What Trump Officials Mean by “Never”
Attorney General Todd Blanche has made abundantly clear that he will not act independently of President Trump’s desires. So yesterday, NBC’s Kristen Welker posed an obvious question to Blanche on Meet the Press: “If the president asks you to do something that you feel crosses an ethical or legal line, would you do it?” Blanche replied confidently, “The president will never ask me to do something unethical or illegal.
Reported by 1 outlet — The Atlantic. See all sources ↓
Attorney General Todd Blanche has made abundantly clear that he will not act independently of President Trump’s desires. So yesterday, NBC’s Kristen Welker posed an obvious question to Blanche on Meet the Press: “If the president asks you to do something that you feel crosses an ethical or legal line, would you do it?” Blanche replied confidently, “The president will never ask me to do something unethical or illegal. He never will.”This particular formulation—never has, never will—has become a new mantra for the administration. Last month, in response to reports that Trump had personally gained $2 billion in the previous year, the White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, “Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged—or will ever engage—in conflicts of interest.” When ProPublica reported in December that Trump had personally used the same mortgage-application fraud that he has called an imprisonable offense for various political targets, a White House spokesperson said, “President Trump has never, or will ever, break the law.”This is an epistemic frontier of impunity that can be understood only in the context of Trump’s disregard for legal or normative guardrails against his abuses of power.[Read: Does Todd Blanche have a red line?]In some circumstances, to state that you never have and never will do something bad might be unremarkable, and perhaps reassuring.
Read the full report at The Atlantic ↗
Why it matters
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- What's the story?
- Attorney General Todd Blanche has made abundantly clear that he will not act independently of President Trump’s desires. So yesterday, NBC’s Kristen Welker posed an obvious question to Blanche on Meet the Press: “If the president asks you to do something that you feel crosses an ethical or legal line, would you do it?” Blanche replied confidently, “The president will never ask me to do something unethical or illegal.
- How widely is it covered?
- 1 outlet, average source rating 8.0/10.
- When was it last updated?
- 6m ago.
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What Trump Officials Mean by “Never”
Sources1TypeCoverageThe Atlantic