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SACRAMENTO — The Trump administration’s screwup texting about military attack plans while using an unsecured app instantly reminded me of a phone call I made when Ronald Reagan was president.
The anecdote illustrates the contrast in competence and grasp of real world dangers between Reagan’s team and Trump’s toadies — and also between these presidents themselves.
The phone call was made while I was ensconced at Santa Barbara’s wonderful East Beach, covering the president vacationing at his beloved, secluded mountaintop Rancho del Cielo — as the former California governor frequently did. This was during Reagan’s first term in the early 1980s.
I called Deputy Chief of Staff Mike Deaver, whose closeness to Reagan and insider influence far exceeded his official title. Fortunately for me, Deaver and I had lived across the hall from each other in a creaky old frat house at San Jose State. And we had a good working relationship.
I was trying to pad out a Times story with some background information, but don’t remember the subject. What I do vividly remember was Deaver’s immediate reaction after answering the call.
“George, this is not a secured phone,” he said emphatically.
Deaver was on the East Coast somewhere, taking a break from the White House and its secured communication system.
Raised in hardscrabble Kern County, he loved Santa Barbara and landed his first political job there, playing piano at small Republican fundraisers. So I expected him to open up with something like: “Envy you guys out there. How’s the weather in paradise?”
Instead, there were several fervent “this is not a secured phone” cautions.
OK, but I wasn’t calling about a national security issue, I assured him. He still felt uncomfortable. But we chatted and I managed to flush out a story for the paper before returning to the beach.
What struck me about Deaver that day — and many other times dealing with Reagan officials —was how ingrained tight security was with the whole administration. They practiced it daily. It was a top priority.
Ignorant and careless Trump administration
Trump and his so-called security team clearly are just the opposite.
They’ve shown themselves to be careless with classified information — or, at least it should be classified, even if they insist it’s not.
They’re ignorant of the hole they’ve opened for the info to be leaked to America’s enemies, potentially endangering our troops.
They’re too lazy to gather in the White House Situation Room, a windowless, heavily guarded bunker where Reagan and all presidents since — until Trump — met with top advisors to discuss sensitive military matters.
They’re grossly negligent in inviting a journalist into their texting exchange about a pending military attack.
Suddenly sitting on top of the nation’s political heap, they’re plain arrogant for not considering any of these basics.
How else can you explain the incomprehensible national security breach when detailed military strike plans are texted using a commercial encrypted messaging app — Signal — two hours before an aerial attack was launched against Houthi militia in Yemen?
And to boot, a leading journalist — a representative of Trump’s dreaded “fake news” media — is inadvertently invited to take part in the 18-member chat. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of the Atlantic magazine, said he witnessed the texting sitting in his car in a Safeway parking lot. Not exactly the Situation Room.
After Goldberg broke the story, the Trump officials — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseith, who disclosed the attack details — did what caught-in-the act politicians often do: They made things worse by publicly denying what everyone soon saw for themselves when the Atlantic published the text chain.
Smart people admit their mistake, promise it’ll never happen again and move on. They don’t call it a “witch hunt” as Trump did. Or a “hoax” as his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt asserted. And incessantly lie.
“As the former chair of the [House] Intelligence Committee, it is hard for me to describe what a colossal f—up this is,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), declared in a written statement.
The F-word? Wasn’t that usage a bit unusual, he was asked by a TV interviewer. “I’m running out of adjectives and expletives” to characterize the Trump administration, he replied.
“Incompetent” is one apt description.
Not the first blunder by Trump
California saw that demonstrated when Trump foolishly ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to dump water from two small San Joaquin Valley dams in the winter.
One reason, he implied, was to transfer water to Los Angeles for potential firefighting. But there was no way to get that water to L.A. And it certainly wasn’t farm irrigation season. So instead of saving the valuable water for summer, it was wasted.
California doesn’t plot military assaults against other states, but it does use “highly secure methods to discuss matters that are extremely sensitive and confidential, especially those related to homeland security,” says Izzy Gardon, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s spokesman. That includes potential terrorist attacks.
But, unlike the Trump administration, California’s government does not use Signal. One reason is that it’s not considered secure enough for state mobile phones, said another Newsom official who asked not to be identified.
The Trump advisor’s dumb move may also be symptomatic of our growing addiction to smartphones and dependence on Zoom meetings. We’ve forgotten how to meet face-to-face and close the door to people who don’t belong there.
One thing for sure: Unlike Trump’s sloppy bunch, Reagan and his crew adhered to the old World War II caution: “Loose lips sink ships.”
What else you should be reading
The must-read: ‘Hate speech is everywhere on X.’ California Assembly Democrats leave Elon Musk’s platform en masse
The TK: Treasured California dairies to close. Point Reyes locals say it’s conservation gone mad
The L.A. Times Special: Gavin Newsom has lots to say. Is it worth listening?
Until next week,
George Skelton
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