Contrary to what he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” early in 2016, Donald Trump does not in fact have a “good brain.”
There’s considerable debate around whether the brain he does have has ever been any semblance of “good”, but if we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that there was a time when whatever resides beneath that rusty Brillo Pad he wears on his head allowed him to function at a higher level than a semi-retarded orangutan, it’s safe to say that his mental acuity has now deteriorated to an extent that renders him almost childlike.
Over the weekend, we learned that the President was apparently confused about why Japan didn’t shoot down the North Korean missiles that passed over Japanese territory a couple of months ago. According to sources, Trump’s inability to comprehend Abe’s failure to intercept the missiles stemmed from his understanding that Japan is “a national of samurai warriors.”
You’ll also recall that in his now infamous interview with Lou Dobbs, Trump contended that “a lot of people” call Xi Jinping “the King of China.”
The President lives in a fantasy world where everyone is a stereotype and where every other word has to be a superlative. Japanese are “samurai warriors.” Tax cuts are “the largest.” Even bad things are conceptualized this way, as if he can’t understand things unless they are wrapped in hyperbole – the opioid epidemic is the worst drug crisis “in the history of the world.”
Well, in the latest example of this same dynamic, Axios is out recounting a meeting Trump held with Native American tribal leaders in June. When the chiefs explained to Trump that there were regulatory hurdles that prevented them for accessing the resources on their land, this is what Trump said (and do note that when asked, the White House did not dispute this account):
But now it’s me. The government’s different now. Obama’s gone; and we’re doing things differently here.
Chief, chief, what are they going to do? Once you get it out of the ground are they going to make you put it back in there? I mean, once it’s out of the ground it can’t go back in there.
You’ve just got to do it. I’m telling you, chief, you’ve just got to do it.
Apparently, one source who was present tried to tell Axios that this was just “Trump speak,” but that’s kind of the point.
Axios is pitching that account as an example of “the almost kingly power that Trump sees himself as holding.”
I’m not sure that’s the case. I think it’s more an example of something a child would say to a Native American if a child could understand what it means to extract energy from the ground.
I mean technically these were “chiefs” but you know that’s not what Trump meant. He sees a Native American and he thinks “chief” just like he sees a Japanese person and thinks “samurai warrior.”
Similarly, he hears “regulatory barriers” and he thinks “well what are they going to do, make you put it back in the ground?”
And you know, if you think I’m deliberately spinning this, you’d be right. Or maybe you wouldn’t. Because take a look at the following picture from this meeting and tell me how you imagine things went…
