Caricature by DonkeyHotey flic.kr/p/Ct4G4K https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Never underestimate the degree to which petulance can drive a man. Typically, it’s greed, ambition or competitiveness that inspire people to live a particular life or reach a specific career goal.

For someone like Donald Trump, personal grudges top the list when it comes what moves him to do something. For him, everything is personal. That’s not the way to conduct political business, especially in Washington DC. If politicians were to take every political sleight personally, it would be nothing but a WWE free-for-all in that town every day. It’s a lesson Trump never bothered (or cared) to learn and now it’s affecting his vice-president.

The Washington Post reported Mike Pence wanted to bring Jon Lerner on as his national security adviser. Lerner is Nikki Haley’s deputy at the United Nations and was expected to retain that role while working for Pence so the two teams could coordinate more efficiently. According to the story, Pence and Haley have worked closely together over the last year so having Lerner be the buffer between Pence in DC and Haley in New York, makes sense.

But then along comes Donald Trump to object. Why? Not because Lerner is incompetent or corrupt. No, Trump doesn’t want Lerner around because he dared to work with the Club For Growth. That organization opposed Trump during the Republican primaries in 2016 and ran ads highlighting their opposition.

According to Axios, that’s all it took for Trump to want to block Lerner’s appointment:

Trump was furious when he learned Pence was bringing on Nikki Haley’s deputy Jon Lerner, according to three sources familiar with the events. The President believed Lerner was a card-carrying member of the “Never Trump” movement because Lerner crafted brutal attack ads for Club for Growth’s multimillion-dollar anti-Trump blitz during the Republican primaries.

“Why would Mike do that?” Trump wondered aloud about Pence’s decision, according to two sources briefed on the President’s private conversations.

Everything is personal with Trump.

Lerner decided not to join Pence’s team and who can blame him?

According to a source familiar with the deliberations, Lerner, who currently serves as UN Secretary Nikki Haley’s deputy, sought to avoid drama: “Jon does not want to be a distraction. He’s done incredible work with Nikki Haley and it’s important to our country that this work continues.”

The more likely reason is he didn’t want to deal with the nonsense that would flow his way because of Trump’s blubbering. For some, this goes to mindset Trump has about loyalty. The problem with that outlook is that loyalty is something that is unspoken. People choose to be loyal.

Trump wants fealty.

Lerner chose to stay in New York and that’s probably a smart decision.