It’s amazing that someone as smart as campaign manager and chief strategist Paul Manafort would say that Trump sees himself as being a chairman of the board president instead of a CEO or even a COO. I guess Manafort doesn’t think Trump supporters are smart enough to understand that you don’t run a country like a corporation.
Heather Digby Patron explains this in her Salon article:
But then the job of Vice President is going to be very, very important in a Trump administration according to Manafort, so they aren’t going to take any chances:
He needs an experienced person to do the part of the job he doesn’t want to do.
"He seems himself more as the chairman of the board, than even the CEO, let alone the COO."
I guess nobody’s told Trump that you don’t get to write the job description yourself. I’m pretty sure the job of president is to be the one who makes all the big decisions. It’s not the person who just calls Fox and Friends, negotiates the trade deals and bombs the shit out of ISIS. You don’t get to pick what presidential duties you “want to do” and delegate the rest to your peons. Sure, some presidents like Reagan and George W. Bush were less hands-on than others but they didn’t redefine the presidency as a Chairman of the board who picks and chooses the duties he spends his time on.
*
It doesn’t surprise me that Trump is so steeped in the business world that he sees the presidency through the eyes of a powerful and power-hungry businessman. He want to model himself after a board chairman who dogmatically sets the agenda and assures that his CEO does his bidding without straying and assuming too much authority, and too much of the limelight, himself.
*
He doesn’t want a Cheney-esque vice president either, content with staying in the shadows, but who has his own agenda. He wants someone who will know how to implement his fanciful Machiavellian fascistic visions gilded with the Trump brand. He doesn’t want a vice president CEO questioning his wisdom, ethics, and morals. When Trump tells his veep to get the wall built the only question Trump would want to hear is “how high?” When Trump orders 11 million illegal immigrants to be deported, he only wants the only question to be “planes, trains, or buses?”
*
Trump wants to put together his all-star team as long as none of the stars outshine him. He wants to he a chairman of the board like Frank Sinatra. Come to think of it, ‘ol Blue Eyes would have made a better president.
