A Trump Doesn鈥檛 Fall Far From The Tree
There he was.
The President of the United States of America, flying home from Europe on Air Force One.
It was Saturday, and Mr. Trump was, no doubt, preparing to regale us with some hyperbolic, self-congratulatory bibble babble about how he’d wowed the G20.
He hadn’t, by the way.
He’d merely managed not to embarrass himself, or the country, while he and Vladimir Putin met and discussed Russian election meddling, before concocting something Trump called a “cybersecurity unit.”
The mere mention of joining forces with the Russians (of all people) to root out high level cyber shenanigans set-off a full day of metaphors that were, strangely, uttered by Trump’s fellow Republicans.
Republican-after-Republican rushed to the nearest TV camera to claim that by joining forces with Russians to eliminate cyber-interference, it was like having “foxes guarding the hen house.”
They used that phrase as if it’s clever.
It’s not.
I’d prefer my own.
Having the Russians band together with the U.S. to try to stop Russian meddling in our elections, is like having Trump hire a guy to head the EPA, who’s repeatedly sued it.
Trump did that.
Scott Pruitt, the man Trump chose to head the EPA has sued the EPA 14 times.
So, there’s that.
Meanwhile, on Air Force One, Mr. Trump discovered that his son, Donald Jr., had been caught in a mini-scandal.
It was reported Saturday that back in June 2016, he’d met with a Russian attorney, who was said to have been involved with the Russian government.
There’ve been numerous denials by Trump’s associates that they’ve ever had contacts with Russians prior to their boss taking office, then there’ve been revelations that they had.
Junior appeared to be in a tough spot.
It was just another case of the Russian meddling story interfering with Trump’s true passion – his self-image.
By Sunday, Junior’s tough spot got a little tougher.
Instead of a meeting with a Russian attorney about Russian adoptions, it was revealed that the meeting was really about ways to undermine Hillary Clinton.
In the following days, Trump did something few people thought he was capable of doing – he hid from public view.
He could only watch as his eldest son revealed that there were some mighty damaging emails in which he’d basically been lured into a meeting believing the Russian government was clandestinely engineering a way to elevate his father, by denigrating Clinton.
Let’s face it. Some of these stories about the possibilities that the Trump campaign was in cahoots Russian government-back hackers, require cable news pundits to connect-the-dots, even when some of the dots seem, well, unconnectable.
In the case of Junior’s attempts to contact the Russians about hurting Hillary, he’s a first-class dot-connector.
In fact, here’s a few dots I’m connecting myself.
The original email that outlined the potential meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russians was sent to Donald Trump Jr. on June 3, 2016.
Just four days later, Trump Sr. gave a speech in which he said, “I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week, and we are going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. I think that you’re gonna find it very informative and very, very interesting.”
That was just two days before the actual meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian attorney.
But Trump never gave that speech.
If he had, it would certainly be an indication that the Trump campaign was in definite contact with the Russians, who were intent on getting him elected over his soon-to-be Democratic opponent.
But there were a couple of very good reasons why Trump didn’t give that speech.
First, it appears that the information wasn’t handed to the campaign on June 9.
But the second reason is even more important.
On the day Trump was supposed to deliver the goods, he gave a speech about national security, because it was the day after the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
Edward A. Owens is a three time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net