Right…‘outrageous’…I guess that sht is reserved for Donnie and his tweeting thumbs right Sarah?
“There is probably not a person around that has managed a department of 300,000.”
Except every living former secretary of Veterans Affairs, and every living former Defense secretary (DOD being larger than VA).
The real question, for anyone actually interested in public policy and the welfare of veterans, is whether he has managed, say 3,000 people. Or 300. Or even 30.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders calling the allegations against him “outrageous.”
Huh, if I were trying to defend somebody, I’d go with “false”.
I agree with Sarah. The allegations are outrageous.
My theory is that they are raising a fuss to try to marginalize Tester, who they hope to defeat in the Montana Senate Race.
It could backfire, since I think that these concerns about Jackson are easy to corroborate. But true Trumpers don’t care about truth.
The argument that the VA’s vast size makes management experience magically irrelevant is absurd. So is the idea that hey, he’s a military doctor and military doctoring is part of what the VA does. But it provides her with what she needs, which is to say something, anything, to their base to justify the pick. With a boss that erratic, the something-anything standard becomes the only one possible to meet.
The alleged behavior is indeed outrageous, so why don’t you wait to see, oh, I don’t know, if maybe it’s true before you spout off in defense of Jackson, huh, Huckster-Slanders?
They’re figuring out they need to defend the guy to try to disrupt the entrenched narrative that Dear Leader is a total incompetent who chooses cabinet members like a casting agent, caring far more about whether he looks right for the part than basic competence.
Except the narrative is true.
she wasn’t going to go “line by line on every outrageous thing out there right now,”
OK - How about 10 outrageous things that you can disprove? Or 5?
Shouldn’t be too difficult for the hard-working WH staff. I’m sure the travel schedules of the President’s physician are fairly detailed. Show that he couldn’t have been drunk at A when he was actually 3,000 miles away in B. He couldn’t have knocked on the door of female staff X in May of 2015 because she wasn’t hired until August of 2015. Maybe get a lawyer to help? Or someone with some experience in investigations?
The claims are indeed outrageous, and if true in whole or in part, so outrageous as to kill the nomination. With the WH it’s “vetting, schmetting, let’s call the whole thing off and just nominate.”
“…not drunkenly banged on the hotel room door of a female employee so loudly during an overseas trip that the Secret Service had to get involved to keep him from waking the President.”
Happens all the time.
Everybody does it.
Good job White House. Tie yourselves to another anchor. No disaster is too great for them to own it then double down.
I believe this nomination is already dead. What is going on now, is people in the background are urging Trump to pull it so they don’t have to go through the embarrassment of voting it down.
And ultimately, I suspect Jackson will pull his own nomination. He was going to face a tough grilling anyway based on his lack of experience, but would probably have pulled through that. These other charges though? They kill him, and the longer he stays in it, the more about each allegation is going to become exposed.
“…at least 20 current and former military members.”
Good luck killing this story, Sarah.
Even though he can’t remember a lot of the events that will be coming out he knows how much of it’s true.
That’s my read, too. He could survive being kind of shady or being almost totally unqualified, but likely not both.
But Senate Republicans have certainly underwhelmed me before.
Nah, they are going with the Russian approach of throwing sand. That’ll confuse enough of their folks.
It’s worse than that. True Trumpers live in the ultimate echo chamber of confirmation bias and do not read or listen to anything that would expose them to the truth.
It was significant for Tester to say in his interview with NPR that among Jackson’s accusers were numerous active duty military personnel… This means that these statements carry a whole lot more weight than something like a President or press secretary lying to the press or the American people. Active duty military can face severe punishment up to and including court martial and dishonorable discharge (Article 89 UCMJ) for this type of violation. By them stepping forward they are literally putting their career and future on the line. The least they deserve from their commander in chief is the benefit of the doubt.
Then put him in there.
Why should I care about the collapse of the VA? It’s already overstuffed with PTSD fakers taking an easy little extra something from the national till.
Burn it down too. Right, Bannon?