Bill Kristol, founder and editor-at-large of the conservative paper The Weekly Standard , has routinely stood up to President Donald Trump’s policies, but his latest response to a presidential tweet was everything. The president was once again pointing to the Democrats to fix the policy, a reported misstatement which has been debunked by just about every news outlet including the New York Times since it’s actually his policy. This morning he sent out the following tweet, “Why don’t the Democrats give us the votes to fix the world’s worst immigration laws? Where is the outcry for the killings and crime being caused by gangs and thugs, including MS-13, coming into our country illegally?”
Referencing that missive, Kristol, 65, sent out his own tweet , saying, “Sure, separating those kids from their parents and keeping them in ‘security pens’ is stopping ‘gangs and thugs, including MS-13’ from coming into the country.” While Kristol is a Republican, he is neo-conservative who breaks with the president on many policies and calls him out on TV as well as Twitter. He’s been a political analyst for several networks and is currently seen almost regularly on MSNBC , a network seen as left-leaning.
All of this happening during the president’s birthday week. He turned 72 on June 14, and celebrating his big day hasn’t mellowed him one bit. He has been attacking the Democrats, as already mentioned above, on border policy. He’s attacking the FBI, Robert Mueller’s investigation as well as telling Washington Post employees to strike because he thinks they aren’t being paid enough. On his actual birthday, the president seemed to refrain from sending out his own tweets, only retweeting the official White House after they shared his weekly address.
Meanwhile, Kristol seems determined to not let up on the president and has often called on the Republican leadership to stand up to him to do the right thing on any number of issues. Currently, he is championing changing the border policy with respect to separating parents from their children, and the president isn’t his only target. Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen tweeted yesterday that “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.” This prompted a blistering response from Kristol, “The use of ‘Period’ is Kirstjen Nielsen’s way of signaling this is a hostage tweet. After all, what previous Trump Administration official famously used this term? Sean Spicer, when he was defending a lie: ‘This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.’”
