Prez keeps coy on ‘calm’ comment
A cryptic President Trump wouldn’t say what he meant when he dropped an ominous comment referring to “the calm before the storm” Thursday night — but he stoked more speculation yesterday when, pressed by reporters, he said, “You’ll find out.”
Trump has become a master of hype and vague innuendo, most recently stringing along the White House press corps for weeks when he hinted he might have recordings of his conversations with ousted FBI Director James Comey — a suggestion that turned out to be false.
His latest head-scratching riddle came during a photo op between Trump and senior military staffers Thursday night.
“You guys know what this represents?” Trump asked.
“Tell us,” a reporter said.
“Maybe it’s the calm before the storm,” the president said, without elaboration.
He was asked again yesterday to expound, but replied only: “You’ll find out.”
That left the door open to a wide range of interpretations, from an impending staff shake-up to the literal storm — Tropical Storm Nate — expected to batter Louisiana this weekend.
But the large presence of military staff in the room led many to conclude Trump was talking about a strike, perhaps in North Korea, or Syria, or Iran, or against an ISIS stronghold.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked whether Trump was signaling an end to diplomatic solutions with a particular country.
“We’re continuing to put maximum economic and diplomatic pressure on countries like North Korea,” she said. “We’re going to continue to do that.”
But Trump wasn’t necessarily referring to North Korea, Sanders quickly added.
“I’m just using that as an example,” she said. “I think we’ve got a lot of bad actors in the world — North Korea, Iran. There are several examples there.”
One reporter asked if Trump was simply toying with all of them for his own personal amusement.
“I wouldn’t say that he’s messing with the press,” Sanders said. “I think we have some serious world issues here.”