Mark Meadows' 'uniquely dangerous failure' signals disaster for second Trump term: author

Mark Meadows is a "uniquely dangerous failure" and in "a league of his own" as a cautionary tale not just of how not to serve as White House chief of staff, but of how former President Donald Trump would govern the entire country if he manages to win another term in 2024, wrote author Chris Whipple for The New York Times in an analysis published Thursday.

Meadows is currently indicted alongside Trump and 17 other co-defendants for the Georgia election racketeering case, which alleges he worked behind the scenes to push conspiracy theories about Trump's 2020 election loss and pressure state officials in Georgia to shut down the certification process. He is trying to get the case removed to federal court, where he hopes to claim immunity for acting under the color of his federal responsibilities.

Whipple, who wrote “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency,” argued that Meadows' main failure was that he could not stand up to the president in the moment and tell him the truth that he had lost the election.

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"Donald Rumsfeld, who served as a chief of staff to Gerald Ford, understood the importance of talking to the boss 'with the bark off,'" wrote Whipple. "The White House chief of staff 'is the one person besides his wife,' he explained, 'who can look him right in the eye and say, ‘this is not right. You simply can’t go down that road. Believe me, it’s not going to work.' A good chief is on guard for even the appearance of impropriety. Mr. Rumsfeld once forbade President Ford to attend a birthday party for the Democratic majority leader Tip O’Neill because it was being hosted by a foreign lobbyist with a checkered reputation."

The fact that Meadows could not scrupulously guard Trump from his own impulses, said Whipple, is especially ominous because if Trump wins, that's the kind of person he'll surround himself with, and entirely reshape the federal government with, as part of his plans to eliminate civil service protections and agency independence.

"For Mr. Meadows, his place in history is secure as a primary enabler of a president who tried to overthrow democracy," concluded Whipple. "But his example should serve as a warning of what will happen if Mr. Trump regains the White House. All guardrails will be gone."