Donald Trump simultaneously acknowledged the existence of a purge list and downplayed its importance during his press conference in India Tuesday. The White House is reportedly tracking down administration officials seen as less than 110% loyal to Trump and replacing them with people guaranteed to go along with all of Trump’s corruption and not just like 95% of it. The effort is assisted by Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
“I don’t think it's a big problem. I don’t think it's very many people,” Trump told reporters in India, going on to claim that he wants “people who are good for the country, loyal to the country.” Let’s unpack this, starting with substituting “Donald Trump” for “country” when it comes to the real requirement.
When Trump says “I don’t think it’s a big problem,” he’s talking about the number of people—“not very many”—that need to be purged for having loyalties divided between Donald Trump and anything else on earth. But there is a big problem here: that once again Trump is putting personal loyalty above loyalty to the United States or its Constitution or its people.
Trump has purged the intelligence community of anyone who might push back against Russian election interference. He earlier purged the Department of Homeland Security in part because some officials weren't being cruel enough to immigrants. He had Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his brother removed from their White House jobs because Vindman testified at the impeachment inquiry, and fired Gordon Sondland as ambassador to the European Union for the same reason. He pulled a Treasury Department nomination for former U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu because she prosecuted former national security adviser Michael Flynn but not former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.
And he’s telling us he’s not done yet. But that there aren’t very many people left who might do anything that would irk him even a little, so it’s not a big problem—at least as long as you confuse loyalty to country and being good for the country with loyalty to Trump.