Historian and MSNBC contributor Michael Beschloss raised the specter of the execution of President Trump in response to a Washington Post report Thursday.
The report, based on anonymous sources, accused President Trump of taking nuclear documents when he left the White House in 2021. According to the Washington Post, this motivated the Biden administration’s raid on Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida home, Mar-a-Lago on Monday.
Trump argued on Friday the report is a hoax.
Beschloss, top, Hayden, bottom.
Beschloss posted to Twitter a photo of American spies for the Soviet Union, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed on the 1950s for giving nuclear weapons secrets to the Russians, “Rosenbergs were convicted for giving U.S. nuclear secrets to Moscow, and were executed June 1953:”
Rosenbergs were convicted for giving U.S. nuclear secrets to Moscow, and were executed June 1953: pic.twitter.com/0Ox1JXoNDf
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 12, 2022
Trump hating former CIA Director Michael Hayden chimed in, saying, “Sounds about right.”
Sounds about right. https://t.co/hJCjxhN2BQ
— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) August 12, 2022
The execution troll came in the midst of a tweet storm by Beschloss about the Post report in which he inferred Trump betrayed America to Russia.
Washington Post front page in print tomorrow: pic.twitter.com/AQbzDzJLlk
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 12, 2022
“Trump’s lawyer and pal Roy Cohn reviled the Rosenbergs for passing out American nuclear secrets…Remember “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”…Any possibility that certain foreign governments Trump loves wanted American nuclear secrets from him?”
Trump's lawyer and pal Roy Cohn reviled the Rosenbergs for passing out American nuclear secrets.
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 12, 2022
Any possibility that certain foreign governments Trump loves wanted American nuclear secrets from him?
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 12, 2022
“Urgently need to know: If he illegally took home and kept classified nuclear documents, did he share the secrets from them with enemies of the United States?”
Urgently need to know:
If he illegally took home and kept classified nuclear documents, did he share the secrets from them with enemies of the United States?— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 12, 2022
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Beschloss was part of a group of historians who met with Biden via remote last week as Biden was still testing positive for COVID (excerpt):
The group that gathered in the White House Map Room last week was part of a regular effort by presidential historians to brief presidents, a practice that dates at least as far back as the Reagan administration. Obama convened such groups multiple times, though the sessions fell out of favor under Trump.
Following a similar meeting with Biden last spring, the Aug. 4 gathering was distinguished by its relatively small size and the focus of the participants on the rise of totalitarianism around the world and the threat to democracy at home. They included Biden’s occasional speechwriter Jon Meacham, journalist Anne Applebaum, Princeton professor Sean Wilentz, University of Virginia historian Allida Black and presidential historian Michael Beschloss. White House senior adviser Anita Dunn and head speechwriter Vinay Reddy also sat at the table.
Biden, who was still testing positive for the coronavirus, appeared on a television monitor that was set up next to the room’s fireplace, taking notes as he sat two floors up in the Treaty Room that is part of the White House residence. Senior adviser Mike Donilon also appeared on-screen, say people familiar with the events.
…One person familiar with the exchange said the conversation was mostly a way for Biden to hear and think about the larger context in which his tenure is unfolding. He did not make any major pronouncements or discuss his plans for the future.
“A lot of the conversation was about the larger context of the contest between democratic values and institutions and the trends toward autocracy globally,” the person said.
Most of the experts in attendance have been outspoken in recent months about the threat they see to the American democratic project, after the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, the continued denial by some Republicans of the 2020 election results and the efforts of election deniers to seek state office.
…Beschloss, a presidential historian who regularly appears on NBC and MSNBC, has recently become more outspoken about what he sees as the need for Biden to battle anti-democratic forces in the country.
“I think he has got to talk tonight about the fact that we are all in existential danger of having our democracy and democracies around the world destroyed,” Beschloss said in March on MSNBC, before Biden delivered the State of the Union address.