MaddowBlog-President Bystander: Trump appears out of the loop in his own White House [View all]

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Confronted with key questions about life-or-death issues, the president is offering the public a lot of shrugged shoulders and blank stares.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/president-bystander-trump-appears-loop-white-house-rcna198357

Given all of this, it stands to reason that Donald Trump would be up to speed on the details and the status of the search for the American service members. He is, after all, the president and the commander in chief of the armed forces. And yet, HuffPost noted:

Donald Trump appeared unaware on Wednesday that four U.S. soldiers had gone missing during a NATO training exercise in Lithuania. When asked by a reporter if he had been briefed on the situation that began to unfurl hours before, the president replied, “No, I haven’t.”

He didn’t elaborate. In fact, the president simply moved on to another question.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3llcri5hhvg2b

Link to tweet

......Taken together, it’s difficult not to wonder just how out of the loop the president is in his own White House.

Five years ago this month, as the severity of the pandemic came into focus, The New York Times published a memorable analysis that included a word to describe Trump that stood out for me as significant: “bystander.”

“While he presents himself as the nation’s commanding figure, Mr. Trump has essentially become a bystander as school superintendents, sports commissioners, college presidents, governors and business owners across the country take it upon themselves to shut down much of American life without clear guidance from the president,” the Times explained.

A half-decade later, it appears President Bystander has returned. Trump has taken a keen interest in playing golf, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, banning paper straws, watching an enormous amount of television and helping steer the Kennedy Center — but on life-or-death issues, he’s offering the public a lot of shrugged shoulders and blank stares.

For a president who’s heavily invested in the idea that his immediate predecessor had no idea what was going on around him, Trump’s apparent cluelessness should be a serious problem.