Sit At Attention

Trump & Co. is making it more obvious now.

Reporting on the then-upcoming Trump-Kim summit, Fox News host Abby Huntsman on Sunday noted "regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators, what we are seeing now is history."

 Having accidentally told the truth on Trump TV, Huntsman later "apologized" for what she called a "mistake."

"Mistake" misses the real story, however. The tell is the response from frequent Trump surrogate Anthony Scaramucci, who (as Sam Seder observed, video below) replied "yea, because he's a disruptive risk taker, he's willing to break what would be the usual bonds of..."

Anyone can make a mistake. But when an experienced businessman now-turned pundit who appears frequently in defense of the President doesn't correct a startling remark, it throws into question whether there is anything to correct.

On Thursday, President Trump saluted General No Kwang-choi of North Korea, an unnecessary and improper gesture given the regime he represents. Sarah H. Sanders misleadingly defended Trump's move as "a common courtesy when a military official from another government salutes that you return that." No apology, no retreat.

In an interview with Trump TV prior to an impromptu exchange with the press on Friday morning, the President remarked of Kim Jong Un

Hey, he's the head of a country and I mean a strong head.   Don't let anyone think anything different.  He speaks and people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.

 "You don't understand sarcasm," he later told reporters.

Earlier this week, Trump said "Anybody that takes over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and is able to run it and run it tough. I don’t say he was nice or say anything about it. He ran it, few people at that age — you could take one out of 10,000 could not do it.”

Perhaps that, too, was meant as sarcasm, as perhaps with hispraise of Chinese strongman Xi Jinping as "now president for life, president for life. And he's great. and look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday." Or VladimirPutin, who "has been a leader far more than our president [Obama] has been."

 When Trump made his "joke" about the need for "people (to) sit up attention," he forgot to laugh or smile. So did the reporter he was speaking to.

And he knows "my people"- his subjects- knew what he meant.  Cowardly as he often is after such remarks, he failed to own up to what he was doing, labeling it "sarcasm" and a "joke." But he did not laugh or smile, nor did the reporter he was speaking to. 

He regards "my people" as his subjects.  The pounding upon our head is President Trump warning us what he has in mind in the unlikely event of a second term. That will be neither a joke nor sarcasm, and certainly no laughing matter.

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