The White House has an incredible list of incompetent advisors, cabinet members and agency heads. Most are either close family members, family friends or people who worked closely in the Trump organization. Some others are business associates, as well as, supporters and donors from the campaign. It is frightening to realize how unqualified most of these people are. Donald Trump is now privately pushing his personal pilot to head the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and manage its $16 billion budget. Yes, the man who flew him around the country in his private 757. That is that is John Duncan’s sole qualification. As Axios’ Jonathan Swan puts it this is like a “Seinfeld” episode
One industry insider equated this to the Seinfeld episode when Cosmo Kramer used his golf caddy as a jury consultant. A senior administration official told me that comparison is completely unfair. The source confirmed Trump recommended Dunkin and that he’s sat for an interview for the post. That source said he was impressive.
- “He’s on the list because he’s the president’s pilot, but if he gets the job it won’t be because he’s the president’s pilot,” the source said.
In response to my questions for this story, another administration source stressed that while no decision has been made, Dunkin has the appropriate experience to get the job.
“John Dunkin isn’t just a pilot,” the administration official told me. “He’s managed airline and corporate flight departments, certified airlines from start-up under FAA regulations, and oversaw the Trump presidential campaign’s air fleet, which included managing all aviation transportation for travel to 203 cities in 43 states over the course of 21 months.”
About that airline and corporate flight department experience, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow explains how well that has gone:
In late October 2016, an NBC reporter rushed from New York’s La Guardia airport to the network’s studios to report about being on a plane carrying then-vice presidential candidate Mike Pence and his press pool that nearly skidded onto a nearby highway. According to that reporter, Vaughn Hillyard, that sort of incident happened all the time. A subsequent investigation into the incident came to the conclusion that the near-miss landing was the result of pilot error.
A month prior, Maddow revealed, The Guardian reported that the charter company that hired the pilot in the rough October La Guardia landing had previously employed the leader of a Floridian pro-Trump law enforcement group to fly Pence. That man, the Guardian reported, was at the time “facing violent felony charges” that didn’t come up when they vetted him to fly the then-governor of Indiana.
Despite hiring one man accused on multiple counts of assault and another who repeatedly executed terrifying landings, Axios reported on Sunday that Trump is pushing to have the contractor in charge of his campaign fleet nominated to lead the Federal Aviation Administration.
Rachel goes on to enumerate the all the incompetents in Trump’s circle:
“Donald Trump’s golf caddy is the White House director of social media now,” the hosted said, referencing aide Dan Scavino. She listed off several others as well: Trump’s “long time bodyguard” Keith Schiller who was, until September, head of Oval Office operations; Eric Trump’s wedding planner Lynne Patton, who was tapped to lead a HUD office in the Southeast; and a former Trump Tower staffer’s husband, who got a job with the EPA.
Along with former “Apprentice” contestant Omarosa Manigault-Newman, whose exit from the White House late last year led to bombastic revelations on “Celebrity Big Brother,” Maddow noted that a friend of Melania Trump’s got a $26 paycheck for event planning at the president’s inauguration — despite a nearly identical sum being paid to the firm that traditionally plans inaugurals.
If this is Trump’s definition of “all the best people,” how long are we going to last?