Appearing on MSNBC’s 9:00 a.m. ET hour on Wednesday to sell his latest Trump-trashing book, left-wing author David Cay Johnston compared the current administration to an insect infestation that was “eating away at the structure of our government.” He apparently saw himself as the exterminator ready to stamp out the supposed political parasites.
“Today, America is vastly changing under the Trump administration, from weakening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB, to chipping away at protections in ObamaCare,” anchor Stephanie Ruhle warned as she began the segment. The host introduced Johnston by touting: “My next guest, he says, It’s Even Worse Than You Think. That is the title of David Cay Johnston’s new book.”
Ruhle teed him up to explain how the Trump administration was “doing to the country worse than you think.” Johnston proclaimed: “We’re not out covering the government agencies. And the Trump administration has loosed political termites into the agencies who are eating away at the structure of our government.”
After listing various Obama administration regulations that have been rolled back by the Trump White House and even hyperventilating that “people are going to die because of this,” he demanded the liberal media do more to attack the policy changes: “There’s a whole series of actions that have either not been covered at all or have gotten covered tangentially about what’s happening to our government.”
Claiming that the President “has turned on the forgotten man” that helped him win the 2016 election, Johnston ranted:
He didn’t drain the swamp. He stocked it with the biggest predators around from Goldman Sachs....I call these people political termites because if termites are eating away at the structure of your house, you may not know until it’s seriously compromised, until you put a foot through the floor or a wall collapses. And that's what they’re doing.
After Ruhle highlighted his accusation of Trump being a “tax con man,” Johnston blasted the GOP tax plan: “...the tax cuts primarily benefit well-to-do people and we’re going to take away benefits from ordinary people and they’re going to discover the tax cuts are a fraud, after the next election.”
At the end of the softball interview, Johnston again took the media to task for not going after Trump hard enough: “...during the campaign, American news media did not cover him. They didn’t write about one of the most important things of all, that I keep bringing up, he spent years deeply entangled with a major cocaine trafficker in a way that makes no sense unless they were in business together.”
Rather than challenge such an incendiary allegation of criminal behavior, Ruhle responded by hoping that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was watching: “Well, guess what? I’m pretty sure Robert Mueller, he’s paying attention to all of it.” Johnston replied: “I hope so.”
Here are excerpts of the January 17 exchange:
9:40 AM ET
(...)
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Today, America is vastly changing under the Trump administration, from weakening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB, to chipping away at protections in ObamaCare. My next guest, he says, It’s Even Worse Than You Think. That is the title of David Cay Johnston’s new book. David, welcome. You say the Trump administration is doing to the country worse than you think. Why?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, in journalism, we tend to cover the issues at the White House. We’re not out covering the government agencies. And the Trump administration has loosed political termites into the agencies who are eating away at the structure of our government. So, for example, the Obama administration was putting in a regulation to test truck drivers, bus drivers, and train conductors, the operators, for sleep apnea. We have had these horrible accidents...
RUHLE: Horrible.
JONSTON: ...where you fall asleep and there’s a crash. We’re not gonna have that rule, Trump decided. Well, people are going to die because of this, because of a treatable malady. They have proposed in their budget to cut the retirement benefits of some disabled veterans, and I’m the son of a 100% disabled veteran, World War II. Where if you were getting $35,000, you might end up with only $13,000. That’s not taking care of the vets. They’ve taken the side of bankers against students who borrowed money to go to college. There’s a whole series of actions that have either not been covered at all or have gotten covered tangentially about what’s happening to our government.
(...)
9:43 AM ET
JOHNSTON: Donald Trump, who ran, basically, on an economic platform in my books about the forgotten man, has turned on the forgotten man. He didn’t drain the swamp. He stocked it with the biggest predators around from Goldman Sachs. And the things I describe in my book, tell you about, here’s what’s going on inside the government. I call these people political termites because if termites are eating away at the structure of your house, you may not know until it’s seriously compromised, until you put a foot through the floor or a wall collapses. And that's what they’re doing.
(...)
