Fareed Zakaria slams Donald Trump as he used his history and his present history to prove that he is nothing more than a bluff. He points out that even his cabinet has started to signal that one should ignore the president’s utterances.
Fareed Zakaria did not mince his words as he went after Donald Trump for his bluster which will amount to hot air given his past. Sadly it is dangerous.
Zakaria’s Washington Post article titled “Trump has been making ominous threats his whole life” is a must-read. He covers most of it in this post’s embedded video.
Fareed Zakaria summarily discounted any words emanating from Trump’s vocal chords. He said Trump’s words are irrelevant. Why?
Because it’s Trump’s basic mode of action. For his entire life, Trump has made grandiose promises and ominous threats — and rarely delivered on any. When he was in business, Reuters found, he frequently threatened to sue news organizations for libel, but the last time he followed through was 33 years ago, in 1984. Trump says that he never settles cases out of court. In fact, he has settled at least 100 times, according to USA Today.
He further points out,
In his political life, he has followed the same strategy of bluster. In 2011, he said that he had investigators who “cannot believe what they’re finding” about President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and that he would at some point “be revealing some interesting things.” He had nothing. During the campaign, he vowed that he would label China a currency manipulator, move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, make Mexico pay for a border wall and initiate an investigation into Hillary Clinton. So far, nada. After being elected, he signaled to China that he might recognize Taiwan. Within weeks of taking office, he folded. He implied that he had tapes of his conversations with then-FBI Director James B. Comey. Of course, he had none.
Even now, as he deals with a nuclear crisis, Trump has made claims that could be easily shown to be false. He tweeted that his first presidential order was to “modernize” the United States’ nuclear arsenal. In fact, he simply followed a congressional mandate to authorize a review of the arsenal, which hasn’t been completed yet. Does he think the North Koreans don’t know this?
Fareed Zakaria deconstructs Trump’s past to prove he is all bluster
But Zakaria leaves his most sharp and artful critique of the president for his closing remarks.
“I think Americans should sleep well at night, have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days,” Tillerson said on Wednesday. This was an unusual, perhaps even unprecedented statement. The secretary of state seems to have been telling Americans — and the world — to ignore the rhetoric, not of the North Korean dictator, but of his own boss, the president of the United States. It is probably what Trump’s associates have done for him all his life. They know that the guiding mantra for him has been not the art of the deal, but the art of the bluff.
It is clear that the Donald Trump is a laughing stock around the world. Unfortunately, while his opponents may enjoy seeing Trump in that light, it hurts the stature of the U.S. but more importantly is very dangerous.