By Tom Burke
Herald columnist
Trump and truth are words not usually found in the same sentence, or even the same universe. So I find considerable irony in President Trump’s response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after she froze him out of his State of the Union address.
Trump said, “She does not want to hear the truth.” He continued, “She does not want the American public to hear what’s going on. She’s afraid of the truth.” (Pelosi afraid? Right. Truth from Trump, who’s notched up 8,158 lies in two years? He’s kidding, no?)
Their issue, of course, is Trump’s now-postponed shutdown of the federal government until he gets $5.7 billion for his wall, or steel slats, or beaded curtain, or whatever he’s calling it these days.
Pelosi claimed security necessitated he reschedule the annual address until after the shutdown ends. But security isn’t the issue.
The issue is whether this country should be governed by hostage taking, blackmail and Trump’s temper tantrum; or the rule of law and democratic processes.
The issue is also about punishing 800,000 American citizens who were forced to work without pay; and punishing thousands of contractors by cutting off their incomes.
I fail to see how stopping government operations — 87n aircraft, automotive, marine and rail National Transportation Safety Bureau accident investigations; staffing at National Parks (say on the Olympic Peninsula); weather data collection; opening Paine Field for passenger traffic; or food stamp processing, for example — is linked to a wall across our southern border.
And a wall which won’t do what the President lies about: how it will “stop crime” and halt illegal drug traffic. (The facts, from Trump’s own Drug Enforcement Administration, refute his claims and his take on halting immigration and drug traffic.)
For those who still believe this serial liar (who invented the wall as a campaign stunt), let’s ask someone who’s a real expert on the border, and a Republican to boot, U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of Texas. Hurd is a 9-year veteran of the CIA, served in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and whose district includes 820 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. He says: “The border crisis is a ‘myth’ and the wall a ‘third-century solution to a 21st-century problem.’”
Trump’s battle with the truth, and apparently the English language, continued when he said, “People have to hear the truth, and the truth we were planning on doing a very important speech in front of the House, Senate and Supreme Court. It’s in the Constitution.”
No, the State of the Union address isn’t in the Constitution. (Another lie for Der Furor.) All the Constitution says is the president, “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” So, no speech is required; simply a letter to Congress suffices.)
Now we won’t detail other Trump lies as he “sells” the wall. But his big-deal address from the Oval Office was not only filled with them, it laid an egg as big as Trump Tower. And his complete capitulation Friday to Pelosi may only be temporary. He’s still using threats, and lies, to try to get his wall.
Gentle reader, this whole mess is about two things and two things only:
One is blackmail, hostage taking, and Trump’s base-pandering fantasies. And Tom Malinowski, a congressman from New Jersey, summed up the nation’s resistance to Trump (71 percent say a wall isn’t worth the shutdown) when he said, “If we give in to this tactic in any way we will validate it, and there will be no end to these shutdowns, and the people who suffer today will be suffering again and again and again. We cannot have that.”
The other is human decency. Empathy. Concern for people.
Trump has none. Zero. Zilch.
The suffering of hundreds of thousands is of no concern to him.
My middle son’s best friend is a 20-year Coast Guardsman. He’s a surfman, one of only 200 or so in the whole country. He’s an elite first responder who has the training and guts to take a small boat out into a big, raging, killer ocean if people are dying.
A surfman’s motto: “Ya gotta go out. Ya don’t have to come back.” And they believe it. They mean it. They live it.
So he worked, he risked his life, he was ready to die to save people’s lives; for free! No pay. (And no death benefits should he have perished in the line of duty.)
What kind of a man, what kind of leader, what kind of a president puts his ego, his political calculations, his “base,” and his fear of Fox, Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter ahead of people like my son’s friend?
In four words: Not much of one.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
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