Chocolate cake diplomacy
Jenna Johnson at the Post shows how completely random Trump’s thinking is and how frivolously he expresses it in an interview on Fox Business Network this morning.
Soon after the strike, Trump delivered a statement Thursday night from his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., saying that he was moved to act after reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons to kill “helpless men, women and children,” including “beautiful babies.” After delivering those scripted remarks, the president retreated from public discussion of the attack, while his aides tried to explain how this strike fits with Trump’s “America First” doctrine and campaign pledge not to get involved with conflicts in other countries.
It doesn’t, of course. Either he didn’t know anything about what Bashar al-Assad was up to before last week, or he didn’t care, or he didn’t think it through.
In the Fox Business interview, Trump promised that “we’re not going into Syria,” but he also made clear that he’s willing to take action when fellow world leaders use “horrible, horrible chemical weapons.” Trump expressed alarm at the Syrian regime’s use of barrel bombs, oil drums packed with explosives and nails or other shrapnel that are rolled out of helicopters. These crude, imprecise munitions are dropped on Syria nearly daily and have killed thousands of people, according to activists tracking the deaths.
“That’s the worst thing — I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump said.
He says that as if it’s meaningful. It’s not. He’s never seen anything like it because he hasn’t been looking. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t even know that he doesn’t know. He thinks his own surprise is evidence of novelty, but he couldn’t be more wrong.
Trump called Assad “an animal” and “truly an evil person” and said it is now up to Russian President Vladimir Putin to withdraw his support of the Syrian regime.
“I really think that there’s going to be a lot of pressure on Russia to make sure that peace happens, because, frankly, if Russia didn’t go in and back this animal, you wouldn’t have a problem right now,” Trump said. “[Assad] was going to be overthrown…. And then Russia came in and saved him. And then Obama made one of the worst deals in history with the Iran deal. So you really have Iran, and you have Russia, and you have Assad.”
So there’s our poor confused Donnie, with his access to nukes and all. Just the other week he was telling Sean Hannity what a great guy Putin is and how sucky the US is, and now this. Apparently he’s only just learned that Putin is backing Assad. I don’t think that’s because nobody ever mentioned it to him.
Trump also told the story — with a bit of delight — of how he informed Chinese President Xi Jinping of the Syrian strike. Xi visited the United States last week and was at Mar-a-Lago with the president when the strike occurred.
Trump said that he and Xi had just finished dinner and were eating dessert — “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen,” Trump said — and he received a message that the ships carrying the missiles were “locked and loaded.” Trump ordered the strike, then turned to Xi to explain what was happening.
“I said, ‘Mr. President, let me explain something to you’ — this was during dessert — ‘we’ve just fired 59 missiles’ — all of which hit, by the way, unbelievable, from, you know, hundreds of miles away, all of which hit, amazing,” Trump said, breaking into the dialogue of his own story with an aside that ended with accusing Obama of depleting the military.
Which is typical, and again, not what you want in a person who has the responsibilities and powers of the office he holds. You want someone who can sustain a train of thought for more than 20 seconds.
“So what happens is, I said, ‘We’ve just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq, and I wanted you to know this,’ ” Trump said, accidentally saying Iraq instead of Syria. “And he was eating his cake. And he was silent.”
His cake that was the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen, which is an important point, so don’t forget it.
Trump said Xi paused for 10 seconds, then asked an interpreter to repeat what Trump had said.
“He said to me, ‘Anybody that uses gases’ — you could almost say ‘or anything else’ — ‘but anybody that was so brutal and uses gases to do that to young children and babies, it’s okay,’ ” said Trump, who has been known to misquote people in recounting conversations. “He was okay with it. He was okay.”
The cake was that good.
Because that’s what people with manners do, Donnie, they don’t speak through a mouthful of food. Having said that, ten seconds to chew and swallow a forkful of cake is a bit excessive. I can only assume that Donnie likes his cakes stodgy.
Oh, crap! I’m writing about as well as Donnie thinks.
And sooner or later, he brings it all back to how awful Obama was. If our military was depleted by Obama, how come we still have the largest military in the world? Maybe it needed a bit of depleting? Maybe it is a bit too large? Maybe when you have a military that big, and with that much firepower, and that expensive, you really do feel like you have to use it.
