To be blunt about it, you all have some work to do in this department. After all, you all volunteered to work for Donald Trump, a guy no one thinks of as particularly moral or ethical. Some of you spoke out when the president overstepped the bounds of decency. Some of you publicly supported policies that observers might characterize as either inhumane or incompetent. Some of you have flat-out lied and never apologized for it. I am pretty confident all of you talked to reporters anonymously to characterize the president in ways one would describe a bratty 2-year-old.

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Having recently written a book on the 45th president, I know from extant reporting that some of you thought it was better to serve and stop the worst from happening. Some of you even reportedly formed pacts to make sure that a responsible adult stayed in the country at all times to make sure the president did not do anything reckless.

As the 2020 election approaches, here is a resolution I would really like all of you to make: Talk to the country, on the record, about what it was like to work for President Trump.

The reasons for this are obvious but bear repeating. An awful lot of reporting about the president suggests that he suffers from some serious decision-making defects: a short attention span, poor impulse control, knowledge deficits, oppositional behavior, addiction to screens and frequent temper tantrums. No one thinks these are good qualities in an adult, much less a commander in chief.

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The president likes to dismiss this reporting as “fake news.” Is he right or not?

Speaking out candidly could be interpreted as a violation of the norm that conversations with the president should be kept private. There are three responses to this, however. The first is that one can reveal general impressions of a president without divulging specific conversations or classified information.

The second is that this particular norm eroded before Trump was president. Memoirs from Cabinet officials about their time in office have often come out while the president who appointed them still held the position. Robert Gates’s memoir of his time serving presidents Bush and Obama was candid about both presidents. This rankled some at the time, but the Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf correctly noted that the public is much better served by candor:

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Given the incentives at play, the more pressing problem is officials who are less loyal to the people than to presidents who elevated them in the past and run political machines that might benefit them in the future. The public is denied information and candid insights as a result, even as the former officials congratulate themselves for their loyalty and discretion. In fact, information ought to be revealed when it is in the public interest even if the presidents would rather it stay private. Former public officials ought to examine the ways in which the interests of their president (who’d prefer never to be criticized) diverges from the interests of their fellow citizens and the country itself. When divergences happen, as they always do, the interests of the people should win. This is especially so because, to borrow a phrase, presidents ought to have no reasonable expectation that they’ll spared from earnest criticism, or that they’re ever acting privately when they do the business of the United States of America. And if presidents are acting honorably, they’re appointing their cabinet secretaries because they’re the best fit for the country, not to “bestow” upon them an honor.

The third reason is that Trump’s behavior, as reported in the press, is disturbing enough for the public to wonder whether it is accurate. Maybe Trump is a better decision-maker than outsiders think! Maybe his gut really is high-quality. In this case, talking about his strengths as well as his weaknesses would better inform voters.

Another reason many of you have been reticent is that you have books out or coming out, and talking about Trump messes with that golden goose. Some of you have tried really hard to hint or tease at what you know without saying it outright. Secretary Mattis, for example, told the Wall Street Journal last month, “I quit on him. I think that says enough.”

No, no, it doesn’t! The secretary of the Navy demonstrated far more political courage than that in his departing Washington Post op-ed. Surely a candid assessment of the president’s strengths and weaknesses aligns with the interests of the country more than staying mum. Staying silent will only lead observers to infer that you care more about book royalties than, you know, who should be the president of the United States.

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Some of you might note that I have not included former secretary of state Rex Tillerson in this open letter. There is a reason for that. More than any of the rest of you, Tillerson has been willing to go on the record in public forums and congressional testimony about what it was like to serve Trump. He was far, far, far from the greatest secretary of state, but as a former policy principal he has been willing to say what he knows. The American public is better informed for it.

Maybe one of you wrote the anonymous New York Times op-ed and follow-on book, in which case I will retroactively apologize once you go public, because that did take political courage of a sort. For the rest of you, however, start going on the record this year. Voters deserve to hear from you on whether Donald Trump is fit to be president.

Sincerely,