Calling Donald Trump's performance at the G7 summit "dangerous," a columnist for the conservative Bulwark, expressed disgust with the president using the forum to attack Americans -- including former President Barack Obama -- while at the same time acting as an advocate for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to Andrew Egger, "President Trump is a man of many flaws, but when it comes to foreign policy, one stands out: The guy generally can’t take his mind off his domestic enemies long enough to act as a passable representative for all Americans on the world stage. This flaw was on full display just last week, after Trump provoked a minor international incident out of huffiness that Denmark wouldn’t sell him Greenland on a whim."
While Egger has many problems with the president's conduct -- including skipping out on meetings and then getting caught lying about the reason why -- he was particularly critical of Trump choosing Putin over his fellow countrymen.
"Instead of spending the weekend putting his best foot forward on behalf of the United States, Trump skipped out on important meetings, ran comms for his good buddy Vladimir Putin, and—by his own telling—yukked it up with other world leaders about how nasty American journalists are," he wrote.
Responding to a Trump tweet, where the president claimed, "In France we are all laughing at how knowingly inaccurate the U.S. reporting of events and conversations at the G-7 is. These Leaders, and many others, are getting a major case study of Fake News at it’s finest! They’ve got it all wrong, from Iran, to China Tariffs, to Boris!" Egger called the president out.
"This is, of course, a classic lazy Trump fabrication—the latest in a long line of occasions when the president has put his own words in the mouths of others without really bothering to hide the bit," he charged. "But it’s worse than usual this time around. Every American should be incensed by the idea of the president sitting around laughing with foreign leaders at the expense of American citizens, to say nothing of bragging about it afterward."
Which brought the columnist to what could be called Trump's worst moment in France.
"Will Donald Trump ever tire of parroting Russian talking points at these shindigs?" he wrote. " To sum up: Trump has argued that Russia ought to be reinstated to the G7, which was known as the G8 until Russia illegally annexed Crimea. Asked to comment on why Russia should be reinstated while they still hold that seized territory, Trump deflected and rotated to a subject he’s more comfortable with: Bad-mouthing Barack Obama."
"The fact that Trump is more comfortable savaging other U.S. politicians than our actual adversaries isn’t exactly surprising by now, yet the brazenness of it is still sufficient to shock," he wrote before adding a warning.
"This sort of thing is dangerous. Historically, American politicians have refrained from attacking one another on foreign soil," Egger wrote. "All in all, Trump left the other leaders at the G7 with a singular impression: that he is a flighty and unserious leader who can’t be counted on to unite his nation t in the event of an international crisis."
"That’s a horrible message to send to our allies, and a worse one to give our enemies. What does it say about our commander in chief that the best we can hope while he remains in office is that other world leaders don’t see him as fully in control?" he concluded.
You can read the whole piece here.
