How often are we going to see versions of this headline? “Trump staff shake-up slows transition to near halt.”
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition operation plunged into disarray on Tuesday with the abrupt resignation of Mike Rogers, who had handled national security matters, the second shake-up in a week on a team that has not yet begun to execute the daunting task of taking over the government.
The first shake-up was when:
Mr. Pence took the helm of the effort on Friday after Mr. Trump unceremoniously removed Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who had been preparing with Obama administration officials for months to put the complex transition process into motion. Now the effort is frozen, senior White House officials say, because Mr. Pence has yet to sign legally required paperwork to allow his team to begin collaborating with President Obama’s aides on the handover.
They can’t do anything because Pence hasn’t signed the paperwork. Because, an aide insisted, the wording of the paperwork was being altered … although how it’s being altered is an interesting question, since it’s “a standard agreement whose wording is largely governed by statute.”
Pence, remember, is supposed to be one of the professional guys who was going to make things happen in the Trump administration. He and Reince Priebus were going to be the make-the-trains-run-on-time guys, and if you think we’re just joking about that fascist terminology being at play here, check it out:
“Bannon is going to be keeper of the image of Trump as a fighter against the status quo, and Reince is going to utilize his personal connections with the speaker and others, to make the trains run on time,” said Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio state official and a member of the transition team.
So there’s the white supremacist who’s going to be the keeper of the image, politically speaking—and then there’s the guy who’s going to be like Mussolini. Very comforting.
Except apparently the trains are not even running on time.