World according to Trump
In the parallel universe that is the Trump presidency: • “The press is out of control.” • “The leaks are absolutely real” but “the news is fake.”
• “This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine.”
• “We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban.”
President Trump’s news conference yesterday was an “Alice Through the Looking Glass” moment.
Trump was obviously buoyed by a Rasmussen poll that gave him a 55 percent approval rating, but battered by a week in which he had to jettison his own national security adviser, dump his pick for Labor secretary and deny allegations that his presidential campaign had a pipeline to the Kremlin.
He, of course, blamed his favorite target — the media — for most of his woes, insisting this incredibly diverse group of news outlets are “serving special interests” which he did not name.
Beyond using the news media as a whipping boy, he relied on that most tried and true defense of all politicians:
“To be honest, I inherited a mess, a mess.”
Now if Barack Obama could continue to blame George W. Bush for the “mess” he inherited for nearly eight years then surely Trump can get away with it for a time. And who would argue when he says the Middle East is “a disaster,” North Korea is “a mess” and “ISIS has spread like a cancer — another mess I inherited.”
As for that Russian spy ship off Groton, Conn., and the buzzing of a U.S. destroyer by Russian jets, well, “not good,” Trump acknowledged but added, “I think Putin assumes he can’t make a deal with me anymore.”
“The false reporting makes it harder to do a deal with Russia,” he added, “and that’s a shame.”
And because he can’t seem to help himself from relitigating the 2016 election, he said, “Does anybody really believe Hillary Clinton would be tougher on Russia?”
Trump reveled in telling the assembled news media, “The public doesn’t believe you anymore.” Sadly, he may be right. But insisting that lies like the “[travel ban] rollout was perfect” are true, won’t help Trump’s credibility either.