly Israeli spies or intelligence agents, standing in stark contrast to journalists with pro-Palestine sentiments, who have been purged en masse since October 7, 2023.

This investigation is part of a series detailing Israel’s influence on American media. A previous report exposed the former Israeli spies and military intelligence officials working in U.S. newsrooms.

The fight for control over the Israel-Palestine narrative has been as intense as the war on the ground itself. U.S. media have been widely criticized for displaying a distinct bias towards the Israeli perspective. However, a new investigation from MintPress News reveals that not only is the press skewed in favor of Israel, but it is also written and produced by Israeli lobbyists themselves. This investigation unearths a network of hundreds of former members of the Israel lobby working at some of America’s most influential news organizations, helping to shape the public’s understanding of events in the Middle East. In the process, it helps whitewash Israeli crimes and manufacture consent for continued U.S. participation in what a wide range of international organizations have described as a genocide.

Advocacy to Journalism: Israel’s Influence at NBCUniversal

“Hi! My name is Kayla Steinberg…The summer before my first year of college, I attended the AIPAC New England Leadership Dinner and absolutely loved it. After going to Saban, I knew I had to get involved in [AIPAC] and go back to Israel…I dream of being a journalist someday, and I hope to write about Israel or Judaism. WIPAC and AIPAC have taught me so much about how important it is for the U.S. to be Israel’s greatest friend, and I know now why I am proudly pro-Israel.”

So wrote Kayla Steinberg in 2018, while she was working for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, widely considered the centerpiece of the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. AIPAC has been one of the most generous political donors this election cycle, doling out $100 million to hundreds of political candidates.

Steinberg did indeed become a journalist. Since 2022, she has been a producer at NBC News, pitching, scripting, producing and editing stories across NBCUniversal’s news channels, including MSNBC, CNBC and NBC News. Steinberg, who once stated publicly that “pro-Israel advocacy” was a key interest of hers, produced the NBC documentary, “Epidemic of Hate: Antisemitism in America,” which equated U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s criticism of AIPAC with the white supremacist marchers at the infamous Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, VA.

Kayla Steinberg 1 AIPAC_edited

Steinberg is one of many former Israel lobbyists hired by NBCUniversal, a conglomerate that owns over a dozen channels, including CNBC, NBC News and MSNBC. Emma Goss, for instance, began her career in media by traveling to Israel to make a documentary for Write on For Israel. This Zionist group aims to educate young Jewish students to “make a difference on college campuses” by learning about Jewish identity and anti-Semitism in American universities.

While in college, she was a reporter for the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC). The ICC states its mission is to “inspire American college students to see Israel as a source of pride and empower them to stand up for Israel on campus” and to “unite the many pro-Israel organizations that operate on campuses across the United States” through coordination and sharing research and resources.

Even before graduating, Goss had already begun to work for MSNBC, helping to produce “Morning Joe,” one of their flagship news shows. She went on to work for NBCUniversal for four years, helping produce, pitch, research, edit and book guests for The Today Show, MSNBC and NBC Nightly News. In 2018, she left to work in local media and, as of 2023, works as a reporter at NBC Bay Area.

CNBC lead work reporter Gili Malinsky has an even closer relationship with Israel and its lobby. Until 2011, she was a commander in the Israeli Defense Forces, specifically in their public relations department. Malinsky (who has dual American and Israeli citizenship) led a unit dedicated to communicating the IDF’s story with the outside world, overseeing the military’s social media presence, as well as sending IDF officers abroad on public relations trips and organizing tours for foreign dignitaries to see the Israeli military in action.

In 2011, she moved seamlessly into working for Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (FIDF), becoming their marketing coordinator. FIDF is an American group that raises money for supplies and support for Israeli soldiers, as well as encouraging Americans to enlist in the Israeli military. Its stated goal is to “champion the courageous men and women of the IDF and care for their needs through transformational opportunities and support as they protect the State of Israel and her people.”

After working for the FIDF, Malinsky embarked upon a career in journalism, becoming a staff writer at CBS and contributing to The New York Times, Vice, The Daily Beast, NBC News and others. Since 2020, she has worked at CNBC. Although a business reporter, in the wake of the October 7 assault, Malinsky contributed to the network’s coverage of Israel-Palestine. For example, she co-wrote one article detailing the trauma suffered by the families of the Israeli festivalgoers killed by Hamas, a group she matter-of-factly identified as a terrorist organization.

