Obama Derangement Syndrome. Also, appears to admit his fragile ego was behind the Big Lie.
It seems etymologically, metaphysically, geologically and ethically impossible that President Trump could reach a new low. But he has.
Every Friday, when I’m planning my column, I find fresh evidence that the president is unfit for his office. He taunts his foes in crude, creepy ways and tries to tattoo his name on everything.
Late Thursday night, a vile clip appeared on Truth Social, depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle cartoon, to the Tokens’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” It was at the end of a video filled with baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The man who pushed the despicable “birther” conspiracy is still at it, using a racist meme from a far-right Pepe-the-frog-loving acolyte.
Like many of Trump’s actions, it was both shocking and predictable.
As The Times
reported, Trump has a “history of making degrading remarks about people of color, women and immigrants,” and the Obamas in particular, with “the White House, Labor Department and Homeland Security Department all having promoted posts that echo white supremacist messaging” in his current term.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, offered a pathetic defense for our pathological president: “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the king of the jungle and Democrats as characters from ‘The Lion King.’ Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
Well, Karoline, I think Americans do care that your boss is a racist and off his rocker.
“His presidency is enclosed in a bubble wrap of darkness and hatred and resentment,” Rahm Emanuel, who served as Obama’s chief of staff, told me.
Once the White House realized the outrage was real, the post was deleted. Officials blamed a staffer, though you know Trump was in on it. On Wednesday,
he said he does “retruth” conspiracy theories himself.
He went so far that even a few Republicans in Congress, looking down the barrel of the midterms, objected.
On X, Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the Senate, called it “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.”
Senator Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican who has been
increasingly put off by some of Trump’s offensive actions, said on X, “This content was rightfully removed, should have never been posted to begin with, and is not who we are as a nation.”
Trump had a Dostoyevsky-esque moment on Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, when he confessed that his ego would not let him lose the 2020 race.
“You know, they rigged the second election,” he said. “I had to win it, had to win it. I needed it for my own ego. I would have had a bad ego for the rest of my life. Now I really have a big ego, though.”
He was admitting that our ginned-up election integrity crisis was simply an exercise in bending the truth to his bottomless vanity. “His ego could not handle the fact that he lost, so he had to pretend there was a voting crisis,” David Axelrod told me. “The world is still paying for that.”
(Trump also confessed to the religious gathering that he gets annoyed when Speaker Mike Johnson asks to pray before meals. Trump dryly noted: “I say, ‘Excuse me? We’re having lunch in the Oval.’”)
