Donald Trump vs. the World
In his Davos rant, the president lied, insulted allies, and depicted America as a hellhole.
President Trump just finished addressing world leaders at Davos. This is a big effing deal. For those of you just waking up on the West Coast, I went live with Sam Stein and Andrew Egger to react to Trump’s ranting. You can watch the replay here.
And one other programming note: On Friday I’m planning an AMA at noon EST—think of this as Triad office hours. We’ll do at TheBulwark.com. Watch your inbox for details.
1. The Godfather
The American president stood up in Davos a short while ago and embarrassed himself and his country. But this is not surprising.
Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum was a campaign speech, a slightly more disciplined version of his rambling Tuesday press conference. He talked about “Sleepy Joe Biden” and the “Green New Scam” and the “radical left.” He lied, over and over. He told the gathered political and business leaders stories that they know are not true.
The scene reminded me of his address to the assembled flag officers at Quantico in September: rambling, incoherent, shocking to anyone who has only been reading about Trump and not observing the primary source.
And the reaction was the same. If you will recall, America’s generals and admirals sat in stunned silence while listening to Trump. So did the heads of government, diplomats, business leaders, philanthropists, and others in the audience at Davos.
Do me this favor: If you see headlines today proclaiming that the big takeaway from Trump’s speech was that he renounced the use of military force to take Greenland, ignore them. That’s not what actually happened.
What happened is that