Perhaps the most ridiculous thing that President Donald J. Trump has done in the last several days was to use a faked weather map as a prop to justify his erroneous tweet about Alabama’s possibly being in the path of Hurricane Dorian. The alterations to the official “cone of uncertainty” from the National Hurricane Center were not only amateurish, but they were also — quite literally — criminal.
But that wasn’t the most stunning thing that Trump has done or said recently. Admittedly, rating the irrational moves of an increasingly unhinged chief executive involves lots of debate, many close calls and frequent concessions to personal bias, but my vote for most stunning move of late goes to the president’s insistence on building his infamous wall before next year’s presidential election, even if that involves criminal acts and the use of eminent domain.
According to The Washington Post, Trump has told his aides to pursue the wall at all costs: “Take the land,” he’s reportedly said. Ignore environmental regulations. And if his Cabinet officers and high-ranking aides must break the law to do it, Trump has strongly suggested he will issue presidential pardons.
View the complete September 8 article by Cynthia Tucker on the National Memo website here.