Trump offers frightening insight into an insecure and fearful mind
own bodyguard’s opinion, above that of career politicians, tells anyone all they need to know about Trump’s leadership.
As Comey’s dismissal played out, the world saw, as many of us had suspected, just how limited Trump’s understanding of, or respect for, the responsibilities of public office is.
Following the FBI boss’s dismissal, Trump took to national television to belittle Comey, calling him a “showboat” and a “grandstander”.
The President then issued a direct threat to his ex-intelligence chief, hinting he may have secretly recorded their conversations, and would make them public if he dares to speak to out.
But perhaps more important than Comey’s sacking, were the actions of Trump just hours after his dismissal.
Americans were treated to yet another portrait of ineptitude, so surreal that it could qualify as some kind of performance art, or maybe slapstick.
As the fallout from Comey’s sacking began, Trump was warmly welcoming into the White House the very Russians the FBI were investigating into the White House.
During the meeting, the President was said to have shared “highly classified” information that even America’s allies are not privy to.
Furious at the claims, the White House wheeled out its flunkies, including the President’s National Security Adviser HR McMaster, to state in the strongest possible terms that the story was “false”.
Hours later, however, as is so often the case with their boss, Trump then threw them all under the bus, tweeting confirmation that yes he had discussed classified information, which he said he has the “absolute right to do”.
In the latest twist, it is now claimed in a leaked memo, that Trump asked FBI director Comey to end an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was being probed over his secret meetings with Russian officials. “I hope you can let this go,” Trump is alleged to have told Comey. This was too much even for Trump’s own party.
For a man who anchored much of his campaign on lambasting rival Hillary Clinton over her handling of classified information, the president now appears to have acted in a way that is just as much, if not more, injurious to America while exposing him to accusations of hypocrisy.
Yet again, the credibility of the White House and the President’s chaotic leadership style are in question.
Today, for the first time, Republican leaders who have so far stood firmly behind Trump are beginning to distance themselves from his leadership.
To their shame, they have remained embarrassingly quiet about his presidency so far. But many feel they can no longer ignore this horror created by someone clearly unfit to occupy the White House.
There are few commodities as important to presidents as a reputation for competence.
Once public confidence in a commander-in-chief ’s capacity to do his job wanes, their political decline can be brutally swift.
What Trump fails to grasp is that, unlike his time on The Apprentice, life in the Oval Office is not a reality show, it’s the world’s reality.
His actions are not amusing, they are deeply alarming.
As long as America continues to accept Trump’s continued undermining of its democracy, the rest of world will look on bemused, with Vladimir Putin laughing the loudest.
No president is above the law, and no president is untouchable.
How long will America let this continue?
That he reportedly sought his own bodyguard’s opinion tells anyone all they need to know about Trump’s leadership