Conservative newspaper - Wall Street Journal - calls Trump 'fake President'
Consider these facts. Over the past eight weeks, the nation's Chief Executive has been the least Presidential occupant of the White House in American history. Even Gerald R. Ford, who was appointed Vice President after Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 and replaced Richard Milhouse Nixon as President after the latter's resignation in August of 1974, had more character in his pinky finger than Mr. Trump has in his entire body. Seriously, Ford wasn't elected to his last two leadership posts, but he served his country with decency and honor during those dark, depressing post-Watergate years.
Mr. Trump, in contrast, has outdone Nixon in paranoia, narcissism, and combativeness since his Inauguration on January 20. His first television interview, with ABC News' David Muir, was full of braggadocio ("I can be the most Presidential person ever."), allegations of voter fraud ("With that being said, if you look at voter registration, you look at the dead people that are registered to vote who vote, you look at people that are registered in two states, you look at all of these different things that are happening with registration.") and an unhealthy obsession with crowd sizes:
DAVID
MUIR: I guess that's what I'm getting at. You talked about the poll, the people
loving your inaugural speech and the size of your ...
PRESIDENT
TRUMP: No, because you bring it up.
DAVID
MUIR: I'm asking, well, on day one you ...
PRESIDENT
TRUMP: Well, you just brought it up. I didn't bring it up. I didn't wanna --
talk about the inauguration speech. But I think I did a very good job and
people really liked it. You saw the poll. Just came out this morning. You bring
it up. I didn't bring it up.
DAVID
MUIR: So, polls and crowd size and covers on Time, those still matter now that
you're here as president.
PRESIDENT
TRUMP: Well, you keep bringing it up. I had a massive amount of people here.
They were showing pictures that were very unflattering, as unflattering -- from
certain angles -- that were taken early and lots of other things. I'll show you
a picture later if you’d like of a massive crowd.
This isn't how a President acts, folks. This is how a reality TV "star" acts. And this is not good for the country.
A failed Presidency
According to the latest Gallup poll, President Trump's popularity among Americans is still pitifully low. The most recent survey shows that only 39% approve of how The Donald is doing his job, while 56% (more than half of those polled) disapprove.
Why, you ask? Read on.
He lies. A lot. And he stands by his allegations even after they've been debunked
"I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering" as the World Trade Center collapsed." - Donald J. Trump, November 21, 2015
Mr. Trump has a tendency to make all kinds of allegations that are not supported by facts. This is nothing new with the former Apprentice star. Before he was elected, he used to say he witnessed crowds of Muslims in New Jersey cheering as the World Trade Center towers burned on 9-11.
Per the Pulitzer-winning fact-checking team at PolitiFact, Mr. Trump made this false claim to rationalize a plan to create a government database to track Muslims in the U.S. That was bad enough.
But, Trump being Trump, he made matters worse the next day when he refused to back down from his allegations.
Here's how PolitiFact's Lauren Carroll reported the incident back in 2015:
The next day, ABC This Week host
George Stephanopoulos asked Trump if he misspoke, noting that "the police
say that didn't happen."
Trump -- who has said he was in his
Manhattan apartment the morning of the attack -- doubled down.
"It was on television. I saw
it," Trump said. "It was well covered at the time, George. Now, I
know they don't like to talk about it, but it was well covered at the time.
There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab
population, that were cheering as the buildings came down. Not good."
Carroll then explained that though American broadcast news did show videos of crowds Muslims in the Middle East celebrating the September 11 attacks, no such demonstrations occurred in the U.S.
We looked
back at the record to see what we could find about American Muslim celebrations
in New Jersey on 9/11. While we found widely broadcast video of people in the
Palestinian territories celebrating, we found no evidence to back up Trump’s
description of events on American soil.
Regarding
Jersey City, which Trump mentioned specifically, we found two uncorroborated
and unsourced mentions. Neither begins to approach the scale Trump
described.
The Associated Press, on Sept. 17, 2001, described "rumors of rooftop
celebrations of the attack by Muslims" in Jersey City. But the same report
said those rumors were "unfounded."
The Washington Post, on
Sept. 18, 2001, published an article that claimed "law enforcement
authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen
celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while
they watched the devastation on the other side of the river." The Post story
includes no source for this information, and we found no evidence that any of
these allegations ever stuck.
It's bad enough when a Presidential candidate makes false allegations on the campaign trail, It's much worse when a President lies - yes, lies - when he is living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Maybe that's why the widely respected (and conservative-leaning) Wall Street Journal's recent editorial A President's Credibility should serve as a wake-up call to Trump supporters who seem to be in denial about the man they elected to the White House last November:
If President Trump announces that North Korea launched a missile that landed within 100 miles of Hawaii, would most Americans believe him? Would the rest of the world? We’re not sure, which speaks to the damage that Mr. Trump is doing to his Presidency with his seemingly endless stream of exaggerations, evidence-free accusations, implausible denials and other falsehoods.
The latest example is Mr. Trump’s refusal to back off his Saturday morning tweet of three weeks ago that he had “found out that [Barack] Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory” on Election Day. He has offered no evidence for his claim, and a parade of intelligence officials, senior Republicans and Democrats have since said they have seen no such evidence.
Yet the President clings to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle, rolling out his press spokesman to make more dubious claims. Sean Spicer—who doesn’t deserve this treatment—was dispatched last week to repeat an assertion by a Fox News commentator that perhaps the Obama Administration had subcontracted the wiretap to British intelligence.
During the election, Mr. Trump's supporters dismissed the opposition's fears that he was too bombastic, too crude, and too dishonest to deserve the Presidency. "He is only playing to his base," they claimed. "Once he gets to the White House, he will be more Presidential and get things done."
Unfortunately, this did not happen. Mr. Trump continues to claim that Trump Tower was bugged, if not by American intelligence operatives, then it was by British agents, paid for by the previous occupant of the White House.
All of this continues the pattern from the campaign that Mr. Trump is his own worst political enemy. He survived his many false claims as a candidate because his core supporters treated it as mere hyperbole and his opponent was untrustworthy Hillary Clinton. But now he’s President, and he needs support beyond the Breitbart cheering section that will excuse anything....
This week should be dominated by the smooth political sailing for Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominee and the progress of health-care reform on Capitol Hill. These are historic events, and success will show he can deliver on his promises. But instead the week has been dominated by the news that he was repudiated by his own FBI director..
The editorial concludes with these words of warning:
Two months into his Presidency, Gallup has Mr. Trump’s approval rating at 39%. No doubt Mr. Trump considers that fake news, but if he doesn’t show more respect for the truth most Americans may conclude he’s a fake President.
I have never disputed the fact that Mr. Trump won the Presidential election via the Electoral College. I also have never written or said, as many people have, that he's not my President. I respect my country's electoral system, even though Mr. Trump, aided perhaps by Russian hackers, has done much to undermine public confidence in the voting process.
However, I will say this: Donald J. Trump is unfit for the office he now holds. And he must go, sooner rather than later.
Sources:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/201617/gallup-daily-trump-job-approval.aspx
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/transcript-abc-news-anchor-david-muir-interviews-president/story?id=45047602
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/22/donald-trump/fact-checking-trumps-claim-thousands-new-jersey-ch/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-presidents-credibility-1490138920
Comments
Post a Comment