Trump speaks his mind - again

Anyone holding a cabinet post in the Trump administration must be living on their nerves. Will the Big Man in the White House wake up one morning and start tearing them off a strip for doing a bad job? Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General and one of the strongest allies of Trump, has clearly been irritating the president ever since he announced he was recusing himself from the Justice Department investigation into the Russia collusion affair because of his eventually-confessed meeting with the Russian ambassador to Washington during the election campaign. That was in March. Now suddenly the irritation boiled over and in his interview with The New York Times today he thundered against Sessions for letting him down. He obviously expected Sessions to fight his corner and make sure that under no circumstances would a special counsel be appointed to lead the inquiry. But Sessions opted out and his deputy immediately appointed Robert Mueller, ex-FBI director, to be a special counsel. Poor Trump must have been beside himself at the time and now it has all come out. Sessions is in seriously bad odour. Whether Trump had already made that clear privately to Sessions we don't know. But if he hadn't, the interview in the paper must have shaken Sessions. Sessions is now on notice that he could be removed at any time. It could be a Trump tweet: "Go now Sessions, you're a bad man." Or it could be another newspaper or TV interview: "Sessions, you're fired." This is administration by fear and trepidation. Another way of putting it is: hanging on to your job by your fingertips clinging to a sheer precipice. Is this a good way of running a government? Sessions is certainly going to be on edge from now on, although he professes to love his job and has no intention of resigning. We'll see. Now there are also rumours of disaffection with Lieutenant-General HR McMaster, the National Security Adviser. He is not at all happy with Trump's love-in with Putin. He doesn't trust Putin, and probably rightly. But Trump is determined to forge good relations with Putin, and I doubt McMaster can talk him out of it, nor will the director of the Russian department of the National Security Council be able to dissuade him from this course. This official must be having nightmares trying to talk sense to the president. There are no rumours against Jim Mattis at the Pentagon. He is still the star of the show. John Kelly at the Department of Homeland Security is doing fine as well, sounding pretty tough about immigration and security risks etc. But all of them should beware of risking the wrath of Donald Trump. And all of them should check their fingernails and keep them long and strong!