Trump posts mock Democrats’ muddle

Iowa caucus ‘disaster,’ tweet proclaims

WASHINGTON — As Democrats struggled to count the votes in the opening presidential nomination contest, one of the people rejoicing in their dysfunction was the man they hope to evict from the White House.

“The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster,” President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning as the Iowa results remained unknown. “Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Website, that should have cost 2% of that. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is ‘Trump.’”

But Trump rejected suggestions that the breakdown in counting should cause Iowa to lose its status as the first stop in the presidential nomination process. “It is not the fault of Iowa, it is the Do Nothing Democrats fault,” he wrote. “As long as I am President, Iowa will stay where it is. Important tradition!”

Even as he was mocking the Democrats, though, Trump himself was coming under fire for appearing to be less than fully respectful during the playing of the national anthem during the Super Bowl.

A smartphone video posted on Instagram and published by the Miami Herald showed Trump during a Super Bowl watch party at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., near his Mar-a-Lago estate, standing and pretending to lead an orchestra while “The Star-Spangled Banner” played before the start of the game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs. While his wife, Melania, and son Barron had their hands on their hearts, the president fidgeted, looked around and pointed at guests.

The Iowa caucus struggles provided ammunition to the president just as the reelection season gets underway in earnest. Rather than facing an emboldened Democratic candidate after a caucus win, Trump has an opening to paint the opposition party as incapable of governing.

“When will the Democrats start blaming RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, instead of their own incompetence for the voting disaster that just happened in the Great State of Iowa?” he wrote on Twitter, making light of Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.