Chicago Sun Times: Trump Tweets a Far Cry from ‘No Drama Obama’: Quigley, Schakowsky
The following article was published on January 9, 2017. A link to the article can be found here.
By Mitch Dudek
U.S. Reps. Mike Quigley and Jan Schakowsky on Monday questioned Donald Trump's delicate ego hours after the president-elect took to Twitter to slam actress Meryl Streep for harshly criticizing him during an acceptance speech at the Golden Globe awards.
"I think there's real serious questions as to whether the president-elect has the right temperament to do this job, and I think, as strange as it sounds, his Twitter feed accentuates that concern," Quigley said.
"We're used to eight years of the expression ‘No drama Obama' — which at one time I know the president said that ‘sometimes to keep your nation safe you have to put your ego in your back pocket,'" Quigley said.
"There's a concern that [Trump] will let his personal ego go beyond the concerns of the country as a whole. He's the president of the United States. He doesn't have to worry about bragging or proving his merits any more, he needs to relax and lead us," he said.
Meryl Streep's acceptance speech after receiving a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes turned out to be the opening volley in a war of words with President-elect Donald Trump.
The actress never mentioned Trump by name, but it was clear who her target was in pointedly saying that a performance from the past year that stunned her came from the campaign trail. She noted an incident where "the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country" imitated a disabled reporter from The New York Times.
Schakowsky, asked if she pays attention to Trump's Twitter feed, responded: "Oh, who hasn't?"
"If you look at those messages, they're all so personal about his status and his ego and his ratings and whether or not he's being challenged on the election rather than: Is a foreign government actually interfering with the democratic process? These are the things we want him to focus on, but, you know, in all hours of the day and night it's all about him."
"I think it's important to, as we wind down this Obama administration, to remember: Not one scandal, not one in eight years. We'll see what happens going forward," Schakowsky said.
The comments were made Tuesday morning at a news conference held at the Argyle stop of the CTA's Red Line to officially announce nearly $1.1 billion worth of federal grants to modernize portions of the Red Line on the North Side.
Sen. Dick Durbin was critical of Trump Cabinet nominees to come up for confirmation hearings without having undergone FBI background checks or offering up financial information that could uncover a conflict of interest.
"They haven't done their paperwork!," Durbin said. "For goodness sakes, if they want to serve our government they ought to follow the rules of our government and our nation."