"We're closed!"

President Trump began berating Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in the Oval Office earlier this spring, according to administration officials, griping about her performance and blaming her for a surge in illegal border crossings.

Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, who installed her in the job, jumped in to defend her.

The two men then sparred over Nielsen as she silently watched. At one point, Trump noted the border numbers were lower under Kelly and wondered aloud why Nielsen could not perform as well

  WaPo

Well, duh. Woman!

The president has chastised [Nielsen] on several occasions this spring, including a much publicized meeting earlier this month when he attacked her in front of the entire Cabinet. He has grown furious because his administration has made little progress building the border wall, and his most ardent supporters have blamed Nielsen for not doing more to halt the caravan of Central American migrants whose advance Trump saw as a personal challenge.

What is she supposed to do? Why were numbers down when Kelly was in that job? I'm sure it had nothing to do with Kelly vs. Nielsen. Christ, they're separating women from their children and raiding courtrooms and meeting places to snatch people up and deport them. What more does the asshat in the oval want?

Trump has been in no mood to hear that migration patterns have returned to historic, seasonal norms this spring, a trend occurring in part because the American economy is buzzing and U.S. farms, factories and businesses are desperate for workers.

[...]

Instead Trump has fumed at Nielsen, telling her to “close the border” and growing impatient at her explanations of why that’s not possible.

Give her a wall with a door, asshat, and maybe she'll have a better chance.

"Close the border." Jesus wept.

He has also blamed her, at times, for not securing enough money to finish the border wall — even though she was not part of the spending deal struck by senior White House aides and that the president signed, current and former administration officials said.

It's her fault there's not enough money for the wall? I thought Mexico was supposed to be paying for that. That's what he told us was going to happen.

[Trump] has also seen [Nielsen] as a proxy for Kelly, whose relationship with the president has frayed in recent months. Trump has decided, according to several aides, that Nielsen is a George W. Bush kind of Republican, the worst in his view.

[...]

Nielsen has complained that it is almost an impossible task working for Trump, according to administration officials and others familiar with her thinking, and that he doesn’t understand the nuances of immigration law.

He doesn't understand the meaning of nuance.

Tensions between the two could soon flare again — the Border Patrol’s May arrest numbers are due to be released early next month, and immigration hawks, including the president, now treat them as a kind of barometer for Nielsen’s performance.

Talk about being a George W. Bush kind of Republican - this pressure from Trump is exactly like the kind of pressure the people in charge of Guántanamo prisoners claimed to be under when they decided to torture prisoners in order to give Bush/Cheney information they wanted.

The night before Trump delivered his first speech to Congress in February 2017, he huddled with senior adviser Jared Kushner and [Stephen] Miller in the Oval Office to talk immigration. The president reluctantly agreed with suggestions he strike a gentler tone on immigration in the speech.

Trump reminded them the crowds loved his rhetoric on immigrants along the campaign trail. Acting as if he was at a rally, he then read aloud a few made up Hispanic names and described potential crimes they could have committed, like rape or murder. Then, he said, the crowds would roar when the criminals were thrown out of the country — as they did when he highlighted crimes by illegal immigrants at his rallies, according to a person present for the exchange and another briefed on it later. Miller and Kushner laughed.

Some of the most disgusting men on the planet occupy the American capital.

A senior White House official said that while the president did discuss the “crowd enthusiasm for crackdowns on criminal aliens,” the official disputed that Trump used Hispanic names to illustrate the point.

That's okay. We know it's absolutely in character.

Around the same time, Nielsen was complaining to colleagues — and her then-boss, DHS secretary Kelly — about how the administration botched its travel ban. She panned the president’s statement about the border wall, saying it was unlikely to ever be built. Kelly agreed. The two sometimes joked about it.

In early 2017, Nielsen told at least two colleagues that the president’s rhetoric made it more difficult to run the agency.

[...]

In an Oval Office meeting last fall, Trump complained about Nielsen to Kelly even as she sat nearby, officials familiar with the meeting said.

“Nobody likes her,” he said, telling Kelly he had heard from friends, West Wing aides and TV personalities. He then asked why Kelly had pushed so hard for her nomination and whether he had to stick with the choice, according to the officials.

[...]

Trump brought Kelly in to tame a wild West Wing in July 2017. Kelly asked Nielsen to be his deputy and trusted enforcer, and she quickly grated upon White House staffers who viewed her as a humorless scold who did not communicate with aides. For her part, Nielsen told others she could not believe how disorganized and chaotic the place was. Several White House officials said her only ally in the building was Kelly.

She stayed away from Trump, “maybe visiting the Oval Office five times,” according to a former senior administration official. Other aides frequently bad-mouthed her to the president.

[...]

As Trump harangued Nielsen for more than 30 minutes in front of the Cabinet this month, other aides grimaced and fidgeted. Nothing she said seemed to calm the president, according to people familiar with the meeting.

“We’re closed!” Trump yelled at one point, referring to the border. This time, Kelly did not leap to her defense.

Yep, Nielsen should be packing her bags. Kelly is not far behind.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Some they simply shoot.