Aussie’s Trump dump goes viral

IT IS not how Donald Trump would like his first G20 remembered, but a savage assessment by a senior Australian journalist of the US President’s “friendless” visit with other world leaders has been going viral online.

ABC political editor Chris Uhlmann did not pull any punches when he delivered his wrap-up of President Trump’s appearance at the conference in Hamburg, calling him an “uneasy, lonely, awkward figure” who was left “isolated and friendless” with “no desire and no capacity to lead the world”.

“He has a particular skill set: he’s identified an illness in Western democracies, but he has no cure for it and seems intent on exploiting it,” the veteran journalist said.

Uhlmann also says we all need to give up on any hope the speeches written for Mr Trump and delivered by the man himself are any reflection of his true thoughts.

“It’s the unscripted Trump that’s real: a man who barks out bile in 140 characters, who wastes his precious days as President at war with the West’s institutions like the judiciary, independent government agencies and the free press,” the reporter said.

“Mr Trump is a man who craves power because it burnishes his celebrity. To be constantly talking and talked about is all that really matters ... and there is no value placed on the meaning of words, so what is said one day can be discarded the next.”

Uhlmann also pointed out that given the uncomfortable divide between President Trump and the other G20 leaders on the Paris Climate Accord, a “deft” President would have found a topic with which to rally them.

“And he had the perfect one: North Korea’s missile tests,” the reporter argued.

“Other leaders expected it (a statement condemning it); they were prepared to back it, but it never came.”

At the end of the twominute video, Uhlmann provided a chilling prediction for the future under this current US President.

“Donald Trump has pressed fast-forward on the decline of the United States as a global leader,” he said.

“Some will cheer the decline of America, but I think we’ll miss it when it’s gone – and that’s the biggest threat to the values of the West, which he claims to hold so dear.”

Within hours of being posted yesterday morning, the video had been retweeted more than 15,000 times.

It attracted plenty of attention already across the American media landscape, with a number of journalists, reporters and commentators applauding Uhlmann’s bluntness and sharing the video themselves.

Uhlmann’s brutal words are likely to have been heard in the White House, with his Twitter handle trending in Washington.