Yet another key figure in the Trump Administration has announced her departure: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. This follows the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in late 2018. And conservative attorney George Conway, husband of Trump adviser and GOP strategist Kellyanne Conway, has been speaking out about Nielsen’s departure on Twitter — declaring that it underscores Trump’s lack of leadership.
MSNBC’s David Gura, on Twitter, noted that the United States now lacks a permanent Homeland Security secretary as well as a permanent Department of Defense secretary (former Boing executive Patrick Shanahan has been serving as acting defense secretary since Mattis’ departure). And GC, responding to Gura’s tweet, posted, “In all seriousness, we have no competent, functioning president.”
Although GC and KC are both right-wing Republicans, they have been expressing very different views on the merits of Trump’s presidency. KC is among Trump’s most strident defenders, while GC has been highly critical of him—not unlike neocon Bill Kristol, known for his many years with the now defunct Weekly Standard.
On Twitter, Kristol noted that Nielsen never mentioned Trump in her resignation letter and “does not say it was an honor to have served him”—and GC, responding to Kristol, noted the parallels between Mattis’ resignation letter and Nielsen’s.
GC also responded to a tweet by GQ Magazine’s Julia Ioffe, who pointed out that the lack of a permanent Department of Homeland Security secretary and a permanent Defense Department secretary comes at a time when Trump claims there is a “national emergency at our southern border. And GC, in response, tweeted, “We don’t really have a president.”
