Trump is not a moron

The ‘daycare’ problem is real, though

The president is not a moron. He does live in an adult daycare of sorts, though. The traveling version came to Northwest Arkansas during his election campaign.

Rex Tillerson, the president’s secretary of state, called President Donald Trump a moron in July, it was reported last week. Such a harsh judgment of the president’s intelligence by a cabinet member should not to be taken lightly. The secretary’s comments after the report epitomize a nondenial denial, too.

Yet I suspect Tillerson’s view of what counts as a moron covers a great many folks. Before becoming secretary, he rose to the top of one of the world’s most powerful corporations, ExxonMobil. He might not be as used to suffering fools as the rest of us.

Another criticism of Trump last week comes much closer to the mark of the man I met ever so briefly during a campaign stop. To quote the now-famous tweet of Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”

Out of the mouths of babes and of pols who are not running for re-election comes the truth.

Trump arrived at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport for a pre-primary rally on Feb. 27, 2016. Afterward, he invited the press, in small groups, aboard his plane. He was charming. He had called reporters “the worst people in the world” at the rally, but he was soft-spoken, articulate and polite in person. I asked most of the questions during my group’s meeting.

As the press session ended, Trump turned to his entourage and asked, “How many people were there today?” A lady with long black hair who stood beside him throughout the meeting replied immediately: “Oh sir, at least 10,000, and more were trying to get in.”

I had been in the same hangar when Air Force One rolled up to it in previous years and delivered then-President George W. Bush at the height of his popularity. Only 5,000 people were allowed in the building by the fire marshal. This was a fact anyone on Trump’s plane could have checked before the rally began. Yet Trump’s whole entourage chattered agreement with his flattering staffer, smiling and nodding — with one exception. I turned and looked right at Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Now there was a man who knows what a crowd of 10,000 versus 5,000 looks like. He did not smile or say anything.

Trump smiled. His big, goofy grin contorted his eyes into squints. Only someone who believed what he heard — rather than learning to use his own eyes — could enjoy such blatant pandering.

I said nothing. Perhaps I was wrong about the crowd. Perhaps fire safety standards had changed. Perhaps my impression the room was much less packed than it had been for Bush was wrong, too. Bush spoke from a large stage when he came. That took up a lot of floor space.

We were shown off the plane. Walking across the tarmac, I phoned Scott Van Laningham, the airport’s executive director. I mentioned nothing at all about what had happened aboard the plane.

“How many people were there today, Scott? “Five thousand,” he said. “That is all the fire marshal let in.”

“How many people tried to get in but could not?,” I asked.

“A lot, but we are not sure,” he replied. “As many as there were people who got in?” I asked. ” Oh no, not that many, but a lot,” he replied.

Trump has been rich and famous long enough to get his ego stroked constantly for years. He likes it. Winning the U.S. presidential election probably has not helped matters. I was the least surprised man in Arkansas when he embarrassed himself over crowd size estimates at his inauguration.

Trump chooses his entourage. He chooses bootlickers. Since taking office, he does seem to make exceptions for military men and, in Tillerson’s case, at least one powerful oil magnate. I suspect that pleases his ego. But even those tough types have to watch themselves. Military men are also taught to respect the chain of command whoever happens to be in it. I imagine that is quite helpful these days.

“Vanity is the quicksand of reason,” the saying goes.

So while I do not believe the president is a moron, he is just as stuck.