Trump returns — and so does his astounding ignorance
If you feel off-kilter, you’re in good company. The president seems downright bewildered.
In the weeks before he became commander in chief, Trump aimed his fire at the traditional enemies of the United States: Canada, Denmark and Panama. But upon taking the oath of office, he launched verbal hostilities against a new foe: the Kingdom of Spain.
On his first evening back in office, Trump invited reporters into the Oval Office, where he discussed his new decree that NATO members must spend 5 percent of their nation’s wealth on their militaries. (He perhaps is unaware that the United States spends only about 3 percent and would have to come up with an additional $500 billion annually to fulfill his edict.) Complaining about the “very low” military spending of Spain, Trump told his questioners: “They’re a BRICS nation, Spain. You know what a BRICS nation is? You’ll figure it out.” The 47th president then said that he would “put at least 100 percent tariff on the business they do with the United States.”
Spain, part of the European Union, is not a member of the “BRICS” bloc, short for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (but which, curiously, also includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates). But this, apparently, is news to our belligerent president. The United States might not have been in a conflict with Spain since 1898, but Trump is not one to let bygones be bygones. Remember the Maine! “I don’t know if the affirmation made by President Trump was the result of a mix-up or not,” said a spokeswoman for the unnerved Spanish government.
Maybe he’ll “figure it out.”
During that same session in the Oval Office, a reporter asked Trump whether his executive order governing “unlawful disclosure by federal officials” was related to Hunter Biden.
“No, I think it’s just more general than that. It’s not Hunter Biden,” came Trump’s breezy reply. The actual text of the order Trump signed says otherwise: It strips security clearances from former officials who issued “a letter discrediting the reporting that President Joseph R. Biden’s son had abandoned his laptop at a computer repair business.”
The next evening brought more astounding ignorance from the chief executive. This time, he brought reporters into the Roosevelt Room to unveil a supposed $500 billion joint venture regarding artificial intelligence. But the ruse was exposed by none other than Trump sidekick Elon Musk, who proclaimed: “They don’t have the money.”
At the event, NBC News’s Peter Alexander asked Trump about why he had just pardoned D.J. Rodriguez, who shocked a police officer with a stun gun at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and later boasted that he “tazzzzed the f— out of the blue.” The judge who sentenced Rodriguez to more than 12 years called him a “one-man army of hate, attacking police.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Trump replied. “Was it a pardon?”
Alexander reiterated that it was.
“Okay. Well, we’ll take a look at everything,” Trump said, though his pardons of this and other cop-beaters are irrevocable.
Trump soon moved on to demanding that California “turn the valve” to allow more water to reach Los Angeles, where, he said, residents of Beverly Hills had been limited to 38 gallons of water per day. “When you’re a rich person, you like to take a shower. Thirty-eight gallons doesn’t last very long.”
There is no such “valve” and no such water restrictions in Beverly Hills. But Trump skipped merrily from that error to another: Addressing a controversy that has split his staff members, he explained that he supports the H-1B visa program because it allows his properties to hire “maître d’s, wine experts, even waiters.” Thus did he apparently confuse the H-1B visa, covering those with technical expertise, with the H-2B, covering temporary workers.
Trump continued on, scolding the Biden administration for failing to negotiate a release of the hostages from Gaza “a year and a half, two years ago.” Good point! Biden should have secured the hostages’ freedom before they were taken captive on Oct. 7, 2023.
By Wednesday night, when Trump appeared from the Oval Office on Fox News with Sean Hannity, the president was reviving his first-term canard about raking the forest to prevent fires. “You have to clean the floors of the forest,” he explained.
And by Thursday afternoon, the perplexed president seemed unaware that his administration was preparing to send around 10,000 troops to the southern border, as described in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection briefing document obtained by The Post.
“The southern border?” Trump replied when a reporter asked him about the plan. He then repeated an unrelated fiction he had offered earlier about offering 10,000 troops to protect the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
It’s going to be a long four years.
