Journalists were astonished when President Donald Trump took verbal shots at President Obama (without naming him) in a speech intended to deescalate a conflict with Iran on January 8, 2020. In that kind of international crisis, U.S. presidents ordinarily encourage a united American front. Yet Trump’s remarks had a disuniting effect. He presented a sharply negative judgment about Obama’s leadership. Trump criticized Obama’s “very defective” and “foolish Iran nuclear deal.” He claimed missiles fired by Iran at bases housing U.S. troops were financed “with funds made available by the last administration.” The statement implied that blood would be on Obama’s hands if Americans died in the bombings. Journalists said it was quite unusual for a president to lash out at his predecessor when delivering an important foreign policy message that needed broad public support.
The journalists should not have been surprised. Trump has publicly berated Barack Obama on numerous occasions. While Trump’s dislike of Obama is complex and multifaceted, his behavior at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner may reveal an important source of the hostility. Continue reading “A historian dissects President Trump’s strange Obama complex”
Trump’s hit on Iran’s powerful military mastermind Qassim Suleimani may have just closed the door on future U.S. monitoring of other high-level Iranians and their efforts to build nuclear weapons.
The Trump administration finalized its