JOE DUFFY
TWO American titans – and mortal enemies – will be in Ireland this week. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will be in Trinity College to collect an honorary degree, while former FBI director James Comey – whom Clinton blames for losing her the election – will be promoting his book, A Higher Loyalty.
But they have something in common: they both have been abused, insulted, maligned and defamed by Donald Trump.
This week, Trump called Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau ‘weak and dishonest’, with a Trump aide saying that there was a ‘special place in hell’ for Trudeau.
Trump labelled another world figure ‘a great personality, who loves his country, a great personality and very talented’ whom he was ‘honoured’ to meet.
Yep, this was the moniker bestowed by the leader of the free world on Kim Jong-un, the unelected dictator of a country where 80% of the population are undernourished and are on average six inches shorter than their South Korean counterparts.
Trump’s new best mate fed his uncle to a pack of dogs, poisoned his stepbrother and blew one of his ministers to eternity from an antiaircraft gun. And don’t mention the countless thousands of innocent North Koreans languishing in gulags because they dared whisper criticism of the murderous regime.
Canada, on the other hand, is one of the most blameless countries in the world, whose contented population go out of their way not to offend people. Indeed, Canada was one of the few countries that upped the number of Irish emigrants it welcomed during the recession – while Trump vowed to hunt them down and deport them. Have you ever heard anyone wanting to emigrate to North Korea?
What has the world come to when the ultimate means of annihilation our planet is in the hands of two unstable individuals?
HOW is Trump allowed abuse, sneer and insult the democratically elected representatives of six of the world’s most powerful countries, walking out on the G7 summit early to fly halfway round the world to meet a jumped-up murdering tyrant?
Laughably, Trump added that he could judge Kim Jong-un within 60 seconds. Leaving aside the language barrier, this ludicrous claim is buried when you look at all the people Trump hand-picked for his administration who have either been sacked or resigned!
He goes from praising people to firing them within days. He said Comey had ‘guts’ months before gutting him, labelling him a ‘phony, a leaker, a liar, a slimeball who should be prosecuted’.
Comey retorted that Trump was ‘morally unfit to be president, he treats women like meat, he is unethical and untethered to the truth’.
Within a year in the Oval Office, Trump had lost 35 of the top appointments he made through sacking or resignation – multiples of any previous administration.
His grandstanding and reneging on the Iran nuclear agreement, a much better deal than walking away empty-handed from Singapore last Tuesday, has pushed up oil prices around the world. That rise will be felt here with increases in gas, electricity, petrol and the general cost of living.
Trump may be laughable but what he is doing is no joke.