One would think that a president who spends so many days at his own golf clubs while in office would enjoy a nice, relaxed Memorial Day weekend focused on honoring our nation’s fallen soldiers and spending quality time with the family.
Not Donald Trump. For the 45th president, his closest relationship lately seems to be with a television set permanently tuned to Fox News, and the primary thought occupying his mind, by all appearances, is Robert Mueller’s ever-expanding Russia probe.
Since Friday, Trump—or someone handling his Twitter account—has tweeted nearly three dozen times. And while some of those tweets—a few on the Naval Academy and a freed U.S. hostage in Venezuela, and a Memorial Day message—address other topics, the majority reflect the president’s delusional obsession with a “Deep State” conspiracy of current and former federal law enforcement officials and Democratic politicians and operatives out to get him. His deranged Twitter rants are fueled by Fox News and contain more than a few lies.
On Monday morning, as Memorial Day parades were underway in towns and cities across the nation, Trump tweeted several quotes from his favorite network, and it wasn’t even midday yet.
“‘The President deserves some answers.’ @FoxNews in discussing ‘SPYGATE,’” he tweeted. “‘Sally Yates is part of concerns people have raised about bias in the Justice Dept. I find her actions to be really quite unbelievable.’ Jonathan Turley,” he said in another. “‘We now find out that the Obama Administration put the opposing campaigns presidential candidate, or his campaign, under investigation. That raises legitimate questions. I just find this really odd...this goes to the heart of our electoral system.’ Jonathan Turley on @FoxNews.”
Taken together, and as a matter of presidential record, many don’t even make sense. Take the quote from Turley, who has been all over the news media in recent days raising concerns about political surveillance of electoral campaigns. The allegation that former President Barack Obama spearheaded an “investigation” into a rival party’s presidential campaign is a pretty hefty accusation. Earlier, on Saturday, Trump delivered another tweet about Obama: “Why didn’t President Obama do something about the so-called Russian Meddling when he was told about it by the FBI before the Election? Because he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win, and he didn’t want to upset the apple cart! He was in charge, not me, and did nothing.”
After rereading this tweet several times, I still can’t follow its logic. Trump appears to admit that Russia messed up the 2016 elections in the U.S., but he can’t fully commit to the idea, so he throws in a “so-called.” Then he blames Obama, again.
Then there are the lies. “This whole Russia Probe is Rigged. Just an excuse as to why the Dems and Crooked Hillary lost the Election and States that haven’t been lost in decades,” he wrote in another tweet. “13 Angry Democrats, and all Dems if you include the people who worked for Obama for 8 years. #SPYGATE & CONFLICTS OF INTEREST!”
“With Spies, or ‘Informants’ as the Democrats like to call them because it sounds less sinister (but it’s not), all over my campaign, even from a very early date, why didn’t the crooked highest levels of the FBI or ‘Justice’ contact me to tell me of the phony Russia problem?” he said in another. (Hint: They did.)
The deception even included an astounding allegation that the “Failing” New York Times made up a “phony” source in one of its stories, when in fact the source was one of the Trump administration’s own officials who spoke to several reporters in addition to the Times.
Perhaps the worst of Trump’s Memorial Day weekend tweets was the lie that Democrats are responsible for ripping undocumented immigrant children away from their parents at the border.
“Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there parents once they cross the Border into the U.S. Catch and Release, Lottery and Chain must also go with it and we MUST continue building the WALL! DEMOCRATS ARE PROTECTING MS-13 THUGS,” Trump tweeted on Saturday.
Shortly after taking office, Trump, in a flurry of activity, signed several executive orders, including an attempt to implement a bigoted Muslim ban. With the stroke of a pen, Trump certainly could end this administration’s cruel policy of separating children from their parents. Instead, he’d rather watch Fox News and complain about “Witch Hunts” and “SPYGATE.”