Tag Archives: Donald Trump

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Response to Trump … it’s about what we should expect

Donald J. Trump’s supporters are pushing back on the intense criticism coming from the portion of the country — most of which voted against him in 2016 — of the man’s presidency.

I feel the need to flash back for a moment to 2009.

Let’s remember what a leading Senate Republican said at the time about the previous president of the United States, Barack H. Obama.

Mitch McConnell then was the minority leader in the Senate and I presume he was speaking on behalf of the GOP Senate caucus when he made a straightforward and ominous declaration.

He said his “No. 1 priority” as the Senate GOP leader was to “make Barack Obama a one-term president.”

Yep. That’s what he said. He laid down his marker early in the Obama administration. He didn’t stress enactment of landmark legislation, or working with the president to rescue the economy — which was collapsing when Obama took office. He didn’t propose any reforms of his own or suggest ways Republicans and Democrats could find common ground.

He said he intended to make Obama a one-term president. That translated into “obstruct everything he intends to do.”

Hmmm. It didn’t quite work out that way. Obama got re-elected in 2012 and finished his time in the White House with soaring approval ratings in every single leading public opinion poll.

Is it right and proper for Democrats now to follow the Republicans’ lead? Mostly “no.”

I’ve noted here before that I don’t wish for the president to fail. A presidential failure means the country fails and we all pay the price for that.

However, as the new president seeks to form a government — and he still has quite a way to go — my hope is that Democrats can find some common ground with the Republican president whenever possible.

The problem, though, is that Donald Trump has begun harping about the media being the “enemy of the people” while continuing to boast about his Electoral College victory. Enough, already!

Some positive proposals ought to be formulated and presented for Congress to ponder.

Until then, my Republican friends ought to just swallow the swill they offered eight years ago when Barack Obama was elected … with, I feel compelled to note, a far more robust majority than his successor earned.

media news

Trump performs a one-80 on the press

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from dealing with politicians over the years, it’s that the only thing guaranteed to force them into action is the press, or more specifically, fear of the press.”

— Donald Trump, “The Art of the Deal”

Imagine that. The man who — at the time he made that statement — likely didn’t envision himself as the president of the United States of America.

It’s all different now for Trump the politician as he stumbles and bumbles his way past his first month in office as the Leader of the Free World.

The very same media upon which he has declared war are doing the very thing he seemingly praised in his talked-about book. They are seeking answers to difficult questions. They want all the information they can gather so they can inform the public — the folks to whom they and, oh yes, the president answer — about the performance of its most visible institution.

Let’s all consider just for a moment that the public and the president serve the same masters. That would be you and me. The public.

Yes, I understand that media companies are privately held, for-profit organizations. The public they serve, however, make it possible for them to earn the income they want.

Trump now has gone to war with the “fake news” media. Someone will have to explain to me what he means by that, although I think I have an inkling of an idea. He appears to refer to those media organizations that don’t report only the “good news” he says he deserves.

The rest of it is, well, fake. It’s phony. It’s bogus. It’s not real.

With all due respect, Mr. President, you are full of crap.

The man had it right in that book of his. The media are forcing the nation’s No. 1 politician “into action.”

media news

McCain to Trump: Don’t go after a ‘free press’

I’ve never really considered John McCain to be a friend of the press.

Silly me. I guess I was wrong about the Republican U.S. senator from Arizona. He is now telling the president of the United States to back off from his declared war against the media, which Donald Trump has labeled as the “enemy of the people.”

“That’s how dictators get started,” McCain said.

Well …

McCain denies calling Trump a would-be dictator, insisting he’s just spelling out what has happened throughout history. Dictators seek to weaken — if not destroy — the press, giving them an avenue to complete power.

McCain detests Trump, it seems quite clear. The senator’s loathing of the president, though, seems well-earned.

Candidate Trump once declared that he didn’t consider McCain — a decorated Navy pilot and one-time Vietnam War prisoner — a “war hero.” Trump said McCain was a hero only because “he was captured. I like people who aren’t captured, OK?”

Some of us thought that ridiculous assertion would doom Trump’s presidential candidacy. Hah! It didn’t happen. It seemed to energize his supporters.

McCain, though, has kept up his drumbeat of criticism of Trump. I happen to applaud the senator’s verve as he challenges Trump’s ignorance about Russia and now about the dangers of seeking to weaken the Fourth Estate.

Those of us toiled in the craft of reporting and commenting on events of the day don’t consider ourselves to be “enemies” of the people. I have never thought of myself to be anyone’s enemy, although I am certain some of individuals I’ve encountered along my lengthy journalism journey perceive me as their enemy.

