Republican strategist Steve Schmidt didn’t hold back on Monday, tearing Donald Trump to shreds for his administration’s disastrous decision to open the U.S. Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Schmidt said the president’s decision “is not about making the Middle East more secure,” but it’s about Trump scoring political points to “position himself for the midterm elections.”
“It’s clear as day that he has no sense of history,” the GOP strategist said.
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“It’s clear as day that [Trump] has no sense of history,” says GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, citing the administration’s move to open the U.S. Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. #inners #ctl #p2 #Trump #Israel pic.twitter.com/T1SHtZsd8S
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) May 15, 2018
The Republican strategist said:
This is not about making the Middle East more secure. It’s not about making the United States more secure. It’s not about making sure that we don’t have yet another generation of American kids dying in Middle Eastern wars. It’s all about Donald Trump being able to score a point, ephemeral though it may be in the news cycle, and to position himself for the midterm elections. It’s clear as day that he has no sense of history. He’s completely ignorant of the religions in the region. Do you think that he could tell you the origins of the Sunni/Shia schism? I suspect not. He knows nothing about anything. He is bumbling around. And he destabilized with his rash move the Middle East. And as I said, when he announced the move to the embassy, I said there will be blood on his hands not because he pulled the trigger, but because he destabilized the region with not having any clue about what he was doing. And that goes for Jared Kushner as well.
Violence broke out instantly as a result of the U.S. move
The fears of Schmidt – and others across the political spectrum – were realized on Monday as violence immediately escalated at the Gaza border.
According to The New York Times, at least 58 people have been killed by Israeli military forces. Today was the deadliest day in the region since 2014.
“More than 2,700 Palestinian demonstrators were injured on Monday — at least 1,350 by gunfire — along the border fence with Gaza, the Health Ministry reported,” according to The Times.
While Donald Trump and his dumpster fire administration are taking a victory lap over the highly-hyped embassy move, there are dozens of people – and likely more to come – who have been killed or injured as a result of the chaos and violence it provoked.
Once again, this president is demonstrating that he’ll do anything – even destabilize the Middle East – if it will score him a few short-term political points.
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.
