There is a flip side to the optimism I just wrote about. The reason that the discussion about Trump’s unfitness for office has shifted is because he keeps reminding us that he is unfit for office. This is one of those days when the evidence is overwhelming.
Last week we were told that this would be the day the president would announce that he is decertifying the Iran nuclear agreement and passing the next steps on to Congress. But now we’re told that will be delayed until tomorrow. Anne Gearan tells us how the plan came about.
President Trump was livid. Why, he asked his advisers in mid-July, should he go along with what he considered the failed Obama-era policy toward Iran and prop up an international nuclear deal he saw as disastrous?
He was incensed by the arguments of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others that the landmark 2015 deal, while flawed, offered stability and other benefits. He did not want to certify to Congress that the agreement remained in the vital U.S. national security interest and that Iran was meeting its obligations. He did not think either was true.
“He threw a fit,” said one person familiar with the meeting. “. . . He was furious. Really furious. It’s clear he felt jammed.”
So White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster and other senior advisers came up with a plan — one aimed at accommodating Trump’s loathing of the Iran deal as “an embarrassment” without killing it outright.
Everyone on Trump’s national security team knows that Iran is meeting their obligations outlined in the agreement and that it is in this country’s national security interests to maintain it. But the President of the United States threw a temper tantrum because he doesn’t want to continue a deal negotiated by his predecessor, so the group had to come up with a plan that would assuage him. That is how our foreign policy is being conducted in the Trump era. You don’t need any further evidence than that to determine that he is unfit for office.
The reason the announcement on the Iran nuclear agreement was postponed today is that the president will instead announce the next step in the “synthetic repeal” of Obamacare—yet another instance where he seems driven solely by his desire to undo the accomplishments of his predecessor.
This morning, the Washington Post reports that, “Three weeks since Hurricane Maria, much of Puerto Rico is still dark, thirsty and frustrated.” As the death toll on the island continues to mount, the president took to Twitter to blame Puerto Rico for the situation and suggest that it is nearing time for our government’s relief efforts to end.
I don’t know about you, but this is the point at which my outrage starts to explode. I have no idea whether or not he knows that FEMA is still present in both Houston and Miami helping them in their ongoing hurricane recovery efforts. If he doesn’t know, that is dereliction of duty. If he does, the idea that this country will continue to help those cities, while we blame Puerto Ricans and leave them to suffer is absolutely unconscionable.
It is at these moments that I don’t care how Trump’s supporters would defend him or what the consequences would be for Republicans to stand up to this president. He is obviously unfit for office and, given that, Andy Slavitt asked the only relevant question.
Would you give up a career if you thought it would save the country?#TheBobCorkerQuestion https://t.co/fFnSnwJKsc
— Andy Slavitt ??? (@ASlavitt) October 12, 2017
Don’t give me any excuses for why Republicans will say “no” because I refuse to normalize their complicity. It is simply imperative that we all demand that they take a stand.