As Sen. McCain has noted correctly, the president ought to tread carefully if he continues this fight with the media.

national news

What? No outrage over pricey Trump outings?

Wait for it. The fiscal conservatives who were so outraged over President Barack Obama’s vacation tabs are going to go ballistic over the cost to taxpayers of Donald J. Trump’s jaunts to his posh Florida estate.

Do you think they’ll cry the blues over it?

Naw. Me neither.

It’s a fascinating case of selective outrage. The current president’s outings to Mar-a-Lago have cost taxpayers nearly as much in a month as the Obamas cost in an average year of Barack Obama’s presidency.

What was outrageous is now acceptable. Isn’t that the message?

I am having difficulty understanding any of this, much as I am having difficulty understanding why Trump’s behavior has been given a pass by those who continue to hang on his every inarticulate sentence.

I should note that Trump was among those who were critical of Obama’s golf outings, his family vacations and his assorted visits to whomever and wherever away from the White House.

Judicial Watch, a conservative think tank, estimated the annual cost of Obama’s travel expense at $12 million annually. Meanwhile, the Trumps’ three visits to Florida since he became president a month ago have cost about $10 million. It’s a rough equivalence, but it’s telling nevertheless.

Still, the silence from the right about the president’s pricey travel to his resort home in Florida is deafening in the extreme.

And, what the heck: I haven’t even mentioned — until this very moment — the cost of providing Secret Service protection for the first lady and the couple’s son, who are living in Trump Tower in New York City.

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‘Fake news’ now gets under Trump’s skin

Does anyone else see the irony of Donald J. Trump’s bitching about “fake news”?

This is the guy who for about a half-dozen years kept alive the bogus “news” about Barack Obama’s place of birth. He questioned whether the former president was qualified to serve in the office he held for eight years.

He kept harping on the rumor that Obama was born in Kenya, the birthplace of his father. He fomented the Mother of All Fake News Stories.

Now the president — the one-time bard of the birther movement —  calls anything he considers negative to be “fake news”?

Oh, the irony is rich. Isn’t it?

media news

Media are ‘the enemy’? Seriously, Mr. President?

The unique aspect of social media forums — such as, say, Twitter — is that no matter how quickly you take something down the original expression remains embedded in the public mind.

Donald J. Trump tweeted a statement declaring that the “media is the enemy of the American people.”

The president deleted it almost immediately. But … oops! … it’s still out there.

Thus, we’ve gotten another look into the weird mind of our nation’s head of state.

The media aren’t the “enemy.” Trump might believe it simply because media representatives are asking sometimes-difficult questions. His senior White House political strategist, Steve Bannon, has encouraged the media to “keep quiet” and has called the media “the opposition party.”

What neither of these men quite get — or so it appears — is that the media are part of the American fabric. The Constitution guarantees a “free press” that shouldn’t be shackled or silenced by government pressure or coercion.

Yet that seems to be part of what is happening now with the new president, who’s been in office less than a single month.

Trump’s critics have lamented what they consider the “danger” that the president  presents to our democratic system. I am beginning to believe a president who blurts out ill-considered statements about the media being the “enemy” of Americans is painting a frightening picture for the country he purports to lead.

International news

How does a ‘one-state solution’ work?

Let’s revisit for a moment Donald J. Trump’s statement that backs away from a decades-old U.S. policy in support of a two-state solution for lasting peace in the Middle East.

The president, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he could support a “one-state solution” if both sides agree to it.

Hmmm. How would that work?

One side would be the Israelis. The Palestinians are on the other side. A one-state solution, I am going to presume, suggests that Israel would be the sovereign state that would operate under a peace agreement. How do you suppose the Palestinians — who say they want an independent sovereign state — would react to that? My take is that they wouldn’t stand for it.

This is why previous presidents of both parties have supported a two-state solution that would allow Israel and the Palestinians to live side by side.

Yes, there remains a huge hurdle to clear: The Palestinians must accept Israel’s right to exist and they must cease the terrorist attacks — launched by groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah — against Israeli citizens.

If there can be an accord reached, it appears that the only option is for a two-state solution.

Why, then, did the president back away from what all of his predecessors have sought for the embattled Middle East?

media news

It’s the temperament, man … the temperamant

I’ve been trying to determine when I’ve ever seen a president of the United States treat the media in the manner being displayed by the current one.

I cannot remember a single time. Not even during President Richard Nixon’s time in the White House.

Donald Trump has shown utter contempt and disrespect for the men and women assigned to cover the White House for their various news organizations.

