Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:33 pm
Despite Donald Trump’s panicked tweets over the past 24 hours, two things have become clear since last week’s election: 1. The Trump transition is going horribly wrong; 2. The weight of the presidency is steamrolling the president-elect, and he hasn’t even been sworn in.
A new report from Reuters on Wednesday only confirmed this reality.
According to the news agency, Trump seems to be botching his first post-election visit with a foreign leader, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, by leaving Japan’s government in a state of confusion about the meeting’s details.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
The report:
One day before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s first meeting with a foreign leader, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japanese officials said they had not finalized when or where in New York it would take place, who would be invited, or in some cases whom to call for answers.
Uncertainty over the talks shows the difficulties in turning Trump from a freewheeling businessman into a sitting president with a watertight schedule and a fully functioning administration by his inauguration on Jan. 20.
Japanese and U.S. officials said on Wednesday the State Department had not been involved in planning the meeting, leaving the logistical and protocol details that normally would be settled far in advance still to be determined.
“There has been a lot of confusion,†said one Japanese official.
The Reuters report indicates that the Trump team is so distracted by their failure to fill positions in the new administration that they haven’t been able to focus on finalizing plans for the president-elect to meet with Prime Minister Abe.
Once again, Trump and his team are showing that they are in over their heads. Not only did Trump not expect to win last week’s election, but it’s unclear whether he really even wanted to.
The laziness and incompetence he has displayed during the transition – whether it’s delegating most of his work to others, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, or leaving foreign leaders hanging on the eve of a visit – seems to indicate that he was never really serious about becoming president in the first place.
Let’s not forget that Donald Trump spent an entire campaign showing – almost bragging – about his unpreparedness for this office. He couldn’t even trouble himself to do homework before a presidential debate.
The way he is managing his transition to the presidency is just an extension of his campaign conduct – and it will likely follow him into the White House.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
