Empty Words

In 2013, before he ever ran as a candidate, Donald Trump appeared on television and blasted President Obama during a government shutdown. He said he knew exactly what had to be done.

"Very simply, you have to get everybody in a room," Trump said (source here). "You have to be a leader. The president has to lead. He’s got to get the Speaker of the House and everybody else in a room, and they have to make a deal. You have to be nice, and be angry, and be wild, and cajole, and do all sorts of things. But you have to get a deal."

Now, five years later, with the government shut down again, why isn't Trump doing exactly what he told Obama to do? The answer: he's been holed up in the White House and watching old clips of himself, including the same interview where he told Obama how to act.

Given Trump's inability to attempt any kind of self-examination, he sees no irony or hypocrisy in this.

As The New York Times noted (link here), "inside the White House ... the neophyte president who has styled himself the ultimate dealmaker ... remained remarkably disengaged from the complex process of hammering out a politically palatable deal that could provide a way out of the morass."

Remember during the 2016 Republican convention when Trump famously crowed "I alone can fix it" (source here)?

What a surprise -- that turned out to be another steaming pile of horseshit.