Noga Even, an NBCUniversal manager, is also a former Israel lobbyist. Between 2017 and 2018, she worked for StandWithUs, a conservative group that coordinates closely with the Israeli government to push a pro-Israel message on campuses globally. StandWithUs’ mission statement notes that its purpose is to “support Israel and fight antisemitism around the world.” In 2017, she organized an IDF soldier speaking tour in Texas with the intent of “putting a human face” on the Israeli military. The soldiers in question told hundreds of high schoolers in attendance about the supposed “strict IDF moral code while fighting an enemy that hides behind its civilians.”

Even later went on to work for the Israeli Embassy in the United States before, in 2023, being hired by NBCUniversal.

CNBC’s markets and investing reporter Samantha Subin began her career working for various Israel lobby groups. In 2016, she interned at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israel think tank created by the research director of AIPAC as a front group. One former AIPAC employee involved in its creation noted, “There was no question that WINEP was to be AIPAC’s cutout. It was funded by AIPAC donors, staffed by AIPAC employees, and located one door away, down the hall, from AIPAC Headquarters.” In their book, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” authors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt describe WINEP as a core part of the lobby, “funded and run by individuals who are deeply committed to advancing Israel’s agenda.”

Subin went on to work for the TAMID group, which describes itself as “seek[ing] to forge a strong connection to Israel for the next generation of business leaders.” While still at TAMID, she managed to get her foot in the door at CNBC, and has worked as a reporter there since 2021.

Another former TAMID employee working at CNBC is Benji Stawski. In 2016, Stawski co-founded a TAMID chapter at his local Bentley University. He later moved to CNN and, since 2022, has been an editor at CNBC.

For Israel and its lobby, having these sorts of advocates in newsrooms across America is a dream. With dozens—if not hundreds—of individuals fact-checking pro-Palestine arguments, booking pro-Israel guests, pitching stories that cast Israel in a positive light and its adversaries negatively, and weaving Zionist narratives into reporting, it’s no surprise that U.S. corporate media shows a pronounced bias in favor of Israel and its perspectives.

Older Americans who still rely on cable news and newspapers support the Israeli attack on its neighbors, while younger people who use social media as their primary source of information side with the Palestinians.

The connections to pro-Israel organizations extend to the leadership of NBCUniversal as well. Danny Bittker, the company’s vice president of production and operations, worked for many years for BBYO, eventually becoming its regional director. BBYO (B’nai B’rith Youth Organization) is a group that sends young Jewish teens to Israel. It is far from a politically neutral body, however. A measure of this can be seen on its homepage, where visitors are currently greeted with a gigantic banner reading, “We Support Israel and Stand By Its Right to Defend Itself.”

Brandon Glantz, NBCUniversal’s senior director of global privacy operations, previously worked for Hillel International, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world. Some at Hillel might object to being called part of the Zionist Lobby in America. Helpfully, then, on his own LinkedIn page, Glantz described his role at Hillel as “conduct[ing] all Israel advocacy on the University of Florida campus.”

Yelena Kutikova, a director and vice president of learning and development at NBCUniversal until May of this year, was previously a director for the United Jewish Appeal — Federation of New York. Kutikova worked for over three years at UJA-NY, a group that raises money to build illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine and coaches American politicians and pundits on how to best advocate for Israel. Earlier this year, leaked documents showed sessions convened by the UJA advised U.S. officials to spread highly questionable claims about mass rapes on October 7 as a way to deflect criticism away from Israel’s slaughter in Gaza.

Other former Israel lobbyists who have gone on to work for the network include longtime MSNBC producer Alana Heller, a former intern at AIPAC; Sara Bernstein, formerly of Hillel International, who went on to work for Paramount, the Discovery Channel and NBCUniversal; and Sarah Poss, a former intern at the Anti-Defamation League, who, since 2019, has worked in various roles at NBC News and MSNBC.

NBCUniversal does not appear to view these individuals’ backgrounds as conflicts of interest or red flags. In fact, their history of lobbying for Israel may be seen as an asset, especially given that MSNBC’s executive producer, Moshe Arenstein, was an IDF intelligence commander for many years. Arenstein joined MSNBC in 2003 and has since produced news on a broad range of political topics, including coverage of Israel and Palestine.

It seems likely that the enormous overlap between the Israel lobby and MSNBC at least played a part in the network’s decision to, in the wake of the October 7 attacks, suspend its only three Muslim anchors. MSNBC quietly and without explanation pulled Ayman Mohieddine, Ali Velshi and Mehdi Hasan from the air. Employees immediately understood this as a message to the rest of the staff. “The mood is very similar to what had happened post 9/11 with the whole you are either with us or against us argument,” one employee told Arab News. Hasan, a vocal critic of Israel, left the network and has never addressed speculation about his departure, only adding to the evidence that he was pushed out due to his political views.

