Donald Trump has his priorities.
One Week in Donald Trump's Twitter Feed
Attacking |
Promoting |
Bragging About |
Free Press — 13 tweets |
Fox News — 4 tweets |
Himself — 8 tweets |
Democrats — 8 tweets |
Other Trumps — 3 tweets |
Stock Market — 7 tweets |
Healthcare — 6 tweets |
GOP candidates — 2 tweets |
|
Puerto Rico — 4 tweets |
Tax cuts — 2 tweets |
|
NFL — 4 tweets |
Las Vegas — 1 tweet |
|
Iran Treaty — 4 tweets |
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Hillary Clinton — 1 tweet |
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North Korea — 1 tweet |
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Government — 1 tweet |
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While 69 tweets may seem like a lot, it clearly wasn’t enough to say anything about Puerto Rico other than how bad things were before the storms, or to say anything at all about the wildfires raging across California.
Also missing in action on these tweets: any mention of American soldiers who were killed more than one week ago in Niger.
On Saturday October 7, the day the body of 25-year-old Army Sgt. La David Johnson was returned to Dover Air Force Base after he was killed in an ISIS ambush in Niger, President Donald Trump was golfing. It's not known if the President ever planned to attend the return of remains ceremony at Dover as he has in the past. But since the ambush on October 4 in Niger, he has not commented publicly on the deadliest combat incident involving US troops since he took office.
Trump has continued to carve out a slot between tee times for complaining about the NFL’s “disrespect” for soldiers. But he hasn’t freed up one second to discuss actual Green Berets actually dying on his watch.
The silence isn’t just coming from Trump. It also applies to the military, which has been quiet about the circumstances of the attack.
The Pentagon has not provided a detailed accounting of the ambush by 50 ISIS affiliated fighters which left four US soldiers dead and two wounded and has said the incident remains under investigation. But CNN has talked to half a dozen US officials who describe details of the chaos and confusion which led to the troops being left on the ground for nearly an hour before help could get to the remote area of southwestern Niger where they were operating.
The attack on U.S. forces apparently came in a location that was considered safe, so backup forces and medical help were slow to arrive.
Before the loss, many Americans were unaware that the nation even had troops on the ground in Niger, where they’re working to train and support government forces against militants who have entered the country from nearby regions.
The US troops had been embedded with a larger unit of Nigerien troops and were attacked as they left a meeting with local community leaders a few dozen kilometres from the remote town of Tongo Tongo.
Some reports claimed US troops were on a mission to kill or capture a high-value target in the area, perhaps even Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, the leader of the only local faction of fighters to have formally pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
The loss of four American soldiers in this region shows that not only is the broader “war on terror” proceeding thousands of miles away from Iraq and Afghanistan, but represents a danger both to American forces and American policy. It would seem exactly like the kind of event that would demand a direct statement from Donald Trump.
As soon as he finishes putting.
Update — Donald Trump stated on Monday that he has written letters to the families of the men killed, letters that will go out Real Soon Now. And while patting his back on how well he’s handled this thing, he managed to get in an attack on President Obama, who Trump is sure never talked to the family of a fallen soldier.
And because there’s a Trump tweet for every occasion ...