TAPES OF WRATH
The contents of the Senate health bill wasn't the only mystery solved on Thursday. President Trump indicated he has no tapes of his conversations with James Comey (now, the search is on to find out who suggested such a thing in the first place). From the president's Twitter: "I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings." (Great, now what am I gonna listen to while I'm searching for the Obama birth certificate?) Seven weeks after hinting he had them, President Trump's admission that there are no tapes surprised no one (and I'm rounding up). But the suggestion that such tapes existed actually had a pretty big political downside at home, and perhaps and even bigger impact abroad. David Frum with some advice to all future presidents: Never bluff.
The Lasting Damage of Trump's 'Tapes' Bluff to Comey
Author David Frum
This is a first for the Trump presidency: the first formal presidential retraction of a presidential untruth.
President Trump tweeted a warning to James Comey: The fired FBI director had better hope that no “tapes” existed that could contradict his account of what happened between the two men. Trump has now confessed that he had no basis for this warning. There were no such tapes, and the president knew it all along.
The tweet was intended to intimidate. It failed, spectacularly: Instead of silencing Comey, it set in motion the special counsel investigation that now haunts Donald Trump’s waking imagination.
But the failed intimidation does have important real world consequences.
First, it confirms America’s adversaries in their intensifying suspicion that the president’s tough words are hollow talk. The rulers of North Korea will remember the menacing April 4 statement from the Department of State that the United States had spoken enough about missile tests, implying that decisive actions lay ahead—and the lack of actions and deluge of further statements that actually followed.
The Chinese will remember Trump’s retreat from his “two China” messaging during the transition. They will have noted that Trump has entirely retreated from his insistence that they restrain North Korea or pay some price—seeing instead his “At least I know China tried!” tweet of June 20.
The Russians have buzzed American aircraft and severed the deconfliction hot line over Syria. They have paid no real price for their attack on the integrity of the 2016 election—indeed, the president continues to exonerate them and to argue for relaxed sanctions.
And while the administration continues on a collision course with Iran, even they must wonder whether there is really very much to fear from a president who has alienated the big European countries—notably Germany—who once joined U.S. sanctions but who are now increasing their exports to Iran at a rate of almost 30 percent a year.
“Never bluff.” Each outgoing president should write those words by hand in the letter of advice he leaves atop the Resolute desk for his incoming successor. Trump showed the whole world that when he sweats, he panics. That’s a lesson that will be remembered by the planet’s bad actors for however long this president holds office.
Read more by Soren K.Group
