In a moment of poignant irony when addressing the United Nations earlier this week, Trump was taken aback when the General Assembly audibly guffawed in response to his boastful claims that his administration had accomplished more in two years than any prior U.S. administration. For Trump, it’s just more of the daily hyperbole and misdirection he continually spouts to this friends on Fox News, where he rarely gets pushback, that he didn’t even consider this world body would laugh in his face at the comment. He was initially stunned at the response, answering back, “that’s not a response I was expecting,” which elicited more laughter, but then continued on for another half hour of threats, exaggerations and harrumphing that didn’t amount to much.
The irony is that Trump has long been obsessed that the world has been, in his words, “laughing at us. They think we’re fools.”
Thomas Wright, a European analyst at the Brookings Institution (a conservative think-tank), noted that “it’s never been true, but he (Trump) has said it about every president, including Ronald Regan. It’s the first time I’m aware of that people actually laughed at a (American) president. I think it is going to drive him absolutely crazy. It will play to every insecurity he has.”
Cynics might say it is sweet justice to an overly boastful president, but all Americans lose when the world thinks so poorly of its leader and of the political process that has failed to rein him in.