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The Secretary of the Navy tried to ignore an order-by-tweet last week and he's been fired. People who don't act on Trump's tweets can do so, but when he follow
by roywiggins 7y ago
The Secretary of the Navy tried to ignore an order-by-tweet last week and he's been fired.
People who don't act on Trump's tweets can do so, but when he follows up by firing people who don't, that's something of a signal that they're meant to be taken as orders.
- austincheney 7y agoThat's not what happened. The Navy secretary was not fired by Trump or anything related to Twitter. He was fired by the Secretary of Defense after violating a verbal order and making contradictory public statements.
- roywiggins 7y agoTrump tweeted that Esper fired Spencer but Esper very likely didn't actually have the authority to do so. Probably Esper asked Spencer to resign. Point is, when you have 1) a tweet about an issue, 2) an official who says "that's not an order, we are going to wait until there's an order" followed by 3) that official being fired, it sure looks like the tweet was meant to be taken as an order. https://mobile.twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1198781757841117185 https://mobile.twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/119878175784...
- austincheney 7y agoEsper fired Spenser. Esper told Spenser to write a resignation letter on Sunday and deliver it to Trump the same day. This happened before Trump tweeting anything related. Trump became aware of the termination as a result of the resignation letter and tweeted as a result. Here is an article where Esper explains why he fired Spenser to Pentagon officials. https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2019/11/25/esper-expands-on-why-he-fired-navy-secretary-spencer-n2557025/ https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2019/11/25/esper...