President Donald Trump continues to define his time in office not by bold policy reform, or tangibly improving the lives of everyday Americans — but by Twitter. This Friday morning, he spent the early morning rattling off almost a dozen separate, angry messages, re-upping some of his harshest rhetoric against immigrants and the justice system on the occasions of him rolling out a new immigration “plan” and of the obstruction of justice case against him continuing.
In the noise, it quickly became abundantly clear that Trump is an angry mess who sees himself and the future of his policy as completely unencumbered by legal norm and precedent. In other words, he thinks of himself as a dictator, veering between claiming that every single asylum seeker who enters outside a port of entry from here on out will eventually be removed and that justice officials committed “TREASON” in daring to investigate him.
He railed:
‘Border Patrol is apprehending record numbers of people at the Southern Border. The bad “hombres,” of which there are many, are being detained & will be sent home. Those which we release under the ridiculous Catch & Telease loophole, are being registered and will be removed later!’
Are we seriously back to basing national immigration policy pushes on “bad hombres”? Are you kidding? This is the kind of nonsense that the president first rose to national prominence on, and that’s still all he’s got.
Down in reality, where a Spanish word in scare quotes doesn’t actually automatically mean fear (go figure), over recent years every single border county but one has a documented crime rate lower than comparable inland jurisdictions according to the Wilson Center.
He wasn’t done. He went on to re-up his claims of massive fraud inside the Russia investigation, in which the Senate Intelligence Committee recently subpoenaed his son, Donald Trump Jr., who’s refused to appear for demanded further testimony.
Trump whined:
‘My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on. Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!’
Actually, no, multiple officials he appointed including Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray have told Congress there’s no evidence of the illegal surveillance the term “spying” would suggest.
To be clear, even if he didn’t tout that implication of his meltdown, one of the Constitutionally prescribed punishments for treason is death. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say Trump is wishing death on his enemies, even if he didn’t “mean to.” In other words, it’s just another Friday with this guy.
Check out Twitter’s response…
Featured Image via screenshot
