Irony and Ecstasy in the White House: Trump’s Victory Lap Turns Venomous

President Trump addresses his remarks Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020 in the East Room of the White House. – Courtesy photo

Opinion by Terry Miller

I find Trump’s utter disdain for the media (particularly the Washington Post and New York Times as “enemies of the people”) somewhat ironic when he held up multiple newspapers last Thursday morning for the media he so fervently scorns. The headlines, of course, blasted the desolately inevitable news of a Senate acquittal.

This very same man has been calling legitimate hard working news organizations “fake news” and “enemies of the people” for his entire time in office and yet, somehow, it seems he can’t get enough of the newspapers he so vehemently deprecates.

Another serious irony that didn’t go unnoticed was Trump’s appalling attacks on two people who firmly invoked the importance of truthfulness and faith in their decisions to vote for impeachment. The statements were made at a prayer breakfast in Washington Thursday a day following the acquittal.

Trump’s comments were directed at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who have both referenced religion as they explained why they believed Trump needed to be impeached, though the president did not specifically mention the lawmakers by name.

Trump said that “they” had inappropriately invoked “their faith as justification” for calls to remove him from office.

Pelosi, during a news conference Thursday, told reporters that she found Trump’s statements to be “so completely inappropriate” and reprimanded Trump for “talking about things that he knows little about: faith and prayer.”

During the Prayer Breakfast, Trump called his opponents “enemies of the administration” and equated his situation to that of the history at Valley Forge.

.@jaketapper on Trump's attack on Romney and Dems at prayer breakfast: “To me, nothing could be more indicative of a distance from the humility and love that so many of us get from religion than the act of using a unity prayer breakfast to attack the faith of others.” #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/YN2SAMptMX

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) February 9, 2020

Later at the White House, Trump continued his attacks on his adversaries and said the Democratic effort to impeach “was all bullshit” that “should never, ever happen to another president…”

Trump later called the investigations “evil and corrupt” and said it was led by “crooked cops.”

He also criticized scores of political “enemies,” from lead impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (“a vicious, horrible person”) to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a frequent critic of the president. He called former FBI director James Comey, whom he fired early in 2017, a “sleazebag” and reenacted a conspiracy theory regarding Hillary Clinton’s emails from her time as secretary of state. All this in just the few hours after his acquittal.

It gets worse: The President’s Press Secretary issued a statement Wednesday wondering whether Pelosi and Schiff would pay a price for attempting to remove Trump from office.

“Will there be no retribution?” Stephanie Grisham wrote.

Is this what the White House wants, some form of retaliation? Sadly, this seems to be the case.

To be continued.

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