In disaster after disaster, tragedy after tragedy, Donald Trump has unfortunately shown America exactly who he is and what he stands for. In some small sense, that could be a good thing — we are not led to believe he will act a certain way or behave in any manner that most people would call “presidential,” and so we are not disappointed when he absolutely does not.
But after a time, we have to reflect on the fact that he’s never changed, and the nation has never held him to account personally. Eventually, “Donald being Donald” is going to wind us up in a war with another country, or a pathetic response to a natural disaster, or some other travesty that could have been avoided if America demanded a president who acted like one. Whether it’s with his dealings with North Korea or his seeming loyalty to Vladimir Putin above all else, Trump never backs down and never stops being the kind of arrogant man whose mouth, to borrow a phrase, writes checks that his spine can’t cash.
When Trump was elected, he boasted of his plans to defeat ISIS and to win the war in Afghanistan. But now in two separate articles from yesterday’s New York Times, we learn that not only has Trump reversed the United States policy of not negotiating directly with the Taliban — you know, those guys who shot 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai in the face for trying to go to school as a girl — but that he’s encouraging US-backed Afghan troops to surrender huge areas of the country to the Taliban, ensuring those places will remain under the control of a group that Trump once ridiculed Barack Obama for not calling them “radical Islamic terrorists.”
But then we’ve always known that Trump’s goal is simply to win credit for himself, regardless of the situation.
After the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting, NBCÂ Today Show host Savannah Guthrie interviewed Trump by phone in what would become essentially our benchmark for what to expect from the man who would subsequently become President: A refusal to consider methods other than his own, a demand for credit while simultaneously claiming he doesn’t want it, and a deflection of blame.
To her eternal credit, Savannah called out Trump on the spot for tweeting a ridiculous boast and basically called him stupid for trying to claim credit for “predicting” that there would be another terrorist attack. This was the tweet in question, and he’s never taken it down:
Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016
If more journalists conducted their interviews like the one we’ve archived for you here, we might not be in the spot we’re in with Trump.
Watch:
Featured image via screen capture
