The more you know.
posted at 2: 41 pm on April 13, 2017 by Allahpundit
What if, and hear me out on this, but what if Trump isn’ t being manipulated by a nefarious cabal of “globalists” led by Jared Kushner? What if … he’s a blank slate on domestic and foreign policy apart from “the wall” and one or two other subjects and his views on everything else are evolving organically as he gets better information from the experts he talks to? Like, say, the president of China.
Reading this, I felt a mixture of terror and admiration that his approach to the most important job in the world is basically the same as a kid who doesn’ t study for the big test and then tries to BS his way through it. (Remember when he was allegedly surprised to learn from Obama that he’ d have to staff the entire West Wing, not just a few positions?) Except that the kid doesn’ t usually admit that he didn’ t study. And he certainly doesn’ t admit it to a group of reporters.
Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that he was previously convinced China had “tremendous power” over North Korea. But after meeting with Xi last week, Trump said he “realized it’s not so easy.” “After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy, ” Trump said. “I felt pretty strongly that [China] had a tremendous power over North Korea. But it’s not what you would think.”
There are probably some specialists on China and North Korea in the bowels of the State Department who could have caught him up on that before the summit with Xi. Or, if he doesn’ t want to talk to them for whatever reason, he could have dialed up literally any expert in the world and they would have taken his call and filled him in. Now I’ m worried that other foreign leaders are going to see that quote and come prepared to give him their own skewed lessons on what they are and aren’ t capable of, replete with historical backfill.
