Day 1,000: Nothing has changed: Trump proves, yet again, to have neither intellect nor temperament for presidency
After 1,000 days on a job, most people would learn a thing or two about the tasks at hand. Sadly, Donald Trump’s intellect and mental state both seem to have regressed since his inauguration nearly three years ago.
Wednesday was a disaster that perfectly encapsulated the past 1,000 days.
After the House passed a bipartisan resolution rebuking Trump’s shameful abandonment of the Kurds in Syria, Trump melted down in a meeting with Democratic leaders.
“What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown. Sad to say,” Pelosi told reporters outside the White House with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The President started the meeting with a lengthy bombastic monologue, according to a senior Democratic aide. He bragged about the “nasty” letter he sent to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the Turkish leader’s decision to invade northern Syria, the aide said.
Trump even threw his former Secretary of Defense James Mattis under the bus. Trump has frequently touted Mattis for his toughness, resolve and intelligence. But Wednesday, Trump wanted credit for defeating ISIS “in one month” while calling Mattis “overrated.”
At one point during the meeting, Schumer brought up former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that Trump’s decision to pull troops from Syria could lead to ISIS’s resurgence.
According to multiple aides, Trump called Mattis, “the world’s most overrated general.”
“You know why?,” Trump said, according to one aide. “He wasn’t tough enough. I captured ISIS. Mattis said it would take two years. I captured them in one month.”
On top of all that, Trump doesn’t have any plan to fix the situation he created in Syria.
The U.S. is actively wiping out its own military facilities so Turkey can’t gain any more of an advantage in the region. Even elected Republicans are openly incredulous by Trump’s careless decisions.
As for that “nasty” letter Trump bragged about sending Erdogan, it was as bizarre as it was poorly written.
Trump announced troop movement away from the border in northern Syria after a phone call with the Turkish leader on the evening of Sunday, October 6. Less than 72 hours later, on October 9, Trump and the White House seemed to realize how big of a mistake they had made and wrote Erdogan a letter.
“Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool. I will call you later.” That’s quite the sendoff. If Trump was going for intimidating, he missed the mark aiming at someone that was able to convince him to move American troops from a strategic position in a single phone call.
(On top of all that, the letter was apparently leaked by the White House to a Fox News host. Presumably the White House thought the letter — that could pass for the work of a 5th grader — makes Trump look good.)
Trump’s desperation for a deal just three days after making the disastrous decision is obvious. By that time the letter was sent, Democrats, Republicans, talking heads and everyone in between was critical of the decision to leave the Kurds, longtime American allies, completely unprotected from Turkish ethnic cleansing. Moreover, the ability for ISIS to restrengthen was suddenly a distinct possibility as many fighters were being held in Kurdish prisons and would likely escape.
All of this madness is separate and apart from an earlier Wednesday meeting with the Italian President. There, Trump was the first U.S. official to ever publicly acknowledge that there are nuclear weapons at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey; he claimed that Italy and the U.S. have shared history dating back to “ancient Rome”; he invited Russia to “play with” the sand in Syria; and proclaimed that Kurdish forces — who were fighting alongside Americans less than two weeks ago — were “worse at terror, more of a terroristic threat in many ways, than ISIS.”
Finally, impossibly, Trump is still trotting out the same conspiracy theories that he was 1,000 days ago.
Truly, nothing has been learned, and Trump becomes more unhinged, more deranged and more dangerous every day.
1,000 days in, 462 to go
Follow us on Twitter at @TrumpTimer
