What did Donald Trump do today?
He demanded that someone who'd investigated his crimes be punished, this time in the private sector.
Trump continued his vendetta against anyone who tried to hold him to account for his criminal conduct after leaving office with a threat against Microsoft, demanding that they fire a recently hired executive. Lisa Monaco, Microsoft's newly appointed president of global affairs, is a former U.S. deputy attorney general and had helped investigate Trump's theft of classified documents and his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
In a lengthy rant posted to his private microblogging website, Trump called Monaco a "menace to National Security" and insisted that she be fired. This came on the same day that he gloated over having forced the Justice Department—over the explicit objections of line prosecutors, who saw no credible case—to bring charges against former FBI Director James Comey. (Comey, whose last-minute but fruitless investigation of Hillary Clinton's handling of classified material tipped the 2016 election to Trump, was summarily fired after refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump.)
Microsoft has not responded publicly, but Trump's attempt to jawbone them into firing someone he regards as an enemy is part of a bigger pattern. Trump, who inherited a vast real estate fortune just as New York City property values were skyrocketing, never had much luck in his independent business ventures. Aside from his infamous accomplishment of going bankrupt in the casino business, he lost money—his and other people's—in a variety of ill-fated acquisitions and product launches ranging from airlines to mail-order steaks.
But forcing private companies to act at his behest gives him a chance to play CEO with a safety net, which may be the appeal. In his second term alone he's extorted the United States' only major manufacturer of computer chips for 10% of its stock, tried to get Coca-Cola to change its recipe, forced US Steel to operate a plant at a loss, prematurely celebrated getting Jimmy Kimmel fired for making fun of Trump's exploitation of a murder for political gain, and—in a move paralleling today's ultimatum to Microsoft—demanded that investment bank Goldman Sachs fire an economist who'd pointed out the basic economic fact that American consumers are the ones who pay for tariffs.
Trump has also systematically fired almost everyone in the public service who investigated or prosecuted cases related to his attempt to lead an insurrection to overturn the 2020 election results. In today's blog post, Trump referred to that insurrection, which was broadcast live as it happened and involved thousands of participants that Trump himself pardoned on returning to office, as the "January 6 hoax."
Why does this matter?
- The government of the United States is supposed to serve the people, not settle Donald Trump's private scores.
- Businesses should be run by people who are not famously, provably, hilariously bad at running businesses.
- Trump is not a god and reality does not change itself just because he says something never happened.