Fox News and the Pro-Israel Pipeline

At the other end of the American elite political spectrum lies Fox News. And yet, on the issue of Israel, the network’s coverage has been markedly similar to MSNBC’s. Like MSNBC, Fox News employs a wide range of former Israeli lobbyists in key positions within its company.

Before becoming a journalist, Rachel Wolf worked for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), a right-wing pressure group that tries to minimize or silence criticism of Israel in the press. While still at CAMERA, Wolf interned at the Zionist Organization of America, compiling dossiers on pro-Palestine figures and authoring memos full of talking points against anti-Zionist speakers appearing on campuses. She left CAMERA to work at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. and soon became a speechwriter for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, where she worked aiding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Wolf then moved to Israel to join the IDF, where she served as a spokesperson for the military, producing press releases, running their social media campaigns, and developing, in her own words, “innovative” strategies to humanize the group. Only one year after leaving the IDF, she joined the “Hannity” program on Fox News and is now the company’s homepage and social media editor.

**A retweet by Fox News social media editor Rachel Wolf on her personal X account**

Wolf’s colleague at Fox News, Olivia Johnson, was formerly Director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), an organization that aims to build and strengthen the military bond between the United States and Israel. A recent JINSA report calls for the United States to support Israel in a war against Iran. After leaving JINSA, Johnson worked for CBS News and, since 2011, has been a broadcast associate at Fox.

Nicole Cooper worked for AIPAC between 2019 and 2020, helping to organize conferences and other events. Soon after leaving the lobby group, she was offered the executive assistant position to the Fox News network President.

Finally, Sarah Schornstein’s career has seen her run the gamut of pro-Israel groups, including seven months with AIPAC, an internship with Hillel and JINSA, and a position with CAMERA, where she, in her own words, was charged with “monitor[ing] any anti-Semitic/anti-Zionist activity on my campus” – a statement that suggests she sees the two as one and the same. In 2021, she also worked for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, where she policed NGOs being invited to the forum to ensure they do not “have a harmful impact on Israeli interests.” In 2022, she worked at the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, a group dedicated to promoting the normalization of Israel in the Arab world. Since 2021, she has been at Fox News, producing some of its most influential shows, including “Cavuto Live!”

Host Neil Cavuto regularly invites Israeli advocates and officials onto his show, throwing them softball questions and allowing them to present a pro-Israel narrative unchallenged. In October, for example, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon appeared on the show, claiming that his country was responding to Iranian aggression by launching “retaliatory” strikes against a rogue state.

Continues with CNN, etc.

How did this get on air?

November 16, 2024/6 Comments/in General/by Kevin MacDonald

Judge Napolitano interviews Max Blumenthal

November 15, 2024/2 Comments/in General/by Kevin MacDonald

Red-Blue Map for Voting ID

November 15, 2024/3 Comments/in General/by Kevin MacDonald

There should be a national mandate for photo id to vote.

NYTimes: Trump Learned from His Mistaken Appointments in His First Term

November 15, 2024/3 Comments/in General/by Kevin MacDonald

Trump Takes On the Pillars of the ‘Deep State’

…

The choices of Matt Gaetz for attorney general, Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence in the past few days shocked a capital that perhaps should not have been all that surprised. Anyone who listened to Mr. Trump’s promises and grievances on the campaign trail over the past couple of years could have easily anticipated that he would elevate compatriots willing to execute his hostile takeover of government.

If confirmed, Mr. Gaetz, Mr. Hegseth and Ms. Gabbard would constitute the lead shock troops in Mr. Trump’s self-declared war on what he calls the “deep state.” All three have echoed his conviction that government is seeded with career public servants who actively thwarted his priorities while he was in office and targeted him after he left. None of them has the kind of experience relevant to these jobs comparable to predecessors of either party, but they can all be expected to take “a blowtorch” to the status quo, to use Stephen K. Bannon’s term for Mr. Gaetz.

“You tried to destroy Trump; you tried to imprison Trump; you tried to break Trump,” Mr. Bannon, a onetime White House strategist for Mr. Trump, said on his podcast on Wednesday after Mr. Gaetz’s nomination was announced. “He’s not breakable. You couldn’t destroy him. And now he has turned on you.”

Supporters of Mr. Trump on election night. — Mr. Trump’s promises and grievances on the campaign trail indicated that he would elevate compatriots willing to execute his hostile takeover of government.Credit…Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Mr. Bannon singled out hosts, producers and guests on MSNBC as well as former investigators and F.B.I. officials as an example of targets Mr. Gaetz would come after if given the power to prosecute. “I understood they feared us,” he went on. “And why do they fear us? Because we were coming to take down the globalists and the deep state.”

