Yet another Donald Trump aide resigned on Friday after the US President roasted him for flying in private charter planes at taxpayer expense, even as his eight-month old administration is getting hammered for corruption and unethical practices despite famously pledging to clean up Washington DC.
Health secretary and human services secretary Tom Price joined the long list of those who resigned or were fired by Trump — including his national security adviser, his chief of staff, his chief strategist, his press secretary, his communications director, the FBI director among others — after he embarrassed the administration by racking up $400,000 in travel bills for work-related chartered flights in just eight months.
As much as the scandal, the President was reportedly disturbed by the “optics” of the scam amid growing disquiet from the Trump base about corruption and privileged abuse of power. “I’m not happy, OK?” Trump fumed to reporters who asked about Price just an hour before the resigna- tion was announced. “I can tell you, I’m not happy.”
Price, who was already in trouble with the President for the perception that he did not do enough in helping repeal Obamacare, reportedly got a tongue-lashing from Trump in the Oval Office before being asked to turn in his resignation. He had earlier attempted to ride out the scandal by offering to partially reimburse the costs to the tune of about $ 50,000, a move that aggravated the optics.
More trouble is in store for the administration with the disclosure just hours later that another cabinet member, veteran affairs secretary David Shulkin, took in a Wimbledon tennis match and a Thames cruise for himself and his wife during a trip to Europe. Two other Trump aides, treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin and education secretary Betsy Devos, both billionaires, are also under the lens.
Faced with an already hostile liberal media, Trump also has to contend now with a base that is getting restive about the graft and cronyism he pledged to end amid tall promises of “draining the swamp”.
In a withering cover story that asked whether the Trump administration is the most corrupt and unethical in American history, Newsweek magazine lit into the President, reminding voters of his own fixation with private jets and gaudy lifestyle. “What we have is a private jet presidency, a low- class orgy of first-class kleptocrats. Remember when people thought Trump would usher in an era of American totalitarianism? Remember when credible, serious people compared Trump to some of the 20th century’s worst dictators? They, like the people who voted for Trump, believed what he said. How foolish,” the magazine said in a scathing commentary
Trump’s latest troubles come on the heels of some of his family and staff using private emails for official correspondence, a violation of administration practices for which Trump and his supporters had chastised Hillary Clinton and other Democrats. Amid a scandal and slip-up almost every week in Washington DC, the President also got into unseemly brawl with administrators of the hurricane-battered US territory of Puerto Rico, berating the mayor of its capital San Juan for poor leadership and shredding the island’s handling of its finances at a time its people are on their knees.
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