Trumps Very Friendly Talk With Duterte Stuns Aides and Critics Alike

[tblue37]

9. He always cuts STate out of the process when he makes statements and phone calls

that affect our foreign policy and international standing. He also doesn't consult with State Department experts before making sweeping statements about and accusations against other countries and their leaders.

Thus you have him admitting, though with no sense of embarrassment at all, that he actually had no idea of what NATO was for or how it worked, and no idea about the relationship between China and North Korea. He didn't know anything about NAFTA, or about the Import-Export Bank, or about how tariffs might affect American businesses and consumers. He also didn't know how the FISA court worked or what role, if any, a president could play in getting the IC to initiate surveillance against anyone, especially a US citizen.

He is so comfortably smug in his total ignorance of pretty much everything that he never asks the experts for information--he just swings wildly, making statements, threats, and accusations on subjects he knows less about than Jon Snow--who, as everyone is aware, knows nothing.