“Let reporters roam free!” What an amazing quote from tweet by Donald Trump, the guy who calls the American press, “The enemy of the people.” The tweet was in support of the protests that have erupted in Iran following acknowledgement that it was their forces that shot down the civilian Ukrainian airliner on Wednesday, 8 January, 2020. The large Iranian protests were in response to that incident that took 176 lives including many Iranian and Canadian citizens then lying about the government’s responsibility.
That tweet came in the same week that Trump, in a Fox News interview, told Laura Ingraham that 80 percent of American reporters were dishonest. That, no doubt, is another number he pulled out of the air (or wherever) and totally devoid of substantiation. But labeling any articles that don’t extol his virtues as fake news has been a mantra since he took office. Notably, he, and his sycophants, rarely grant interviews to any network other than the ass-kissing and state-running (at least heavily influencing) Fox News. In fact, since taking office he has given 68 interviews to Fox while only five to ABC and CBS with seven to CNBC. CNN remains in isolation at zero interviews and an attempt to ban their senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, by taking away his pass.
Included in his tweet to the ayatollahs in Tehran he tells them not to kill their people and that, “The world is watching.” In his comments he seems oblivious that the world is watching him as well. Many people in other countries (and some in the U.S.) believe that he is partially culpable for the downing of that plane. No one suggests that the Iranians don’t bare principle responsibility, as it was their forces that launched the missile. However, they see his ill-advised assassination of General Qassim Soleimani, and bellicose statements following the event as contributing to the environment that facilitated this catastrophic error in judgement.
But how is it that Trump can voice support for foreign journalists, while taking every opportunity to denigrate those American professionals? His enemy of the people commentary has reverberated around the world. It is especially embraced by other authoritarian rulers and with very negative consequences. While 2019 saw a decline in murders of journalists, still there were 49 killed, 389 in jail, and 57 being held hostage. In 2018 there were 63 murdered and Reporters Without Borders stated, “more than half of all journalists killed were targeted deliberately reflects a hatred of the media in many areas of society.” Notably it was that year that Jamal Khashoggi was viciously dissected in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.
The incongruence between Trump’s support for Iranian journalists and degradation of American ones is obvious. Remember that Khashoggi was an American resident and a Washington Post reporter. Yet, Trump was willing to overlook the fact that his murder was almost certainly ordered by his Saudi ally, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
As Fareed Zakaria astutely wrote this week, “Trump doesn’t have a foreign policy, he has a series of impulses.” Unfortunately, those impulses are not limited to foreign policies, but extend to almost every aspect of his presidency. Unrestrained, he has yet to learn that words have consequences. When he was spouting off as a civilian, that mattered little and served him well as a con man. Now, however, every utterance often is viewed as American policy and his diatribes recorded and influential on the international stage. Addressing that issue, a foreign businessman told me, “we can’t figure this guy out.” While Trump loves the image of unpredictable, that translate to unreliable in the foreign sector. (Yes, I’ve said that many times -but it is still true)
Currently, Trump’s inconsistency is not limited to commentary about the media and directly applies to the existing situation with Iran. Many other commentators have pointed out this issue. His disdain for the intelligence community is well established. He has openly called their collective judgement into question on many occasions. Helsinki was probably the most notable (and inexcusable) example. Yet, now that he ordered the drone targeting General Soleimani, the rationale provided to Congress, and the public, is simply to trust some unexplained threat that was supported by data from a group he has insisted in untrustworthy.
We have been down this road before, and with presidents who had far more credibility. That is how we expanded the war in Vietnam and began the invasion of Iraq. Bernie Sanders is right when he calls Trump a pathological liar. Based on his record Trump long ago forfeited any expectation of veridical believability from all rational people. “Trust me,” should not be sufficient either for Congress or the American people.
A few have mentioned that the recent actions were a Wag the Dog scenario. It shouldn’t take a political analyst to note that all of the pieces fit. Unfortunately, as I have previously posted, most Republicans, and his supporters just don’t care. But isn’t it just great that Trump is concerned about the wellbeing of journalists in Iran? (Sarcasm intended) Time to support those in America