I am so, so sorry for these former Donald Trump staffers who’ve now found a conscience, of sorts. Apparently, they were disgusted by Trump describing, in vivid anatomical detail, how he’d like to have sex with his adult daughter, Ivanka (who, by the way, worked in the White House with him, and some of them).

Those details come from the upcoming book, Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump, by Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security who wrote the anonymous 2018 New York Times op-ed, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”

By the way, a lot of good that did Miles, given Trump’s indictment on charges of espionage and role in fomenting the January 6 insurrection. Dude, I did more than you did to “resist” Trump. So did my dog Sadie.

Taylor writes, “Aides said he talked about Ivanka Trump’s breasts, her backside, and what it might be like to have sex with her, remarks that once led [former chief of staff] John Kelly to remind the president that Ivanka was his daughter.”

He goes on: “Afterward, Kelly retold that story to me in visible disgust. Trump, he said, was ‘a very, very evil man.’” Kelly’s mentee, Kirstjen Nielsen, who followed him as secretary of homeland security and supported (and some say promoted) his family separation policies, apparently whispered to Taylor, “Trust me, this is not a healthy workplace for women.”

But those of us who have followed Trump’s long career of political and financial corruption as well as his personal perversion weren’t surprised at all to learn of his creepy incestuous hunger for his sad, complicit daughter. Trump told the shocked ladies of The View: “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I would be dating her.” Maybe worst of all were his comments about his baby daughter, Tiffany, whom he compared to her mother, Marla Maples, elaborating: “I think that she’s got a lot of Marla, she’s really a beautiful baby,” Trump said. “She’s got Marla’s legs. We don’t know whether or not she’s got this part yet but time will tell.” He then held his tiny hands up to his chest to mime breasts.

In 2016, The Washington Post cataloged Trump’s most disgusting Ivanka remarks:

1) “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body. She made a lot money as a model—a tremendous amount.”—Trump said this on the Howard Stern radio show in 2003, Politico reported.

2) “Ivanka is a great, great beauty. Every guy in the country wants to go out with my daughter. But she’s got a boyfriend.”—Trump said this in a 2004 New York Magazine profile.

3)“I don’t think Ivanka would do that inside [Playboy] magazine. Although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I would be dating her.”

4)“Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father …”—Trump said this in a 2015 interview with Paul Solataroff for the September issue of Rolling Stone.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Donate

So nobody—nobody—should have been shocked at what he said about Ivanka to White House staff. If you went to work for him, you knew that stuff. Oh I know, it’s kinda graphic, maybe surprising he’d say it in public. But it shouldn’t have been a shock.

As for the supposed moral outrage of the Trump staffers who overheard him, I’m not going to say John Kelly is a “very very evil man,” as he referred to Trump. But he’s pretty fucking bad. He propped up Trump and supported his worst excesses, especially when it came to immigrants. I’m sorry his morals were offended by Trump’s incestuous perversion, but not by Trump’s perverse treatment of immigrants, via policies he supported and helped craft.

Meanwhile, Kirstjen Nielsen’s “feminist” stand on the workplace atmosphere: Wow, such a hero! Were the border camps you helped establish healthy for women or children, Kirstjen? She defended them, brazenly, in June 2018, partly denying that they existed, partly insisting that they were lawful, while earlier her agency admitted that it had separated nearly 2,000 children from adults over the course of six weeks at the southern US border.

Last year, she joined the Swiss firm Astra Protocol as a “strategic adviser,” an alleged “finance compliance” company that looks like a great new vehicle for high-tech money laundering, alongside former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. Kelly went right to work for the for-profit shelters taking advantage of the migrant families he’d separated.

Miles Taylor is a contributor to MSNBC and writes well-compensated books.

Donald Trump may go to prison. These people, who didn’t speak out publicly, behind their own names, when they had the chance, are prospering and will continue to prosper. Ivanka will go on being the daughter of a man credibly accused of sexual assault, which she ignored, even as she ignored her own sexual mistreatment. She’s a victim, in my opinion, but as some victims sadly do, she became a collaborator.

I’ve been an advocate of a popular front when it comes to Donald Trump, welcoming the support of former political sparring partners like Tim Miller, Tom Nichols, Jennifer Rubin, Rick Wilson, Charlie Sykes, Mona Charen (and many more). But this book revulses me. If you care about the rights of women, in any fashion, you fought against Trump—you didn’t go to work for him. None of these people can wash off the odor of “Complicit” now.