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OPINION | Trump's delusional and dangerous behavior hurts the security of the United States

2020-07-02T23:34:55.284Z


In four months are the elections. American voters and our elected officials must know the full story of this president's first term.


Editor's Note: Jill Filipovic is a New York-based journalist and author of the upcoming book "OK Boomer, Let's Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind," and "The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness." Follow her on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this comment are exclusively his. See more articles like this at CNNE.com/opinion.

(CNN) - According to a revealing report by Carl Bernstein released by CNN, detailing Trump's outrageous behavior in phone calls with foreign leaders, the president is behaving in a delusional and dangerous manner by putting his priorities above American interests and puts national security at risk.

This is not going to surprise any of those who have paid attention to Trump's mandate, or even anyone who has heard the president speak. But it is more disturbing evidence that this president, along with his collaborators in the White House and the Republican Party, represent a direct threat to American interests and the future of our country.

Based on multiple sources who have listened to the president's conversations with foreign leaders, Bernstein portrays the image of an impulsive and delusional lout, a man so out of his mind and alienated from reality that he has phone calls with autocratic leaders like the Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Russian Vladimir Putin exaggerating his own achievements and allowing them, more intelligent than him, to gain strategic advantage.

While, on the other hand, it is patronizing and intimidating with America's allies, particularly with those nations led (at the time of these calls) by women, such as Theresa May of Great Britain and Angela Merkel of Germany. According to Bernstein sources, Trump has tempered the power of the United States while emboldening and empowering Russia. He is so happy to speak to Erdogan that he even answers the Turkish leader's calls from the golf course.

According to Bernstein's sources, it was conversations with Erdogan, a serial human rights abuser who nullified dissent and impartial reports about his regime, that shaped Trump's decision-making in Syria, "including the directive from the president to withdraw US forces from the country, which then allowed Turkey to attack the Kurds who had helped the United States fight ISIS and weakened NATO's role in the conflict, "writes Bernstein.

The question is, what's next? While it's jarring to see all of these damning claims compiled in such a profound exposition, the claims themselves are mostly things we've heard before, or could have been inferred based on the president's public behavior (really, do we think it's more professional, consistent and thoughtful in private than in planned press conferences and scripted speeches?).

In fact, during the 2016 election we met a particularly memorable private conversation between Trump and Billy Bush, in which the now-president bragged about grabbing women by their genitals. He has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by more than a dozen women. He has appointed fewer women than any president in the previous decade - and possibly less than any president in 20 years. Is anyone surprised that I aggressively treat heads of state?

We have all seen the president take the podium and lie to the press and the public. We've seen him make up claims about the covid-19 pandemic apparently on the spot, putting public health and life at risk for Americans. We have seen him fire those who investigate his alleged wrongdoings. It does not take much imagination, you just have to look at what appears in front of us to notice that this is a dangerously unfit man for the office he occupies.

And yet we have seen that their support between their base and the Republican leadership has not changed much. Few current or former members of the administration have raised the alarm about the responsibility that this president really has, perhaps because they are anxious and, like John Bolton, apparently more interested in profiting from a revealing book than in seeing that the country walk over an abyss. Or perhaps they look at the Republicans in Congress and conclude that all this information is already obvious, and that the President's party has chosen to defend a clearly damaged and damaging man.

According to Bernstein, "a person familiar with almost all conversations with the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Canada, Australia and Western Europe cumulatively described the calls as 'abominations' so serious to US national security interests, that if Members of Congress will hear from witnesses to the actual talks or read the texts and notes, even many high-ranking Republican members would no longer be able to maintain confidence in the President. ” But why in the world would this be the conclusion, knowing what we do about ongoing Republican support for Trump, even after impeachment hearings that highlight the president's incompetence and his drive to put his interests above of those in the country?

The sources in Bernstein's story have a clear choice ahead: continue to prop up a man they know threatens the nation, or defend the future of this country and put his name and face behind the truth. If these high-level public servants really believe that "even many high-ranking Republican members could no longer maintain trust in the President" if they knew the truth, then surely Republicans in Congress, and the rest of the country, deserve to know.

In four months are the elections. American voters and our elected officials must know the full story of this president's first term. And we need to hear it not from cowardly anonymous sources, but from the men and women who have witnessed these abominations. If those men and women are the patriots they think they are, they will speak and they will do it before November

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2020-07-02

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