Breaking News: U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly struck down Donald Trump’s White House ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico as likely unconstitutional on Fifth Amendment grounds. In issuing a 14-day temporary restraining order, Kelly rejected Trump’s bogus national security excuse (Trump’s lawyers “offer little to back up their asserted national security interest,” Kelly found, observing that this was an after-the-fact justification) and ordered the White House to immediately restore the outlets’ access. While not yet reaching the First Amendment issue, the definitive ruling and utter disdain for Trump’s national security excuse represent a stark repudiation of his authoritarian edict. We will have more coverage of the latest Trump legal rebuke.
Donald Trump, like most manipulative authoritarians, exploits his followers’ craving for strength, certainty, and self-control. His fixation with demeaning “losers” is meant not only to reassure himself (I’m no loser!) but to convince his cult members that they can avoid dreaded loser-dom by sticking with him. It’s one reason his physical deterioration coupled with his international defeats pose such a threat: they destroy the illusion of power on which he relies. And lately, his international record — historically a refuge for presidents struggling at home — has been a series of catastrophes and personal humiliations.
Trump’s appearance at the United Nations on Tuesday was another cringeworthy display of desperation and self-delusion. Bumbling through his teleprompter script, he threatened to annihilate the Islamic Republic of Iran, railed at the International Criminal Court, calling it “evil” (unsurprising for someone whose genocidal threats violate the law of war), and listed off his phony accomplishments (Settled 8 wars! Stole Venezuela’s oil!). This incoherent, reckless rant, however, was one of his least energetic performances. Perhaps he’s depressed by the absence of the White House press pool?
The audience sat largely in stunned silence as he recycled genocidal threats, including rhetorically asking global leaders: “Do I drive them [Iran] into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?” Simultaneously, he insisted other countries help isolate Iran economically. His attacks on AI regulation — including his unintentionally hilarious attempt to rebrand it “Super Intelligence” — will delight Democrats who understand how out of touch he is with public opinion on an issue of rising concern for voters.
Trump’s distorted hype about Greenland further smacked of his deepening desperation for affirmation of his strength — and the gap between his self-image and reality. Last week, his bogus announcement suggested he had achieved some sort of breakthrough. Alas, the New York Times played along and reported that Trump said he had a brand new deal on Greenland. An accurate headline would have been: Trump again misrepresents foreign negotiations. This problem of dutifully reporting “Trump says X” will become even more serious when Trump inevitably makes false assertions about the midterm voting and results. The press must not become accessories to election denial.
By the time he signed the defence pact at the United Nations meeting, everyone but Trump could see it amounted to a galling retreat from his takeover demands. As former ambassador and State Department official Dan Fried explained, there has been no real breakthrough, as we have had extensive basing rights since the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement. This was simply a way to allow “the US to walk back from its damaging and pointless threats of aggression.”
Beyond his UN debacle, Trump’s foreign policy disasters are multiplying these days. In a single week, the Houthis attacked Saudi forces (Trump subsequently reversed course and refused to help the Saudis respond), while “Algeria declared that it was severing diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and subsequently closed its airspace to Emirati planes,” Marc Lynch reports. The common thread is Trump’s abject failure “to defeat Iran or protect its Arab allies.” His utter fecklessness should dissuade any country from relying on the United States.
None of this bodes well for his meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping this week. China’s leader presumably senses he is now in the driver’s seat after negotiating what amounted to an economic truce last year, convinced he is dealing with a US in decline. Meanwhile, US businesses complain they have been shut out of the hyped US-China Board of Trade despite Trump’s promises, and China has yet to deliver on promises regarding rare earth minerals. In other words, Trump has received very little from China, which neither fears nor respects him. With Trump bowing and scraping at a State dinner tonight, Xi likely will be emboldened by Trump’s creepy sycophancy.
While the loss of America’s stature as the dominant world power holding together an international rules-based order is by far the most consequential and damaging legacy for Trump, the average voter’s most immediate impression (understandably) of Trump is as the president who betrayed his promise not to get us into another forever war and instead got bogged down in a losing regime-change stunt that sent energy prices skyrocketing. That failure has eaten away at his support, most visibly driving Republicans lapdogs now trailing in Senate races, including Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), and Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), to call for Trump to “quickly end” the war. They apparently think voters will not hold them responsible for giving Trump a blank check to wage a war that predictably turned into a strategic nightmare and political albatross.
A new CNN poll shows nearly two-thirds of Americans acknowledging that we are not winning the war. 70 percent say Trump’s Iran decisions have hurt the US, and 75 percent presume he has no plan to end it. A stunning 76 percent say it was not worth it. Remarkably for someone who used to dominate his party, “[m]uch of the decline in approval of his handling of Iran comes among Republicans,” the pollsters found.
In March, though, 73% of Republicans approved of the way Trump was handling it. Now, that figure stands at 60%. Among Republican and Republican-leaning adults, approval of Trump’s handling of Iran dips into negative territory among those younger than 45 (53% disapprove) and those who say they are not members of the Make America Great Again movement (54% disapprove).
But it is not JUST Iran. Trump’s serial international blunders have caught up with him. “Overall, 29% of US adults approve of Trump’s handling of foreign affairs, a new low in CNN polling across both of his terms as president, while 71% say they disapprove. More see his foreign policy decisions this term as harming America’s standing in the world rather than helping it.”
Trump has frequently insisted that other countries were “laughing” at the US (a pathological narcissist’s worst nightmare is to be humiliated by others, so naturally he regards this as the worst imaginable insult). But he’s done something worse: Turn the US into a dispensable ally, a patsy for China, a punchline for Canada, a defeated power hobbled by the Middle East, and a human rights miscreant.
It will take years to restock our depleted munitions, but recovering our international stature and reputation and rebuilding frayed alliances may take decades. As a result, the world will be less stable, less free, and less prosperous.
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