It manifests itself when he gets a question he dislikes. He tells reporters to “sit down, that’s enough” when they seek to elaborate on their question, to fill in a blank or two. No, the president will have none of it.

Forget for a moment that he calls them “dishonest” out loud, in public, to their face … and then expects these fellow human beings to treat him with kid gloves.

The disrespect — as I’ve witnessed it — is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed, even from afar.

If we march back through time — starting from Barack Obama and going backward — I cannot remember a president acting the way this one does in front of the media.

There was one memorable, testy exchange in the 1970s between then-CBS News correspondent Dan Rather and President Nixon. The president was getting entangled in the Watergate scandal and Rather asked him a pointed question. Some members of the press gallery chuckled, some even clapped. Nixon asked Rather, “Are you running for something?” Rather responded, “No, Mr. President, are you?”

Presidents usually have strained relations with the media. They dislike negative coverage, as does any politician — no matter what they might say. As I’ve watched presidential/media relationships from a distance over the years, I have noticed a sometimes cool cordiality between the Big Man and the media that cover him.

What we’re getting now is open hostility and an exhibition of extremely bad manners from the guy who needs the media as least as much as they need him.

I’m trying to imagine what will occur if and/or when the crap really hits the fan at the White House. I fear the president will go berserk.

Didn’t someone mention temperament as a quality we look for in a president of the United States of America?

International news, media news, national news, political news

Trump redefines ‘fake news’

I am still rolling this one over in my noggin, but it might be that Donald “Smart Person” Trump has crafted a new definition of what we know as “fake news.”

During that rambling and ridiculous press conference Thursday, the president kept asserting that the Russia story is “fake news.”

As Shepard Smith of Fox News points out, it ain’t “fake,” Mr. President, and you need to provide some answers to Americans who are demanding to know the truth.

The Hill reported Smith’s response to Trump’s criticism of the media: “No sir,” Smith continued. “We are not fools for asking this question, and we demand to know the answer to this question. You owe this to the American people. Your supporters will support you either way. If your people were on the phone, what were they saying? We have a right to know, we absolutely do and that you call us fake news and put us down like children for asking these questions on behalf of the American people is inconsequential. The people deserve an answer to this question at very least.”

Smith, of course, is correct to challenge Trump’s constant berating of media for doing their job.

I’m now beginning to think that what Trump calls “fake news” really is news that is unimportant. It’s true, just not worth the media’s — or the president’s — time.

The whole “fake news” story burst on the public stage with bogus reports intended to do damage to political figures. Someone makes a story up, posts it on the Internet, the story goes viral and people respond the way the person who posts it intended. They make money on all the “clicks” they get on the bogus item. Some of these trolls get caught, are exposed for what they are — liars! — and then vow to quit doing it.

The Russia stories aren’t “fake” if you adhere to that original definition of “fake news.”

Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had conversations with Russian officials. The question pending is when he did that and at whose request or command. Moreover, when did Flynn lie to the vice president about it and did he violate the Logan Act, which bars unauthorized citizens from “negotiating” with foreign governments?

In other words, did Flynn tell the Russians that the new president would reduce or eliminate the sanctions leveled on them by the man who still was in power, President Barack H. Obama? Remember, too, that the sanctions came after CIA and other intelligence agencies determined that Russian hackers sought to influence the 2016 presidential election.

It isn’t “fake,” Mr. President. Reporters have every right — indeed an obligation — to ask you about all this.

It’s important in the extreme.

So, knock off the “fake news” description.

national news

‘I inherited a mess’; no you didn’t, Mr. President

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Donald J. Trump wouldn’t know a “mess” if he slipped and fell in the middle of one. Indeed, he hasn’t yet acknowledged the mess he’s created since becoming president of the United States.

The president said today at his hastily called press conference that he “inherited a mess” from President Barack H. Obama.

Really, Mr. President?

Let’s see: 80 consecutive months of job growth; millions of jobs created during the past eight years; an annual budget deficit that’s been cut by two-thirds; a vibrant housing industry; the Dow Jones Industrial Average has nearly tripled in eight years; commandos killed Osama bin Laden; other terrorist leaders have been killed or captured; we have avoided a major terror attack; Iran has been banned from developing a nuclear weapon.

A mess? Are you kidding me?

Barack Obama and Congress cleaned up the mess they inherited and left you with a country in far better shape than when your immediate predecessor took office.

No, the country’s not in perfect condition. But it’s no “mess,” man!

Paraphrasing the famous “Saturday Night Live” routine involving Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin in their hilarious point/counterpoint spoof: Don, you ignorant shlub!