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President Obama Drops Gloves, Gives Donald Trump An Overdue Ass-Kicking
| Daily Beast | - |
The
president blasted Donald Trump's incendiary language, slamming his
proposed ban on Muslims traveling to the U.S., and even took a shot at
his rantings on social media.
Pool photo by Jim Lo Scalzo
Pow!
06.14.16 2:45 PM ET
President Obama Drops Gloves, Gives Donald Trump An Overdue Ass-Kicking
The commander-in-chief delivered some choice words to the draft-dodging silver spooner looking to replace him.
It was a well-earned ass-kicking. President Obama stepped up to a live microphone today and unleashed a long-overdue rhetorical bruising on a bully who has been allowed to stalk the schoolyard for far too long.
The
president blasted Donald Trump’s incendiary language, slamming his
proposed ban on Muslims traveling to the U.S., and even took a shot at
his rantings on social media. In singling out the presumptive Republican
nominee, President Obama laid to waste the idea that his administration
has been soft on terrorism.
“If
there is anyone out there who thinks we are confused about who our
enemies are—that would come as a surprise to the thousands of terrorists
who we have taken off the battlefield,” he said.
In
the wake of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, which
claimed 50 lives and left dozens more injured, yesterday Trump openly
questioned the president’s commitment to protecting the American people.
“Look,
we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got
something else in mind,” Trump said in a Fox News interview Monday. “And
the something else in mind— you know, people can’t believe it. People
cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he
acts and can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’
There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going
on.”
It
was far from the first time Trump attempted to fuel conspiracy theories
about President Obama. His entire political career was built on the
unfounded allegation that the nation’s commander-in-chief is unfit for
duty because he isn’t a native-born citizen.
The
notion of a Manchurian president began making the rounds during the
2008 campaign, but it was Trump—in April, 2011—who claimed he was
sending a team of investigators out to find the “truth.”
He not only questioned the Obama’s place of birth, but also demanded
that he release his college transcripts to prove he deserved his place
at Columbia and Harvard.
Five
years later, without uttering the words, Trump still wants people to
believe that the president is a secret Muslim—and one who, presumably
out of an allegiance to Allah, refuses to put American interests and
lives first.
And
so the president took off the gloves and promptly shattered Trump’s
glass jaw. In a brief address, broadcast on national television, Obama
beat the proverbial brakes off of the real-estate magnate.
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You
see to question the president’s commitment to fighting the war on
terror is to also to question the commitment of our nation’s armed
forces—the men and women who put their lives on the line every day in
defense of this country.
“That
would come as a surprise to those who spent these last seven and a half
years dismantling Al Qaida in the FATA,” President Obama said. “For
example—including men and women in uniform who put their lives at risk,
and the special forces that I ordered to get bin Laden and are now on
the ground in Iraq and in Syria.”
Notably, it’s a role the draft-dodging son of a construction millionaire knows nothing about.
“Where
does this stop?” Obama demanded to know. “Are we going to start
treating all Muslim Americans differently? Place them under special
surveillance? Discriminate against them because of their faith? Do
Republican officials actually agree with this? Because that’s not the
America we want. It doesn’t reflect our ideals.”
Whether
they agree or not, Trump’s promises — as Obama accurately described
them—do reflect the values of all the Republican leaders who have
endorsed their party’s presumptive nominee.
Frankly,
it’s been a tough summer for Republican leaders who not so long ago,
they were lining up in Trump’s office suite, trying to curry his favor
for one candidate or another. He was a rock star back then, lording over
a popular reality television show, author of bestselling books, making frequent appearances on any cable news network that would have him, and noshing on pizza with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
The
Republican leaders begging favors from him collectively ignored Trump’s
public record, including accusations of housing discrimination, a
vicious rhetoric aimed at five black teenagers wrongly accused of raping and beating a jogger in Central Park, and his quixotic search for President Obama’s long-form birth certificate.
In
the gilded upper reaches of Trump Tower, none of that seemed to matter
as long as the cameras were rolling and the cash was flowing.
Despite
the bombastic campaign he has led since announcing his presidential bid
last summer and despite everything else we know about his public
dealings, it was difficult to imagine how Trump might trump himself as
he stood before a TelePrompter Monday afternoon. Breathlessly extolling
the virtues of nativism and religious-bigotry, all the while, he
eschewed the confines of the law and, well, facts. But, Trump seems
comfortable spewing his conspiratorial vagaries and appears to take
genuine offense to the notion that people might find him vulgar and
unworthy of the Oval office.
To parade him before the GOP national convention as the party nominee is to say: Hey, he’s alright with us.
Precious
few Republicans have stepped up to challenge the bloviating
businessman. Not Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, not RNC
chairman Reince Priebus and, until last week, not even former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich—who spent his spring trying to “normalize” Trump
with leaders on Capitol Hill— expressed any concern about Trump’s
racism. Collectively, they gave tacit approval to his misogyny, his
racial and religious intolerance, his derision for people living with
disabilities, and his utter loathing for anyone who dared call out his
charade.
They had to have known—as Mitt Romney, who took Trump’s endorsement nonetheless in 2012, apparently did— about Trump’s shady dealings. They had to know about the countless failed businesses, his questionable finances, and the scheme otherwise known as Trump University that was designed to bilk unsuspecting, hard working Americans out of their life’s savings.
Their
words and actions say they don’t mind having an insolent, dull-witted,
con man control nominations to the Supreme Court or the federal bench.
They don’t mind handing him the pen to sign executive orders or command
of our nation’s armed forces.
In
the end, Republicans have only themselves to blame: for nominating a
block-headed narcissist with a nascent understanding of public
policy—and for the public verbal thrashing he received at the hands of
the current president today.
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