Trump missed every pitch

Tom Nichols at The Atlantic:

I watched Sean Hannity’s Fox News interview tonight with President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

But I am still not sure who’s in charge. If there is a headline from the interview, it is that the president of the United States feels that he requires the services of a multibillionaire to enforce his executive orders. Trump complained that he would write these “beautiful” executive orders, which would then languish in administrative limbo. Musk, for his part, explained that the president is the embodiment of the nation and that resisting his orders is the same as thwarting the will of the people. Hannity, of course, enthusiastically supported all of this whining about how hard it is to govern a superpower.

Of course the president is not “the embodiment of the nation.” That kind of thinking is used to justify royalty, but presidents are definitely not supposed to be royalty. Trump’s galactic vanity does not contradict that.

The interview was arduous both for the viewer and for Hannity, because everyone who interviews Trump must always contend with the president’s apparent inability to hold a single thought for very long. Hannity, as usual, tried to throw softballs; Trump, as usual, missed every pitch. Hannity at one point noted that Trump has “become a student of history” and then asked how the Framers of the Constitution would view his efforts to rein in the bureaucracy. Trump verbally wandered about before returning to his talking points about Musk, who he said is “amazing” and “cares.” So say James Madison and the other Founders, apparently.

Seriously? Did Hannity really think Trump could respond intelligently to that question? Surely not. Surely it’s obvious to everyone that Trump’s brain is melting away, and he can’t respond intelligently to anything. You’d think Fox people would be careful to throw him softballs.

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