Can’t we just declare that the only purpose of any country’s military is to be show? Parade around for a few hours, amuse the bystanders, and then we do all the real work with diplomacy…no, scratch that. We must have bombs. More bombs. Bigger bombs. Bigly bombs. Yuge bombs. So we can kill each other just like in video games, and there will be lots and lots of blood. No diplomacy; that’s for sissies…losers.
It’s like he has no functioning executive center in his brain helping him decide what is important and what is not. As a consequence the chocolate cake, instead of being ignored as an irrelevant detail, is retained and elevated to the same level of import as the gas attack, the missile strike and the communication with leader of the most populous nation on the planet. The cake would be an interesting detail in a memoir, written later on, but not in the immediate recounting of important current events.
Has anyone tried a laser pointer/cat toy in his presence?
YNNB,
Trump’s brain is perfectly developed to maximize Trump’s personal utility.
You see, the chocolate cake is not an irrelevant detail. The wonderfulness of the chocolate cake is a testament to Mar-A-Lago being awesome, which in turn shows that Trump is awesome. Which is the most important subject and must be the focus of every conversation.
That anecdote was spending too much time talking about irrelevant details, like what the Chinese President thought about something. The reference to the cake was a necessary return to the core theme: Trump is awesome.
Screechy Monkey (by the way, love your nym), you have nailed it. Trump is about Trump. He sees government as being by Trump, for Trump, and of Trump. The rest of us are just there to be his adoring toadies. If we do not adore Trump, we are totally losers.
He does appear to take a moment now and then to think about Ivanka, but she, too, is a Trump.
iknklast,
Thanks. It’s not an original observation by me, of course, but it is one of those things that once you see, you can’t unsee it: the way he turns every subject back to himself.
I don’t know if he still does it on his podcast, but when he was on the radio, Adam Carrolla used to have a segment called “what can’t Adam complain about,” where callers would propose a seemingly innocuous or pleasant topic, and he would find a way to rant about it. Trump seems to be eternally doing a bit called “what can’t Trump make about Trump,” and he’s very very good at it.
(All of the following quotes are invented by me)
Trump on whether the Federal Reserve should raise interest rates: “You know, I always negotiated the best interest rates on my projects. That’s because I built the best hotels and casinos any one had ever seen. People would say to me, ‘Mr. Trump, it”s unbelievable how good your properties are…'”
Trump on whether the Beatles were better than the Rolling Stones: “Wow. Tough question. You know, I met Mick Jagger once, and he was very nice to me. So I have to say the Stones.”
Trump on whether we should do a manned mission to Mars: “Yes, that would be great. It would be so great, like when we went to the Moon. You know, we don’t do great things like that any more. That’s why people responded so much to me when I said, ‘hey, let’s make America great again!’ That’s how I won the Electoral College by the biggest margin ever when nobody said I could beat Crooked Hillary, and…..”
Trump on free will vs. determinism: “Uh… (pauses, looks stumped). I think free will is a good thing. But, uh, so is determinisation. (eyes light up, as he sees a path to himself) You know, people say that I have a lot of determination. The most they’ve ever seen. That’s how I’ve accomplished so much, like winning the biggest election landslide….”
I have a sister like that. When I was getting married, I was talking to someone about my upcoming wedding, and before I knew it, my sister was bringing in her wedding pictures (she’d been married 15 years by that time) and making the talk of my wedding (a simple, but very pleasant thing) all about how big and spectacular and fancy and grand and….so forth…her wedding was. Oh, you should have seen all the bridesmaids! Oh, you should have seen the cakes! Oh, you should have seen…wait, let me get my pictures.
It’s a pattern I recognize.
An odd detail that struck me. The US military have been trumpeting the precision strike capability of cruise misses for three decade. Seems its news to Trump though.
“Seems its news to Trump though.”
This is the man who had no idea what made up the American nuclear triad. The guy with his finger on the button, not knowing what the button actually controls.
I wonder how the generals explain the operations they plan and undertake. Lots of pictures, no doubt. Video with flashy graphics. Maybe they let him sit behind the wheel of a tank or jet and make “vroom, WHOOSH, BOOOOM!” sounds.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1503868069631649/?type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1503877872964002/?type=3&theater
The notion that there might be a coherent agenda behind Trump, or even some cabal of ‘smart’ conspirators, needs to be retired.
Ignorant, impulsive, incapable of sustained evaluation or planning. With a train of opportunists and carpetbaggers, each holding their breath in hopes that they can pocket enough loot before the game implodes.