“I am honored that President Trump nominated me for this position. I appreciate his support and confidence in me, as well as that of Secretary Mattis and many others, and their desire to Make America Great Again by preparing our military to face the many challenges in the world for the safety and security of our nation.”But to meet these challenges, there should be no distractions. And unfortunately due to false and misleading attacks against me, this nomination has become a distraction.”
And what exactly are the nature of those “misleading attacks”? That would be the truth about Green’s record.As Rachel noted on the show the other day, Green has quite a colorful record of strange beliefs, including arguing that being transgender is a “disease,” promoting creationism, criticizing public health-care programs for interfering with Christian evangelism, and raising some very strange concerns about Victoria’s Secret catalogs.As rumors swirled this week that Green was simply too radical to be confirmed, he insisted that the chatter was baseless and that his meetings with senators were going smoothly.That turned out to be untrue. Green is now out and Trump will need to look for yet another person to serve as Army Secretary.The question for the White House, meanwhile, is simple: do Trump’s aides not vet these nominees at all, or does Team Trump complete their due diligence and assume the president’s picks should be confirmed anyway?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."