Everybody Hoped Someone Else Would Stop Donald Trump — George Conway Analyzes Post-Presidency Tell-Alls

Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, the public witnessed other politicians fawning over him, while news reports routinely shared that one insider or another was really worried about his behavior. Many of these Republicans who we saw fighting to stay in Trump’s best books were the same ones who we had seen, pre-primary, disavowing him and warning voters that he was a dangerous (or racist or misogynistic) man. Now George Conway is spending his Tuesday morning reading one of the several recent books about the Trump presidency, and his analysis centers around one apparent conclusion: virtually everyone in Trump’s circle knew he was dangerous, and hoped that someone else would stop him, but kept cozying up to him just the same.

Conway started his analysis by quoting his own assessment from weeks ago — that everyone around Trump has assessed the then-president as “an incompetent nutjob” and had tried to control his behavior while still using his popularity to advance themselves. He shared that he’s reading I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, by Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig, and that it is full of examples supporting this.

Reading @CarolLeonnig's and @PhilipRucker's book now, and there are scores of examples of this. It's maddening but necessary reading. https://t.co/ljVjDgRWD8

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) July 20, 2021

Conway shared short segments of the book, pointing out things like General Mark Milley refusing to assess whether the President was endangering the people of America, and a specific incident in which a member of Congress praised Philliindividuals who were trying to keep Trump from doing too much harm, but still chose to stay anonymous, rather than speaking out publicly.

anonymous congressman who privately believed tfg was dangerously deranged praises anonymous officials as heroes for protecting us from the dangerously deranged president whom they enabled and sucked up to and pretended wasn't dangerously deranged pic.twitter.com/g4ksw2Zqmn

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) July 20, 2021

With another excerpt, Conway pointed out that another cautiously anonymous person close to Trump had both blamed others for taking advantage of Trump’s worst impulses, and affirmed that the President must be held responsible for his own behavior — but didn’t choose to take any actions so grand as attaching their name to the sentiment.

So much more here. These bits were but the tip of the iceberg. https://t.co/rWHn0DGL4w

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) July 20, 2021

Conway’s analysis of the newly-released information focuses on the fact that everyone around Trump knew he was dangerous but tried to walk a balance beam of limiting the damage while benefiting from it — but it also seems to support that a lot of people closest to the President hoped someone else would step up and do what they were unwilling to do themselves — act to take away his power, before he could do lasting harm.