Family ties between Trump and Pizzagate: Mastio & Lawrence

David: I thought that we’d be at least a couple months into the actual Trump administration before President Donald’s penchant for nepotism blew up into some kind of a crisis. I thought the most likely scenario would be a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Ivanka after her father made one too many passes at her in the Oval Office.

Wrong on both counts. We didn’t make it even a month into the transition, and the blowup didn’t directly involve the Trumps at all. Instead, the highly qualified retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn, whom Trump has appointed to be his national security adviser, decided it would be a great idea to bring in his highly unqualified son, Michael G. Flynn, to be an aide in the Trump transition and possibly a staffer on the National Security Council.

Little did Big Flynn know that Mini Flynn didn’t want an NSC job. Instead, the 33-year-old was after Donald Trump’s job — loose-cannon tweeter in chief. Little Flynn decided that after a crazy person shot up the Comet Ping Pong pizza place in Washington over an imaginary Clinton child sex scandal, the Trumpian thing to do was throw gasoline on the fire, by further spreading on Twitter the idea that #PizzaGate was a real thing. Even after news stories started picking him apart for spreading the vicious lie that almost cost innocent people their lives, Little Flynn (in true Trumpian fashion) doubled down and spread the lie that the shooter was an actor on the government payroll.

Jill: Big Flynn has a relevant résumé, true, but let’s not overstate the distance between father and son, which is more like roommates in the same house than planets in the same solar system. Like his son, Flynn is a loose-cannon tweeter who spreads fake news, plus he was among the most enthusiastic “lock her up” chanters at the Republican convention. But so far he hasn’t been fired. No, he is still in line to take charge of sorting fact from fiction, good judgment from bad, and calmly conveying sound advice to a president who will sorely need it. And I mean sorely.

New normal or not normal?: Mastio & Lawrence

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad and somewhat surprised that young Flynn got the boot. That is at least something. But for Pete’s sake, why send Mike Pence on TV to imply that Flynn Jr. had never worked for the Trump transition, when in fact he had a transition team email address, was helping his father, and was trying to get a security clearance for more permanent work?

And furthermore, where was the top tweeter in chief when a gunman terrorized a pizza joint filled with parents and kids? How about a tweet condemning fake news about fictitious tunnels and child trafficking, or maybe a tweet affirming his respect for his vanquished opponent, or even simply 140 characters expressing gratitude that no one was hurt? How about, perish the thought, a visit to Comet and other businesses on the block to reassure the nation and the neighborhood (my neighborhood, in fact, and my favorite pizza in D.C.)? Trump is not anyone’s go-to guy for empathy, and he’s given no indication he plans to embrace the role of consoler in chief. But it is part of the job whether he likes it or not.

David: What's wrong with wanting to "lock her up"? Makes perfect sense to me.

On the plus side, by firing Flynn Jr., Donald Trump has delivered the message that there is only room for one loose-cannon tweeter in the Trump administration. That should keep Flynn Sr.’s digital logorrhea in check. More important, it gives me hope that Trump recognizes stupid and indefensible talk, at least when he is not the one doing the indefensible talking.

But what I really love about President Donald and the circus he is bringing to D.C. is how his foibles merely highlight what was already seriously wrong here. Sure Flynn Jr. is a paranoid nutcase, but at worst his dad was getting him a junior White House job. The Democrats are actually considering making Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota their party chairman. This guy compared 9/11 to the Reichstag fire that Adolph Hitler used to cement his hold on dictatorial power and set the stage for World War II and the Holocaust. A Muslim congressman comparing President George W. Bush to Hitler in the middle of two wars in Muslim countries was possibly a tad more destructive than spreading the #PizzaGate lies on Twitter. With the help of an apology and a gerrymandered district, Ellison got to keep his job, and now he is in line for a promotion.

The same is true with the Trump and Flynn family nepotism. We’re all worked up into a tizzy about the conflicts of interest between the Trump children and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the Trump family businesses and all the kids' influence in the administration and on good old Dad. But, before Trump came along, family and conflicts of interest were big business in Washington. Even in the years after Congress passed new ethics rules to restrict family members from being paid by special interests to lobby their moms, dads, children and in-laws in Congress (in both parties), special interests managed to keep passing millions to those kids who weren’t supposed to by lobbying their relatives. On his way into town, Donald Trump should call Harry Reid, on his way out of town, to get a tutorial in how to deal with conflicts of interest and your son-in-law.

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Jill: Like the Clintons and many others in Washington, Trump and his circle have made clear that rules are for other people. What sent me over the edge was learning that Ivanka is house hunting in D.C. So she’s involved in the transition and chatting with foreign leaders while running a family business that has projects in more than 20 nations, and now it appears she and her husband need to be handy for the next four to eight years so they can be key players in the Trump administration.

The New York Times reports that Ivanka and her dad may step aside but not divest from the business, leaving Donald Jr. and Eric in charge. I'm sure their status as presidential sons will have no impact on who tries to do business with them and on what terms. Also sure they'll say NOTHING to dad about what's going on in their business lives. What could possibly go wrong?

Hardly a day goes by post-election without reason to ask that question a dozen times. The Washington Post the other night had EIGHT stories at the top of its online home page about Trump-related clashes, confusion, lies, misdirection and hypocrisy. Three of them involved Pizzagate: How it went from rumor to hashtag to gunfire, Comet reopens and, of course, Trump adviser’s son removed from transition team after spreading a conspiracy theory.

All of that will pass. What I fear is that the pathology underlying it is permanent. Our president-elect championed Birthergate, the noxious theory that President Obama is not American. Trump has now moved on to other exaggerations, falsities and heedless provocations. If you can’t count on your president to be precise, diplomatic and above all truthful, who can you count on? Banishing young Flynn hardly constitutes a cure for a toxic virus that Trump helped create and now seems quite content to keep spreading, even as leader of the free world.

David Mastio, a libertarian conservative, is the deputy editor of USA TODAY's Editorial Page. Jill Lawrence, a center-left liberal, is the commentary editor of USA TODAY. Follow them on Twitter @DavidMastio and @JillDLawrence.

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