To a responsible commander-in-chief, decisions about war and peace aren’t made lightly. After all, a single military action from the United States could put thousands – if not millions – of lives at risk.
But Donald Trump is no responsible commander-in-chief.
According to The Daily Beast, the president was giddy about his decision to plunge America into another war as he walked the halls of Mar-a-Lago in the days before the strike that took out Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani.
The report notes, “Donald Trump roamed the halls of Mar-a-Lago, his private resort in Florida, and started dropping hints to close associates and club-goers that something huge was coming.”
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According to three people who’ve been at the president’s Palm Beach club over the past several days, Trump began telling friends and allies hanging at his perennial vacation getaway that he was working on a “big” response to the Iranian regime that they would be hearing or reading about very “soon.” His comments went beyond the New Year’s Eve tweet he sent out warning of the “big price” Iran would pay for damage to U.S. facilities. Two of these sources tell The Daily Beast that the president specifically mentioned he’d been in close contact with his top national security and military advisers on gaming out options for an aggressive action that could quickly materialize.
“He kept saying, ‘You’ll see,’” one of the sources recalled, describing a conversation with Trump days before Thursday’s strike.
Trump’s club members had more knowledge of the strike than congressional leaders
It’s bad enough that Donald Trump clearly doesn’t understand the gravity of his role as commander-in-chief.
Worse is that members of his club seemed to have had more advance knowledge of this major military escalation in the Middle East than congressional leaders.
As The Daily Beast also noted, “Those Mar-a-Lago guests received more warning about Thursday’s attack than Senate staff did, and about as much clarity.”
Bragging about serious military action in the buffet line at Mar-a-Lago might be funny if it was part of a sitcom plot, but this is now actual U.S. foreign policy under Donald Trump.
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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.
