Every year, the president of the United States makes a phone call to the men and women in uniform serving our country at home and abroad on Thanksgiving, thanking them for giving up their time with their families in order to serve a higher cause.
Unfortunately, it appears that President Trump has either failed to grasp the basic idea behind the presidential phone call or simply doesn’t care. His address to the troops this morning was an incoherent, disgraceful display from an old man who is very obviously losing more of his mental faculties with each passing day.
Deviating from the script he was given almost immediately, he turned his Thanksgiving address to the troops into another one of his rally speeches, with all the rambling tangents and unrepentant racism that usually involves:
President Trump is currently on a teleconference call with all five branches of the military. He read from scripted remarks initially but now he’s talking about the wall (“barbed wire plus”) and the “bad people” trying to cross at the border. pic.twitter.com/DzdGzMVepd
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) November 22, 2018
For him to use the Thanksgiving holiday — which celebrates the immigration of Europeans to the Americas and their short-lived friendship with the Native Americans — to smear immigrants looking for a better life as “bad people” is appalling and an insult to everything our nation stands for.
He bragged and said that they can be proud that America is the “hot nation” in the world thanks to Trump:
Trump to troops deployed abroad during a conference call this morning: "We're all doing well economically, better than anybody in the world. We're the hot nation in the world. It's nice to know you're fighting that's doing well and that's our country." #wut pic.twitter.com/jsMlVtof3Z
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 22, 2018
He then used a commendation to a Navy seaman to brag about how he went to the Wharton School of Finance — a college experience he used to dodge the Vietnam draft.
Trump brags to the troops about fact he went to the Wharton School of Finance pic.twitter.com/JOvPTchyrA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 22, 2018
Unable to wrench his focus away from obsessing over the Ninth Circuit Court and the judicial ruling that prevented him from denying immigrants at the border access to asylum in the United States, the President used his call to the troops to attack the independent judicial system that they have dedicated their lives to defending — and then things got really weird, as he asked the troops on the ground to weigh in on “trade.”
Trump, like a lunatic, asks troops in Bahrain to weigh in on his trade war since "we have been taken advantage of for many years by bad deals."
One of them responds to him by saying, "from our perspective there is an abundance of trade happening in the region." pic.twitter.com/122RUSp2EG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 22, 2018
It’s truly depressing to see this man use his Thanksgiving call the troops — many of whom are sitting in the desert at the border, eating MREs in a tent instead of being with their families for absolutely no reason other than because the president wanted a political stunt for the midterm elections — to spew both his racist, un-American propaganda and to attack the institutions which our nation holds dear.
As for this…well, what can you possibly say about this? The president of the United States just asked an officer if we were going to be building our new aircraft carriers with steam or “electromagnetic.”
Trump: “Steam is very reliable. Electromagnetic – unfortunately you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly…”
Navy Officer: “Yes sir. You sort of have to be Albert Einstein to run the nuclear power plant that we have here as well, but we’re doing that very well.” pic.twitter.com/uJkNgxzF2B
— Mick Krever (@mickbk) November 22, 2018
He’s losing his mind.
