Director of the U.S. National Park Service Provides Insight into Trump
I had the good fortune to sit next to Jonathan Jarvis (pictured at left), 18th Director of the U.S. National Park Service under Barack Obama, on a four-hour-long flight last night.
It was a lengthy time period sufficient to hear some pretty cool stories, my favorite of which pertained to the events shortly after he resigned when Donald Trump was elected in the 2016 presidential election. According to protocols, deputy director Mike Reynolds (second from right in pic above) became acting director, and, to his immense surprise, received a phone call from the president himself immediately after the inauguration the following January.
As it turns out, the National Mall, the site of the ceremony, is one of the 62 national parks, over which Mike had risen to a position of leadership, including the helicopter team that had performed the aerial photography that revealed the crowd size.
“Mike,” the POTUS said, “I need some better shots of the crowd size. Please find some and send them to Sean Spicer.” “Yes sir,” Mike replied.
Well, the rest is history. There were no better shots, and it was completely clear that the attendance at Obama’s inauguration had been far larger than Trump’s. As we now know, this didn’t have the slightest effect on Spicer; he went on television the next day and claimed that “the ceremony had drawn the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period – both in person and around the globe.”
Of course, this drew broad and immediate ridicule, and, one could argue, marked the point at which the entire world knew that Trump and the truth were like two ships, crossing in the night.
Craig,
Let’s see, I hope I understood the point of your anecdote correctly?
You say you sat next to Jonathan Jarvis, Obama’s Director of the U.S. National Park Service, on a four-hour-long flight last night.
This is same J.Jarvis who resigned when President Trump was elected, to take up a position as the newly formed Institute for Parks, People, and Diversity (Climate Change) at UC Berkeley?
This is the same Obama appointed and politically active Democrat who spent seven years being shielded by the Obama administration of criticism from Congress and watchdog organizations for failing to address a widespread culture of sexual harassment and park mismanagement.
The lengthy accusations included, a lack of fire control policies, politicization of the park policies, corrupt employment preferences, misappropriation etc.
So, if I understand you correctly, in four hours the most memorable information you elicited from this controversial former political appointee was a mutual gossip about an old story to the current president’s detriment about the inauguration?
Were you returning from a democrat fundraiser ? How the hour’s must have just flown by reminiscing about the glory days of Obama. Although it’s a shame that other major Democrat/Obama fundraiser and supporter, Harvey Weinstein couldn’t join your discussion grope, sorry, I mean group……
Ah, my goodness how great it must be to enjoy the lifestyle of a retired Obama environmentalist jet setter.