Trump is all smoke and mirrors

Shortly after 10 a.m. this morning, the president sat in one of the most recognizable rooms in the United States of America. Seated in a tall brown leather chair inside the Oval Office, with men and women packed in behind him, Donald Trump decided to use that moment to insult the presidents who came before him. While answering a question about Iran, the sitting president of the United States of America said this: “They dealt with some very stupid presidents. I have to say that. I’m embarrassed to say some very stupid people were sitting here.”

He said that from the very room where generations of presidents once sat, where decisions were made during wars, economic crises, civil rights battles, and national tragedies. It is a room that is supposed to remind its occupant that the office is bigger than the person holding it. But he once again couldn’t help himself.

Trump’s people had gathered to witness the signing of the so-called “Secure America Act,” legislation that will funnel an astonishing amount of money to ICE and Border Patrol for the entirety of his presidency. “So we won’t have that to be talking about anymore,” he said. Money he will almost certainly use in ways that will hurt, not help Americans. Enough money to carry out whatever he plans to use these agencies to do before, during, and after the midterms in an effort to help him stay in power.

Because with this president, it is all smoke and mirrors, something so many of us have seen for years now. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it. He showed it to us twice in less than an hour, from the same chair and in front of the same cameras. He just needed us paying attention to what he was saying instead of what he was doing.

And it wasn’t just what he said about the men who came before him, because he was not finished there. In addition to calling past presidents “stupid,” he kept going, the way he always does when no one in the room will stop him. He bragged about the border. He bragged about crime numbers. He spent close to ten minutes describing the old news of the reflecting pool being painted, the color he chose, the dumpsters full of garbage he said were hauled out, and the cost he claims he cut from the job. He went on a tangent about all of the pools he has built.

Before long, he was once again making a claim so childish and self-centered that it was hard to believe he was saying it from the Oval Office, insisting that the crowd he drew on the National Mall was larger than the one Martin Luther King Jr. drew for the speech that changed this country. “I had more people than him,” he said. The president cannot sit in one of the most important rooms on earth without insisting that he is the most important thing throughout all of our nearly 250 years.

But the part that matters, the thing behind the mirror, arrived this morning while he was still talking about himself. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that annual inflation hit 4.2% in May. That is the highest level in three years. It is up from 3.8% the month before, and it is nearly double what it was a year ago, when it sat at 2.4%.

And when a reporter asked the President of the United States whether he was concerned about that number, here is what he said: “No, I love it. The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation.”

But this is where the performance falls away for a moment, and we see what all of it is really costing us. Because 4.2% is not just an economic statistic. It is how groceries become completely unaffordable. It is the rent payment that went up again. It is the gas pump. The electric bill. The prescription that suddenly costs a little more than it did last month. It is the quiet, exhausting arithmetic millions of Americans do at the end of every month, trying to figure out what gets paid now and what can wait until next week. And the man who promised over and over that he would bring prices down on day one looked into a camera from the most powerful chair in the world and said he loves it. He loves the thing that is making life harder for millions of people. There is a particular kind of contempt in that. Not anger. Not even indifference. Delight. And I can’t even put into words the cruelty of saying it.

And while still discussing inflation, Trump claimed that the United States has been secretly pulling millions of barrels of oil out of Iran in the dark of night and said that was the reason gas prices had not risen as high as they otherwise would have. He then promised that when the war ends, inflation is “going to come down like a rock.” In other words, everything is fine, everything is under control, and everything is about to get better, even as Americans continue paying more and the rest of the world absorbs the consequences of the instability surrounding his presidency.

He must have known how it sounded, because by the afternoon he was already trying to take it back. He went to the New York Post and said his words had been taken out of context, that what he really loved was that the numbers were “much lower than anticipated.” His own Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, ran the identical line the same day, that the comment had been “totally out of context.” But the country had already seen it. And no amount of spin can make us forget what we heard.

But the inflation comment wasn’t even the most bizarre thing he did in that room. When he was asked about Iran, he went into details on where we are right now, saying: “we hit them hard yesterday and we’re going to hit them again hard today in case you miss it in case you don’t turn on your television set.” And then, a few minutes after that, a reporter asked him what he wished for himself ahead of his 80th birthday this Sunday, when he turns 80. And this is what he wished for, “Peace for the whole world.”

Peace for the whole world. In nearly the same breath, he detailed the strikes he was ordering on Iran. And lest anyone think he misspoke, his own Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, stood in front of cameras and confirmed it. “Central Command will be busy tonight,” Hegseth said, “because President Trump said we will be hitting Iran hard and we will be.” This is not a man wishing for peace. This is a man who has learned that he can wish for peace out loud while ordering bombs to be dropped, because it is all smoke and mirrors.

It is not easy to live like this. With a leader this volatile. And maybe this is the part we do not say enough. It is not only the cruelty of any single thing he does. It is the whiplash. It is listening to him say he loves inflation while the cost of just surviving is crushing American families, and hearing him wish for world peace while ordering strikes. It is never being able to settle, plan, or trust what tomorrow morning will bring because the President of the United States treats reality itself as something he can repaint at will. That kind of recklessness has a weight. It is heavy beyond words.

I draw from a lot of things when I sit down to write to you every night. I draw from history. I draw from the places I have traveled and the things I have stood in front of. I draw from the people around me, the ones who tell me what this year is doing to their families.

But something I have noticed more and more over the past few months is that there are fewer and fewer clean comparisons for what he is doing. There is no chapter I can turn to that perfectly matches it. We are not looking back at history right now. We are living through it.

This is a new moment in American history, and the old maps are not much help because no one has stood exactly where we are standing and watched a president do this much damage, not just to our country, but to the rest of the world as well.

That is a frightening thing to write. It is a frightening thing to realize. But it is also where the responsibility lives. Because a future that has not been written yet is still ours to shape, even when the path in front of us feels dangerous and uncertain.

And that is why we can’t give up and why we need to keep speaking out. Because every time we speak out against what he and his enablers are doing, we tell someone else that it is safe, and that it is necessary to use their voice too. The whole point of the smoke is to make us doubt what we can see. And the whole point of the mirror is to make us stare at the reflection instead of the thing standing behind it. And the only way to break this show is for one person after another to say out loud what is actually happening, and that we are not alone.

We are not imagining the prices. We are not imagining the bombs. We are not imagining a president who loves the inflation that is hurting his own people and wishes for peace at the same time he orders strikes. So say it. Say it to your neighbor, to the people you work alongside, and strangers alike, and say it again the next morning. Let us all keep speaking out.

Because this is not the end of the story. We are still here. We are still paying attention. We are still speaking out. We are still refusing to mistake the reflection for the truth. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: It was opening day at the San Diego Fair. We were there for just a couple of hours, long enough to have some fair food, Tasty Chips, and lemonade. We still try to go every year, but it sounds like this has stopped being a tradition for most people. Do you still go?

Sources:

President Trump Signs the Secure America Act: White House YouTube Channel Video

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-i-love-the-inflation-iran-oil/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/president-says-i-love-the-inflation-annual-rate-hits-3-year-high-rcna349509

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-birthday-world-peace/

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/live-blog/us-attacks-iran-rcna349305