Dem
52
Ties
3
GOP
45
Yesterday, we also had an item about Donald Trump's invitation to Iran, extended during a rally in Nebraska, to "take out" Los Angeles and San Diego. That piece can also use a little follow up.
To start with, California politicians are, not surprisingly, furious with the President. You would be hard-pressed to find a high-profile officeholder in the Golden State who has not lambasted Trump. Most obviously, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has made several statements, including calling for the Cabinet to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and to remove Trump from office. Similarly, Kamala Harris got onto eX-Twitter and tore Trump a new one, decreeing that "Californians' lives are not expendable in Donald Trump's unhinged, reckless war in Iran."
That said, Trump also has some surprising defenders, at least in a manner of speaking. Two of the highest-profile folks working for CNN are taking the lead here. First, fact-checker Daniel Dale, who will never be confused for a Trump apologist, got onto eX-Twitter himself to opine that while the President expressed himself poorly, it is incorrect to claim he called for an attack on San Diego and Los Angeles. Similarly, Aaron Blake, who is hands-down the best political analyst CNN has, published a piece headlined "Trump's comment about Iran nuking Los Angeles and San Diego was incoherent, not malicious."
Now, maybe readers don't know this, but both Newsom and Harris are thinking about running for president in 2028. It's a closely guarded secret. This being the case, it is at least possible that they took this as an opportunity to do some grandstanding, and misrepresented Trump's words, either deliberately or due to a lack of due diligence.
We actually don't think that's true, however, and just as Dale/Blake semi-defended Trump, we'd like to defend Newsom/Harris (and, incidentally, ourselves, since the piece we wrote yesterday echoed what the Governor and the former VP said). And we'll start by talking a little bit about the process that produced the piece we published yesterday. (Z) first heard about the news from (A), and (Z)'s initial response was, "Eh, Trump probably just expressed himself badly, and what he really meant was something like, 'War with Iran is better than letting them get into a position where they could take out a city like San Diego or Los Angeles.'" But then, (Z) read what Trump actually said. Here it is:
And again, remember, with the war, it's just artificial. It's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They could take out a city. Let 'em take out Los Angeles, let 'em take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it's gonna be over with very soon. It's essentially almost over with.
And they might keep going a little long. You know, they always say, "They have a big threshold for pain." They need it, let me tell you. But it's gonna end very soon. And it'll end one way or the other. And your gas and your gasoline and all the other things.
That is not within a country mile of (Z)'s initial guess. And the fact is that Trump is the President of the United States, and it's on him to express himself clearly. If he's going to issue forth with a rambling monologue that certainly appears to include a call for an attack on Los Angeles and San Diego, then it's not our responsibility, nor the responsibility of anyone else in the media or the commentariat, to clean that up for him.
That brings us to a second observation. If it were any other politician who said something like this, and who did not intend the meaning that many people took from their words, then that politician would offer some version of an apology for what they said. They would probably concede that they understand why people took the wrong message from what was said, and would offer up some sort of clarification.
The Trump administration response, by contrast, is always to behave as if the President expressed himself absolutely perfectly, and that anyone who thinks or says otherwise is either stupid or is acting in bad faith. Here, for example, is Trump enabler and apologist Steven Cheung on eX-Twitter yesterday:
The media freakout over President Trump's comments is not rooted in reality. He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped. America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money.
Again, this is the response 100% of the time. Trump believes you can never show "weakness," and his underlings have fully absorbed that lesson. But it's fundamentally dishonest. If you review the word salad above, there is plenty of room for misunderstanding, no matter how "clear" Cheung claims the President was.
Finally, let us add that Trump is a person who, for many decades, has said outrageous/provocative/offensive/racist things, and then hidden behind either "you misunderstood me" and/or "I was just joking." If he really was speaking hypothetically, then he could theoretically have picked any cities in America as his examples. And, frankly, cities on the eastern seaboard would at least have made more sense, since they are more reachable from Iran than San Diego and Los Angeles are. Can we really believe that his choice of those two cities, in a much-hated blue state, home to a much-hated blue governor and blue former VP, was purely random? Certainly the crowd at the rally, which roared its approval, didn't think so.
In sum, is it possible that Trump did not actually intend to invite Iran to attack California? Sure, but his words are such a mess, that we really weren't sure when we wrote the original item, nor are we sure as we write this one. Further, for all of the reasons outlined here, he simply is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Get back to us when he admits he could have spoken more clearly, and when he offers a compelling alternative version of whatever it was he intended to say. (Z)