'Not the American way': Trump slammed for ruthless 'assault'

President Donald J. Trump speaking to the press before boarding Marine One in February 2025 (Rawpixel.com/ Shutterstock.com)
During the late 19th Century, the United States developed a civil service system that was designed to replace the old spoils system. The idea was that government would be stronger if employees had to compete based on merit rather than gifts they offered a president.
Journalist/radio host Thom Hartmann discussed the history of that system during a Saturday, August 30 appearance on MSNBC, arguing that President Donald Trump is replacing it with a pay-to-play system.
Hartmann told host Ali Velshi and fellow guest Richard Cordray — former Ohio attorney general and director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) — "I think a little, just a very brief history lesson, is really important here in the context of what's going on. Back in the 1820s, the arguably-second-most-corrupt president in American history, Andrew Jackson, started a system called the spoils system — which meant if you wanted a federal job, you had to give the president a gift or somehow support the president in a way that was meaningful to him. That lasted through most of the 19th Century."
READ MORE: Gavin Newsom just made Mike Johnson look like a Democrat
Hartmann continued, "In 1881, a guy named Charles Guiteau, who was a wannabe speechwriter, came to the White House and met with President Garfield and gave him a speech that he had written for Garfield — and he hoped that Garfield would give him a job in exchange for that speech. Garfield didn't, and so, a couple days later, Guiteau ambushed him and shot him and killed him. And that led to, in 1883, two years later, the creation of the Pendleton civil service system, which is just very clear: we're no longer going to have a spoils system where if you want a job in the federal government, you have to give gifts to the president. We're going to have a professional civil service that is nonpolitical, and that stood until Trump became president and the assault on the civil service system in general and expertise more generally."
Trump's "assault," according to Hartmann, "is part of this larger argument of autocracy being basically, the entire government being bent to the will of one man."
Hartmann told Velshi and Cordray, "It's not the American way…. The real tragedy, I think, of this Supreme Court, this current Supreme Court, is how not only have they been basically handing unlimited power to Donald Trump — even telling him that he can commit pretty much any crime he wants and never be prosecuted for it — but they're doing much of it without any justification, without open hearings, without testimony, without debate, you know, in the so-called shadow docket."
Referencing a lawsuit by U.S. Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook — who Trump is trying to fire — Hartmann added, "If this decision, if this Cook decision, comes down for Trump, it's going to be a major disaster for the United States, for our form of government."
READ MORE: Republican civil war feared over new Trump order targeting 'scruffy-bearded' weirdos
Watch the full video below or at this link.
- YouTube www.youtube.com