Conservative former officials are warning that President Donald Trump has permanently disfigured America.
New York Times weekly columnist Thomas B. Edsall penned a piece on Tuesday in which he spoke with former GOP-appointed members of the judiciary and Homeland Security who are worried about Trump’s “destructive” and “permanent” moves.
“One thing stands out amid all the chaos, corruption, and disorder: the wanton destructiveness of the Trump presidency,” Edsall wrote.
J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, told Edsall, there has never before “been a U.S. president who I consider even to have been ‘destructive,’ let alone a president who has intentionally and deliberately set out to destroy literally every institution in America, up to and including American democracy and the rule of law.”
Luttig added, “I even believe he is destroying the American presidency, though I would not say that is intentional and deliberate.”
Edsall also questioned multiple people on how badly Trump has damaged U.S. “relations with traditional allies everywhere.”
Paul Rosenzweig, former deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, expressed a "pessimistic" outlook.
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“The damage is permanent,” Rosenzweig said. “Not because it cannot be fixed — it can be with effort. But rather because nobody will ever trust the United States again.”
Rosenzweig based his claim on the fact that no one can guarantee “that something Trump-like won’t recur. Would you, as a young person, take a federal job today? Would you, as a foreign student, trust that you could attend university in the United States safely? Would you, as a European government, trust the United States to maintain the security of your secrets?”
“Trump was elected to enrich and protect Trump,” the former deputy assistant secretary said. “That was his only motivation. On issues of direct concern (e.g., getting a plane as a gift from Qatar or profiting off cryptocurrency), he has views. Otherwise, he is an empty vessel.”
Edsall isn’t just concerned with Trump but also “the abdication of power by Republicans in Congress [which] has allowed Trump to create a mandate out of whole cloth.”