Back in April, when Donald Trump was only slightly less off the rails than he is now, he forced his second Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, to resign.
Yesterday, at a Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, Nielsen was interviewed by PBS’ national correspondent, Amna Nawaz.
Nielsen was the public face of Trump’s family separation policy, which made her one of the most reviled members of TrumpWorld.
Nawaz pressed Nielsen about her role in creating and enforcing the family separation policy. Though Nielsen was a loyal soldier to Trump at the time, even enduring his humiliating her at a Cabinet meeting, she’s now walking back from all that. She told Nawaz, “ ‘Saying no’ and refusing to do things that others in the administration wanted was not going to be enough….there were a lot of things that, there were those in the administration who thought that we should do, and just as I spoke truth to power from the very beginning, it became clear that saying no, and refusing to do it myself was not going to be enogh, so it was time for me to offer my resignation” (https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/22/politics/kirstjen-nielsen-speech/index.html).
Associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones, who is with Trump 24/7, was sitting next to Melania and heard Trump’s third wife snicker and say, “Kirstjen, welcome to reality. Get a life."