Sullivan never speaks up to contradict Trump
Wall Street Journal reporter Molly Ball wrote: “Sen. Dan Sullivan stood beside the newly elected Taiwanese vice president in an orchid-draped room of the island’s presidential palace, making a promise that wasn’t wholly within his power to keep.”
“This is the message our bipartisan delegation wants to send to the people of Taiwan: ‘You can count on the United States of America,’ said the silver-haired Alaska Republican, a recently retired Marine.”
There is nothing “wholly” about this.
If Trump wins, Sullivan cannot keep any promises to Taiwan or any other country because a Trump promise is as flaky as a degree from Trump University.
As Ball also wrote, Trump displays a “seeming indifference to the fate of Taiwan’s democracy,” while Sullivan tries to sell the story that Trump is trustworthy, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Sullivan is hyper aggressive in attacking President Joe Biden and Democrats, but he is a sycophant about Trump, always ready with an apology or a deflection and eager to overlook Trump’s chronic dishonesty.
“Many American allies worry that if Trump is elected again, he would pull the U.S. out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and abandon Ukraine. Sullivan says he doesn’t lose any sleep over either prospect. He isn’t angling for a cabinet role, he says, and has no ambitions for higher office. If Trump wins another term, he is poised to be a significant voice on foreign policy in the Senate and in the president’s ear,” the story said.
Sullivan attempts to excuse Trump by saying, “maybe the rhetoric wasn’t so great, but let’s just look at the actions” of the Trump administration. He alleges the Trump foreign policy was “way underrated.”
“Maybe the rhetoric wasn’t so great.”
The Sullivan approach to Trump is to flatter him or change the subject or pretend Trump didn’t mention shithole countries or defend white supremacists or lie constantly about the 2020 election.
This is why every reporter who recycles the easy claim, as the Wall Street Journal did, that Sullivan is treading a path blazed by the late Sen. John McCain, should examine Sullivan’s refusal to question the mindset or the false claims of the convicted felon.
It was Trump who called McCain a “loser” in private and insulted him in public. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said of McCain. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
As on every other occasion, Sullivan never spoke up to contradict Trump.
It was Trump who attacked Sen. Lisa Murkowski during a campaign appearance in Anchorage, saying “And that piece of (mouthing a word he wouldn’t say aloud) voted to impeach me.”
Sullivan never spoke up to contradict Trump.
“Sullivan has managed to stay in Trump’s good graces. He spoke with Trump regularly during his presidency and worked closely with his administration on energy initiatives important to his home state. He remains close to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and sometime aide,” Ball wrote.
Keeping close to Kushner and staying in Trump’s “good graces” means that Sullivan, who is free to make bold promises to Taiwan and Ukraine, persists in his personal delusion that the anti-democratic nonsense from Trump can be brushed off as rhetoric that “wasn’t so great.”
When Trump Defense Secretary James Mattis announced his resignation in late 2018, Sullivan said he was a “once-in-a-generation Secretary of Defense,” adding “Semper Fidelis, Mr. Secretary.”
After Trump attacked Mattis as the “world’s most overrated general,” Sullivan never spoke up to contradict Trump.
Mattis said that Trump was doing everything to divide the country.
“We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children,” Mattis said.
Another military man who entered Trump’s realm and drew Sullivan’s praise was retired Gen. John Kelly, who eventually was Trump’s chief of staff.
When Trump later attacked Kelly as a fake tough guy who is “actually weak and ineffective, born with a very small brain,” Sullivan never spoke up to contradict Trump.
Kelly sized up Trump this way: “A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women.”
“A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”
“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly said. “God help us.”
Sullivan never speaks up to contradict Trump.
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