President Donald J. Trump often boasts that no president has provided more access to the press. That is true. However, Trump press conferences resemble nothing presided over by his White House predecessors and are more suited to a Fellini script than an opportunity for the press to get real information. So often the press piles on, not genuinely seeking the truth, but intent on humiliating a person of very sparse intellectual capacity and absolutely no regard for the truth.
A recent press conference from the Hague following Trump’s participation in the NATO Summit was a prime example and certainly not an outlier. Aside from calling Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell stupid, threatening to overcharge Spain on any further business transaction for refusing to spend the requisite amount on defense, and attempting to humiliate individual CNN reporters, Trump was entertaining, taking on more questions than usual, but offering no facts. Hyperbolic statements resounded, but there was a feeling in the room that no one really cared or was even there to get any real information.
The constantly repeated refrain was the American “obliteration” of the Iranian nuclear resources and capability despite many intelligence reports including a leaked American one that suggested that Iran had suffered only a several-month setback to its nuclear program. The bottom line is that there is no evidence that 900 pounds of Iran’s enriched uranium was destroyed in the American attack. No intelligence report except for the White House and Trump himself had asserted that accomplishment.
In any event the military action on the part of the United States in Iran was successful. The issues here are to what degree and whether it was necessary for America to intervene. The amount of damage to the Iranian nuclear program which was inflicted beyond any doubt could and would have been inflicted by Israel alone whether it used American equipment currently in Israel’s possession or availed itself of American bunker bombs.
Donald Trump is a psychologically disturbed person. For him it is important to become legendary in history and that has to include accomplishments whether actual or fake (Trump terminology). His self-proclaimed motivation to bring peace is not a genuine moral desire to terminate suffering and killing, but most importantly to be recognized as a peacemaker resulting in a Nobel Peace Prize. This is blatantly evident in his press conferences as well as the public statements of his sycophants. All accomplishments are attributed to the president and very often to the commander-in-chief, which is proper terminology according to the US Constitution, yet somewhat laughable when it refers to Donald J. Trump, who had five military deferments.
Is the mainstream press, American and global, an enemy of Donald Trump? Yes, but he brought it upon himself. He coined the term “fake news” and continues to ridicule representatives of the mainstream press at every opportunity.
Similarly, he is considered a buffoon and every press conference is an opportunity to humiliate him. The extremist right-wing press that supports him indiscriminately, does so in glaring fashion. Fox News, which is the originator of Trump sycophancy, has no program which may be considered remotely objective. Even “Hannity” is not the worst of the bunch.
This is not a healthy political environment. Trump is a bully, and the mainstream press has taken a position to fight back, justifying its role as absolutely necessary when dealing with a primitive deeply flawed human being who fashions himself to be not only a president of a democratic country, but the smartest, ablest person in the room, intent on governing by imprimatur rather than the will of the people. He has “bloviated” (to use a term popularized by his sycophantic followers) the mandate of his election by a margin of two million popular votes, not recognizing that this was the smallest presidential margin in 20 years.
A Trump press conference is satire, often replayed on Saturday Night Live. Both the mainstream press and SNL are only doing their jobs.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.