Day 168: Trump Recklessly Trashes Media, Intelligence Community While Abroad
Trump undercut key American tenets while answering questions in Poland.
Donald Trump was in Warsaw, Poland today before jetting off to Hamburg, Germany for the Group of 20 summit where he is meeting with foreign leaders from nations with major economies.
Trump appeared with Polish president Andrzej Duda in front of an apparently adoring crowd. Of course, that probably had something to do with the fact that the conservative party in power in Poland bused in scores of people to the speech site.
Law and Justice politicians from all over Poland informed their supporters over social media in the weeks leading up to Trump’s visit that free buses would be provided to anyone who wanted to attend Trump’s speech Thursday to the Polish people in Warsaw.
The nationalist party that vaulted President Andrzej Duda to power in 2015 had worked to roll out the red carpet for Trump, which was crammed with large crowds of flag-waving Poles in sun-splashed Krasinski Square.
Trump was questioned about a wide array of issues, damaging the United States in many ways.
Trump claimed:
- That he wasn’t convinced that Russia was the only nation behind the hacking of the 2016 election and questioned the intelligence agencies who unanimously claimed it was indeed Russia who perpetrated the cyber attacks. This clearly thrilled the Russians as the Kremlin released a statement noting that Trump’s remarks highlighted “equally the possibility that it could have been other countries. Please note the nuances.”
- That Barack Obama did nothing about election meddling because he thought Hillary Clinton would win. He presented zero evidence for either of these assertions, but he did repeat himself multiple times over.
- That CNN and NBC were sham organizations: “They have been fake news for a long time.” Trump even turned to Duda and asked, “Do you have that also, by the way, Mr. President?” He then claimed they should treat him better because he “made them a fortune on The Apprentice.”
What makes these statements by Trump so dangerous is that this is one of the few opportunities for many people in hear from Trump directly. While Americans live with Trump daily, and constantly hear rhetoric spewing out of the White House, those on the other side of the world have their own politics and their own issues to deal with. They don’t hear this act on a routine basis. Yes, they’re aware of Trump, they know about some of the crazy things he says, but they also know he was elected anyway. The idea of Democrats and Republicans or red states and blue states or the electoral college is largely irrelevant to them. This is their snapshot into American politics and American ideology.
Think of it this way: if Duda came to the U.S. and lambasted the Polish media and claimed they treated him very unfairly, the average Joe would be more likely to believe him because they don’t necessarily understand the other side of the coin. Most Americans aren’t following the day-to-day happenings of Polish politics or what the Polish press is covering. People see a head of state, people want to believe a head of state.
In the same vein, Poles hear Trump blast the media and Obama and the intelligence community and they’re more likely to believe him because it’s coming directly out of his mouth: ‘If Americans elected this man, perhaps this is what they think and these words are true.’
Trump’s rhetoric recklessly undercuts traditional U.S. and democratic values. One of America’s biggest strengths is its international reputation. Trump goes to foreign lands and questions key tenets of American society. He doubts the knowledge and skill of U.S. intelligence communities, media and the most recent president — something that just isn’t done, especially on an international stage.
The bombast subverts American standing for no real reason other than cheap, short-term political gain among his base when the clips air on Fox News.
168 days in, 1294 to go
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