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The President doesn’t support first responders or public safety professionals. He uses them. A story from 2008 1/
For President Obama’s team that came in on a message of hope, his DHS transition team that I served on called itself the “nope” agenda. Dems didn’t like DHS, a reminder of a 9/11 stance that had led us to two long wars, Gtmo and the Patriot Act. 2/
The new team had to grapple with this strange entity. None of us had ever worked there. I had never been to its HQs. We were bad news bearers most of the time. Our docket was all the grim stuff. And then in walks first Secretary Napolitano. 3/
And her words to her senior team were a reminder that our job was to effectuate the WHs policy but to do so in a way that didn’t alienate the front line. 4/
“There are about 100 of us,” she said about political appointees at DHS. Describing front line workers at FEMA, CBP, TSA, USCG, ICE and Secret Service she added “And over 200,000 of them. There is only one way to make this work. We are them.” 5/
I have been publicly critical enough and dismayed about Trump’s DHS policies. A Muslim ban that isn’t briefed to the field, leaving even lawyers seeking to defend it speechless in court. 6/
A family separation policy, horrific in its mandate, made doubly so by the failures of policy planners to admit the policy or set up a system of reunification, resulting in the cruelty we saw. 7/
The story today that the president believed criminal liability might only flow to the CBP head after urging him to break the law. 8/
I wish there were more resignations. That the DHS unions would see how they were being played. Politics are always a part of public safety: who we choose to admit, to detain, to deport, etc are made by political policy makers. No one should be that naive to think otherwise. 9/
But Trump has replaced policy with pure political whim, frustration and failure and believes that everyone else’s inabilities to follow along are because he doesn’t have the right people on top. 10/
There are over 200,000 of them. Make sound policy and it will work. But Trump doesn’t believe in that. In the guise of supporting our first responders, he uses them. And then promises to pardon them. That’s a sign of failure. Not strength. 11/11