The choice of Mr. Gaetz especially was so astonishing to many in Washington that even Republicans had a hard time at first grasping whether Mr. Trump was serious. He seemed to almost relish the metaphorical heads exploding across Capitol Hill. “He’s just trolling America at this point,” Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White House aide who broke with him, wrote on social media.

Mr. Trump’s willingness to pick nominees who once would have been unimaginable has also extended beyond the national security agencies. On Thursday, Mr. Trump chose Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former presidential candidate who made a name leading an anti-vaccine movement, to be the secretary of health and human services. For secretary of homeland security, Mr. Trump has tapped Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, whose prospects for vice president vanished with her admission that she shot her own 14-month-old dog because it was “untrainable” and bit people.

But the Justice Department, Pentagon and intelligence agencies were the three areas of government that proved to be the most stubborn obstacles to Mr. Trump’s previous efforts to legitimize his presidency and overturn his defeat in 2020 to hold on to power.

The intelligence agencies stood by their assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election with the goal of helping Mr. Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, despite a fierce backlash from the newly elected president who publicly declared that he believed President Vladimir V. Putin’s denials instead.

The Justice Department refused Mr. Trump’s demands to prosecute many of his adversaries, including Mrs. Clinton, former President Barack Obama and his vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., though it did investigate others who had angered the president. More critically, the department rebuffed pressure to publicly declare that there were substantial irregularities in the 2020 election to justify reversing Mr. Biden’s victory.

The Pentagon, for its part, made clear that it would not cooperate with an illegal effort to use troops against domestic opponents or help Mr. Trump stay in office. Michael T. Flynn, a retired lieutenant general and Trump ally, tried to persuade the president in December 2020 to declare a form of martial law and order the military to seize voting equipment and rerun the election in states that he lost. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had signaled for months that he would not allow the military to be turned into a political weapon.

“He wanted to use them as his lever, and they were the ones that were the guardrails,” said Olivia Troye, who served as a national security aide to Vice President Mike Pence during the Trump administration and has become a vocal critic of the president-elect. “And so I think this all stems from that.”

By contrast, it is harder to envision Mr. Gaetz, Mr. Hegseth or Ms. Gabbard defying Mr. Trump after he is inaugurated again on Jan. 20. Mr. Gaetz, a Florida Republican who just resigned his seat in the House, has been a fierce critic of the department he may take over — a department that investigated him for sex trafficking before dropping the matter.

Just this week, Mr. Gaetz suggested abolishing the F.B.I. and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which would report to him as attorney general. As it is, Mr. Trump after the inauguration is widely expected to fire Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director he installed in 2017, for being too independent [and having the FBI involved in fomenting the J6 protests].

Mr. Hegseth, a Fox News weekend host who came to Mr. Trump’s attention defending a convicted military war criminal, served as a major in the Army National Guard and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no experience running a large organization, much less an armed force of two million troops. He too has been a ferocious defender of Mr. Trump and has assailed what he calls the modern “woke” military.

Ms. Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who quit her party and backed Mr. Trump, spent two decades in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve, rising to lieutenant colonel, but has no experience in the intelligence agencies she would oversee. She has often echoed Russia’s positions on Ukraine and NATO, to the point that a Russian state television host famously called her “our girlfriend.” [Gabbard’s presence is a reason to be hopeful on Ukraine.]’

Compare those three to the appointees Mr. Trump installed in those same posts when he first came to office in 2017: Jeff Sessions, a Republican senator and former judge, as attorney general; Jim Mattis, a retired Marine four-star general, as defense secretary; and Dan Coats, a longtime Republican senator from Indiana and ambassador to Germany, as director of national intelligence.

All three proved too independent for Mr. Trump. Mr. Sessions angered the president by recusing himself from the Russia investigation and refusing to help oust the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III [at the behest of Rod Rosenstein who obviously hated Trump and wanted to use the 25th Amendment to get rid of him.] He was eventually fired. Mr. Mattis resisted many ideas by Mr. Trump that he deemed dangerous for national security. He eventually resigned to protest a decision to abandon Kurdish allies in Syria. Mr. Coats defended his intelligence analysts over their Russia conclusions and was so stunned by Mr. Trump’s deference to Mr. Putin that he privately wondered what the Russians had on the new president. He too eventually resigned.

Mr. Trump learned from those experiences. When he first arrived at the White House, he had not spent a single day in public office and therefore often relied on people he did not know well. He returns eight years later with a much better understanding of how power works in the White House and a better sense of whom to trust.

In the process, according to Ms. Troye, he is citing the supposed weaponization of government by the Democrats [who could possibly think otherwise given the continual prosecutions since 2020, all by Democrats?] to turn it around on his adversaries. “It’s almost projection because he does exactly what he accuses these people of doing,” she said. “It’s the politicization of these communities.”