America can’t afford a second ‘pirate ship’ Trump administration

All I can say to Trump’s pick for his vice president: Good luck.

The real story is why anyone would want to follow Mike Pence’s fate. After Pence refused to overturn the 2020 election, Trump incited a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol that began chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”

The same chilling question applies to all the people auditioning for Cabinet positions by speaking at this week’s GOP convention.

To the men and women trying to move up in the GOP ranks by agreeing to fawn over Trump on stage in Milwaukee this week, and telling lies about a stolen election, here is a warning: Look before you leap.

You just have to Google news about the people who got jobs in Trump’s first term.

In addition to putting Pence’s life in jeopardy, Trump has suggested that Gen. Mark Milley, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deserved to be executed. More than a dozen others who worked with Trump have sounded alarms about working with him.

There is “no historical precedent in the last century,” for the number of people from Trump’s first term team “speaking out against their former boss, and the severity of their criticism,” USA Today reported earlier this year.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr has said plainly that Trump “shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.”

H.R. McMaster, Trump’s former national security advisor, charged Trump with spreading “unfounded conspiracy theories” and “undermining the rule of law.”

John Kelly, his former chief of staff and a retired Marine general, described Trump as a person with “nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.”

And Pence, after explaining that Trump pressed him to subvert the Constitution, said flatly that “Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”

Other former Trump administration officials now live in deep legal and financial trouble even as Trump celebrates another bid for the presidency.

Trump’s 2016 Campaign Manager and White House Strategist Steve Bannon is currently serving a four-month sentence in federal prison for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena in the January 6th investigation. 

The man who managed Trump’s 2016 Convention, Paul Manafort is a convicted felon who might still be in federal prison had Trump not pardoned him in his final days in office.

And Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani is facing bankruptcy. 

Giuliani, a primetime speaker at Trump’s 2016 convention, is now disbarred as a lawyer and has been charged with a felony for trying to overturn the election results in Arizona.

You can view his most recent mugshot here. 

And Trump will be asking newcomers to do unhinged, radical, dangerous work.

The GOP platform calls for “a hardline immigration policy, including mass deportation,” while increasing presidential power over the Justice Department and Federal Reserve.

It also calls for ignoring climate change by approving more drilling for oil while ending support for electric vehicles. He also plans to impose tariffs that could potentially raise prices for American consumers and disrupt the thriving U.S. economy. 

The need for Trump loyalists to execute this plan is detailed in a 900-page plan being written at the Heritage Foundation for a Trump second term — Project 2025.

It calls for giving Trump more power to fire people in the federal workforce and replace them with an “army” of Trump loyalists ready to do his bidding. 

Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, has hinted of the potential for political violence in a Trump’s second term: “We are in the process of a second America Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Say what? What does that even mean? Does fealty to Trump mean you must support violence against “the left” or anyone who opposes him?

Already, the Republican National Committee under the leadership of Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump is asking job interviewees if they believe the 2020 election was stolen to qualify. 

Paul Dans, director of Project 2025, has said he wants “vetted” people on the far right ready to work for Trump and “go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative state.”

As GOP Strategist Rick Wilson famously put it, “everything Trump touches dies.”

As Trump’s former fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen — himself a convicted felon — warned other Trump aides, “He’s not going to pay for your lawyer…if you stay on message, you will end up behind bars.”

Picture the potential gallery of top appointees in a Trump administration: Stephen Miller, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, Aileen Cannon, Josh Hawley. As comedian John Cleese joked about the first Trump administration, “he could start a pirate ship with that lot.”

It has been said that in Washington personnel is policy. As writer Julia Ioffe said “Institutions are merely buildings with people inside them, and it matters what kind of people you shove into those buildings.

Looking at the lineup in Milwaukee this week, I fear for the country if these are the types of people voters empower this November, starting with Trump himself. 

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.