When you looked at the title of today’s article I don’t know if your reaction was, “That’s a strong statement” or, “It took you this long to figure it out?” In any event Trump removed any doubt about its validity this past week. Let’s explore.

Going back to the campaign Trump proved he was a liar. His announcement speech was cheered by paid actors. During it he talked of the Mexican rapists and murders. Before that he gained political notoriety as the birther-in chief. As the campaign wore on a bit he mocked Bernie Sanders for yielding the microphone to protesters. Trump said that would never happen to him. Bernie was alone on stage; Trump hid behind paid thugs before he was assigned Secret Service protection.

Trump, who claims to love the veterans and do so much for them, mocked the late war hero John McCain.  McCain came from a family of admirals, graduated from the Naval Academy, was a prisoner of war in Vietnam and achieved the rank of Captain before his retirement. Trump went to a military reform school for spoiled, incorrigible rich kids for high school and then received five deferments from the Vietnam era draft which earned him the nickname Cadet Bone Spurs.

But let’s get to the last few days.

The CIA has concluded with high confidence that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered the killing of Virginia resident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump took the word of MBS over the high confidence conclusion of his own intelligence community. (This is not the first time; remember Helsinki?)

Trump’s reasoning is that America cannot afford to anger the Saudis. In his mind it would lead to a spike in oil prices plunging the world into an almost instant global recession. He also didn’t want to jeopardize the pending military equipment orders and the jobs they support. Despite repeated debunking Trump continued to use vastly inflated numbers for both the dollar value of the orders and the number of jobs. (It reinforces the recent Washington conventional wisdom that if Trump mentions a number he is lying.) America can’t afford the Saudi’s reaction or the Trump family is afraid to anger them?

During his recent visit to Paris Trump was “rained out” of visiting the graves of fallen American military buried in France during World War I. Photographs prove that others including Chief-of-Staff John Kelly made the trip. He also skipped a ceremonial stroll down the Champs-Elysees attended by almost every other world head of state. It appears a slight drizzle, which some even eschewed an umbrella to brave, deterred him from attending. We couldn’t expect him to take a chance of getting his hair wet. (Perhaps he could have worn one of the one size fits all caps he sells?)

He returned to Washington in time for Veterans’ Day yet did not visit Arlington National Cemetery. When quizzed he said he had done that last year. Fact Check: He wasn’t even in Washington on Veterans’ Day 2017.

I held off writing this article because I was certain that someone in Trump’s orbit would be able to convince him that he had to do something he has never done – visit the troops in a war zone country on Thanksgiving (or any other time for that matter). When he departed the White House for Mar-a-Lago I suspected it was a diversion or that he would somehow slip away and we would see pictures of him in the Middle East on Thanksgiving morning. I was incorrect. I find it difficult to believe that nobody on his staff gave him the obvious advice to make the trip. The only logical conclusion is that Trump was too afraid to do it.

In his defense Trump did make the “sacrifice” of getting dressed and strolling from his bedroom to phone the troops. The phone call was interesting (I’m being polite). Trump began by reading a prepared statement. That made me question his intelligence and sincerity; and not for the first time. He used his conversations with the commanding officers to work in his most recent talking points which almost invariably contained long debunked lies. Particularly his conversations with the Navy and Coast Guard commanders illustrated his ignorance of their procedures and situation. Tip to the President: In the future if you don’t know what you are talking about, don’t ask questions in a live broadcast setting. I am not saying Trump was without danger on the call; he risked injury from patting himself on the back so much. At least he did it sitting down; don’t want to aggravate the old bone spurs. However Trump did display prudence; he was safe from the rain under the roof at Mar-a-Lago.

After the call Trump took some questions from the assembled press. He basically repeated his lying talking points in reply to all the questions.

Thanksgiving was just another day in the Donald Dome and Trump literally phoned it in.

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