Is Trump Dumber Than Nixon?

Richard Nixon

By Robert Wenzel

When the Deep State wanted to take out President Richard Nixon, he handed them the gun to shoot him with, in the form of Oval Office tape recordings that he was secretly making for history.

It was those tapes that provided the "evidence" to take him out. The recordings sure helped him make history.

As far as we know, no president has recorded Oval Office meetings since. But what the hell is this thing about having about a half dozen people listening to the calls of the presidents with other foreign leaders, with some taking notes?

That is not much different than having office recordings, maybe worse. And why the hell would you allow members of the CIA wing of the Deep State taking the notes if you are trying to take the Deep State out?

Note to anyone in a position of power, be it corporate power or political power, where information is valuable---and dangerous in the wrong hands---you should never allow a person to have access to information except on a need to know basis.

If you are the President trying to take down the Deep State, this is especially relevant.

Trump should trust no one except Melania, that girl knows how to keep her mouth shut and appears loyal.

Immediately after being sworn in, Trump should have ended the practice of all kinds of people knowing all kinds of things the president is doing and planning to do.

And he should have especially stopped anyone from listening to his calls.

When a translator is involved, he should have the translator sitting next to him and make sure that right after the call the translator shreds the notes right in front of him that were taken.

If Trump needs to have a reminder of certain things that were discussed in a conversation, I recommend he have on his desk a pen and a yellow legal pad. He should take his own notes.

If he needs to discuss something from a call with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, he should have put an "M" in his notes and what he needs to talk about to Mnuchin.

If he needs to discuss something with Secretary of State Pompeo, he should put a "P" in his notes and what he needs to talk about to Pompeo.

Then he should call them in separately to discuss the matters at hand. And then he should destroy his notes or figure out a clever way to hide them. (Have Melania travel once a month to NYC to "meet friends" and take the notes and store them?)

I consider Trump to be a savvy New York City street hustler, maybe the best ever, but the skill is not transferring well to the White House.

He has sharks all around him and does not appear to know how to protect himself in this environment. What's more, he seems to bring his enemies into his Administration, apparently not being able to gauge just how vicious and dangerous these people are.

Why the hell does he surround himself with warmongers who probably pray to a statute of Brutus every night?

If Trump had any depth of understanding, he would have named Tulsi Gabbard as Secretary of Defense and Rand Paul as Secretary of State. They are both anti-war and appear to be weak on the silent coup stuff. He should have then brought in Daniel McAdams as national security adviser. The three would have taken the country in a foreign policy direction that Trump appears to want to go.

Further, he shouldn't be making any direct or implied edgy threats to foreign leaders, he should leave that kind of work to tough loyal aides. Rudy Giuliani is very good in this role. Chris Christie, despite what Jared says, could also be used.

But that is not where we are now, Trump is at risk of losing the presidency. The odds are 50-50.

What Nixon and Trump never seemed to have grasped is the warning that Freidrich Hayek provided in Chapter 10 of The Road to Serfdom, that when it comes to politics the worst get on top.

When in power, you can never let your guard down. One false move and you are done.

Nixon should have known better, he had been in politics his entire life but they still got him.

Trump is a newbie at politics and his protecting himself as president is a steep learning curve. He is making all kinds of mistakes. It remains to be seen if the mistakes have been so severe that he will lose the presidency. He is paddling upstream with some very evil people taking shots at him.

He hasn't lost the support of the Republican base, yet, but if he does, it's over for him.

UPDATE

He is learning. Bloomberg reports:

President Donald Trump has ordered a substantial reduction in the staff of the National Security Council, according to five people familiar with the plans, as the White House confronts an impeachment inquiry touched off by a whistle-blower complaint related to the agency’s work.

Some of the people described the staff cuts as part of a White House effort to make its foreign policy arm leaner under new National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.

The request to limit the size of the NSC staff was conveyed to senior agency officials by acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and O’Brien this week

But can O'Brien be trusted? He is anti-Iran, anti-China, and pro keeping Guantanamo Bay open and generally pro-war.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of EconomicPolicyJournal.comand Target Liberty. He also writes EPJ Daily Alert and is author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bankand most recently Foundations of Private Property Society Theory: Anarchism for the Civilized Person Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics and on LinkedIn. His youtube series is here: Robert Wenzel Talks Economics. More about Wenzel here.