Has Trump Drained the Swamp or Stocked It With His Own Fish?

Sinking in the Swamp authors Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng are documenting all the president's grifters for The Daily Beast.

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Has Trump Drained the Swamp or Stocked It With His Own Fish?

"What sets the Trump era apart is the rank incompetence of the people looking to cash in on [self-serving] opportunities," write Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng in their new book, Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump's Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington. "That's great for us reporters. But it doesn't inspire confidence in the administrative abilities of our present leaders that Trumpworld can't even seem to do corruption right."

Markay and Suebsaeng cover Washington and the White House for The Daily Beast and they dish on how Trump associates, appointees, and apparatchiks such as Corey Lewandowski, Lynne Patton, and Rudy Giuliani are constantly working to enrich themselves while desperately trying to stay in the president's good graces. In a wide-ranging interview with Nick Gillespie, they also talk about Hillary Clinton's own brand of incompetence, the deeper forms of D.C.-based corruption that result in Joe Biden's son Hunter pulling down make-work jobs in foreign countries, why they think Donald Trump will win re-election, and their previous jobs at publications on the right and the left.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

Related links:

Sinking the Swamp on Amazon.

Asawin Suebsaeng on Twitter and at The Daily Beast.

Lachlan Markay on Twitter and at The Daily Beast.

Comments

[loveconstitution1789]

HAHAHA. The Daily Beast?

We dont even cite that rag in the comments because of its blatant bias.

unreason is such a tool of the Lefties.

[jcw]

you read and obsess over a lefty tool. Hah.

[Tulpa AKA "smarter than sarcasmic"]

God why did you even bother with that weak shit.

[Mother's lament]

Stossel, Volk and sometimes Bernstein and Robbie are all that’s left of a once great magazine. The rest are elitist, big-government liberals larping libertarian while auditioning for spots at the Atlantic, NYT and WaPo.
Lc1789 has a right to be disgusted.

Anyway I’m puzzled why Gillespie is bothering to quote the Daily Beast, when I’m sure that the DNC would be more than happy to share the original research directly.

[Wearenotperfect]

Hey Unconstitution1789, do you think JesseAZ will be close enough to the stage tonight to get any of the poop that Trump will be flailing on his shirt?

[[e-mail]]

Trump and his supporters are enemies of America and common decency!

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

To be perfectly frank, the federal government has long since grown way too big to ever be pruned back. Woodrow Wilson only amplified what had been going on, FDR amplified that, and every President and Congress since has continued the project.

The swamp is undrainable.

[Brandybuck]

I say we put a wall around that place and turn off all the air conditioners. The whole point of choosing to build the capital in a swamp in the first place was to keep people away.

[Idle Hands]

Wouldn’t turning off the AC actually create more humidity therefore more swamp?

[Tulpa AKA "smarter than sarcasmic"]

Of course to you want them censored. You can’t even make a joke without wanting it.

[MVP]

Especially when one doesn’t even try. The Trumptard was all bullshit on draining the swamp and non-interventionism…the neocons are dragging him around by the nose. He’s such a sack of shit…just like his predecessors and just like his successors will be.

[BALONEY TONEY MAHONEY]

GREAT POINTS!!!! The last decent prez was Calvin Coolidge!

[damikesc]

Wow, an interview with Never Trumpers.

Man, I wish the media would talk to that subset of life more. They seem so under-represented in the media…

[Nardz]

Thank goodness we have Reason to promote that underrepresented point of view!

[Reshufflex]

That was funny. ????

[Reshufflex]

Yea. Funny. I don’t know how the question marks showed up-I used a thumbs up.

[Idle Hands]

“What sets the Trump era apart is the rank incompetence of the people looking to cash in on [self-serving] opportunities,” write Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng in their new book, Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump’s Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington. “That’s great for us reporters. But it doesn’t inspire confidence in the administrative abilities of our present leaders that Trumpworld can’t even seem to do corruption right.”

And this is somehow a bad thing? This is honestly the best and most hilarious feature of the Trump presidency. We have supposedly the dumbest dunce of a president surrounded by incompetent retards and yet nothing of consequence has happened and *gulp things might actually be better or at least the same as they were under Obama the best and brightest president ever to be sworn in. An actual criticism of Trump is that they can’t do corruption right. What the fuck universe are we in?

[John]

We are in a universe where people lie and pretend up is down because doing so is necessary for them to keep their jobs and social standing. If these dumb asses told the truth, they would have to go find real jobs and be branded social pariahs among their piers.

This is just same chapter and verse as Mrs McArdle explaining how she is morally bound to vote for a communist because Trump. The only funny thing about all of this is that fewer and fewer people care what people like these dumb asses think or even know who they are. I am sure the two or three dozen people who buy their book will be outraged.

[Ra's al Gore]

ENB’s husband is on the right. Really should have mentioned that, Reason.

[Gray_Jay]

Oh, they got married? Congratulations.

Yeah, that might have warranted a mention or two in the preamble.

[John]

Good for them. The DC media is more inbred than the Spanish Hapsbergs

[End Child Unemployment]

The Jacket mentions they are married a few minutes into the interview.

[Nardz]

“ENB’s husband is on the right. Really should have mentioned that, Reason.”

No wonder she’s desperate to get into sex work

[Gray_Jay]

“Asawin Suebsaeng”

Isn’t that ENB’s main squeeze? Or was?

I’m not familiar otherwise with either reporter, but I guess they have unique observations and access inside Washington, sufficient to merit being being interviewed by Gillespie.

[I'm Not Sure]

“And this is somehow a bad thing?”

That was my first thought. I’m not sure we’ll ever be free of grifters, might as well be afflicted with incompetent ones.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Those fish won’t survive once he’s left the ecosystem.

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

Nice to see both “Liberal Activist Hacks” and “Way Too Online Hacks” represented in this podcast.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EO_vBP_X4BA4G40?format=jpg&name=large

[John]

That is hysterical. Didn’t they ban that guy from Twitter? Or did they dox him?

And why do these guys always look exactly like the worst soy boy, dork stereotype. Do they give them all some kind of a makeover in liberal hack school or something?

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

The soy filled bitch on the left is who Romney tapped to unveil his very serious Trump conviction vote.

The sack of soy on the right is ENB’s husband. Don’t know if marrying a prostitute raised or lowered his soy levels though.

[Tulpa AKA "smarter than sarcasmic"]

I’m sure it helped his Testosterone, if only because he was eating someone else’s out of his wife.

[Liberty Lover]

Quote: “What sets the Trump era apart is the rank incompetence of the people looking to cash in on [self-serving] opportunities,”
How does that set the Trump administrations apart from every other modern day administration? The only difference I see is the bureaucracy hates Trump and is trying to expose him, while protecting every other former President.

[Moderation4ever]

The problem with the idea of draining the “swamp” is that it there is no uniform definition for the term. President Trump usually defines the swamp as made up of career people who do their jobs, as they are defined, but who imped the President from doing things he wishes to do. Many other would define the swamp as the political appointees and the lobbyist that an administration would bring into their government. Swamp labels either group as some how bad and seems to be used mostly for political value. It would be better to more clearly articulate where you see the problem.

[Nardz]

Leftists, like most things, don’t get what The Swamp is.

[John]

Trump usually defines the swamp as made up of career people who do their jobs, as they are defined, but who imped the President from doing things he wishes to do.

He runs the executive. Their job is to do what he tells them to do. What do you think their job is if not that?

[De Oppresso Liber]

Here you go.

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2019/10/the-oath-of-office-and-what-it-means/

Nowhere does it say to do whatever the president wants.

[John]

Unless the order is illegal, yes they do. Sorry but “I don’t like that” doesn’t make it illegal.

So why don’t you try and make a responsive point next time because this one isn’t cutting it.

[Mother's lament]

This

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

Literally asking the HR department for constitutional interpretation is the perfect metaphor for the modern left.

[JesseAz]

Jeff, read your link next time dummy. They are to follow the president’s direction only to exception of unconstitutional orders. They are not appointed to do their own shit.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Why are you confusing De Oppresso Liber with me?

[Moderation4ever]

And the Presidents job is to listen and consider the advice he is given. The President seems to be incapable of sitting and listening to complex discussion of issue. He would rather watch a clip from Fox and Friends and make a decision on that basis. We are talking about people who have spend much of their career studying specific issues. The President is not obligated to follow their advice, but he seems irritated that he is even asked to listen.

[Jerryskids]

“What sets the Trump era apart is the rank incompetence of the people looking to cash in on [self-serving] opportunities,” write Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng in their new book, Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump’s Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington.

Damn, I’m going to have to read this book! I remember their previous books on the people looking to cash in on self-serving opportunities in the Obama and the Bush and the Clinton Administrations and if Trump’s people are categorically even more incompetent than the previous ones were, I’m going to have to do a side-by-side comparison of their facts and figures and their graphs and charts before I can believe such an incredible thing.

Oh, wait. You’re telling me they didn’t in fact do any such in-depth analysis of the self-dealing grifters in the Obama and the Bush and the Clinton Administrations? Then how do you know Trump’s grifters are worse? Because if they were you’re sure you’d have heard about it? From who? You didn’t fucking look for them did you, what makes you think anybody else would have either? With Trump, now you’re looking. And first time you look, there they are! Did it not occur to you that maybe they were there all along? It’s like Christopher Columbus discovering America – do you think nobody ever knew about America because it didn’t exist until Columbus spotted it? No, it was there the whole time but nobody knew about it because nobody ever went looking for it.

[Eddy]

In Soviet America, swamp drains *you!*

[Nardz]

A+

*sad face*

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[Weigel's Cock Ring]

Helping to promote Lizzie the Lezzie’s strange-looking beard. Tsk tsk.

[Barry Gold]

I agree with most of this, but I object to the use of the loaded term “apparatchiks”.

My wife used to volunteer at KPFK, a nonprofit radio station operated by the Pacifica foundation. One of their policies in the 1960s was: we do not refer to Castro as a “bearded communist dictator” unless we also refer to Kennedy as a “beardless capitalist president”.

A word to the wise…

[Gflyer]

Tough to keep your swamp stocked when the fish you put in keep getting fired, indicted, or resign.

[Ned Netterville]

Not fish. Obama cultivated Koi fish, Trump plants salt water Crocs, the carnivorous species that eats more people than any other.

[[e-mail]]

Trump and his supporters are enemies of America and common decency!

[Titus PUllo]

Oh the swamp..how many “well connected” political hacks who move from govt to usually the DNC orgs to some non profit to a “regulated industry” like banking or telecom and cash out making millions (Rahm? That chick who was on the 911 board, and so many others) then go back into govt. Hell the Facebook super woke “Lean In” was a democratic hack at one point..it helps to go to the right schools and be of certain ethnic backgrounds as well.

[Titus PUllo]

The public sector elites are the problem…Trump bringing in some ethnics and “blue collar” folks to enjoy the wealth of DC is a good thing. More Rizzuto’s and Kowalski’s and Catholicsin the elites is a good thing

[Nardz]

You still have 0 talent