This weekend, President Donald Trump announced the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Apparently, U.S. forces cornered him in northern Syria, and he blew himself up. In the wake of Trump’s announcement, top officials including Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Vice President Mike Pence went on Sunday television programs. Pence faced questions about the fact that top Democratic leaders in Congress were not notified of the raid targeting al-Baghdadi before it happened, but mostly, he resorted to grandiose praise of Trump as if before he went out to speak, someone in the White House told him to be as Trump ego-centric as absolutely possible.
On Face the Nation, Pence made clear where the Trump administration’s true priorities lied, quickly pivoting back to a discussion of how great Trump supposedly is.
He told host Margaret Brennan:
‘This is a great day for America. Al-Baghdadi — the most wanted man in America — is dead. And it’s a tribute to the courage of our Armed Forces, Special Forces that executed the raid on the compound last night. But it’s also a tribute to the decisiveness of President Donald Trump. We first received information early in the week about the possibility of his location — it was through our intelligence agencies that the president rightly commended today.’
“This is a great day for America.” @VP tells @margbrennan of al-Baghadi’s death https://t.co/KYlF9j8wML pic.twitter.com/KD5pTIPzGm
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) October 27, 2019
Is this a Trump campaign stop or something? Pence went on from the above to insist that after receiving intelligence about the supposed “high probability” that al-Baghdadi would be at the targeted compound, Trump “immediately” directed the military come up with options for taking him out. What was he supposed to do, meander around the White House for a few hours before coming back to discuss al-Baghdadi again? Is performing the very basic tasks associated with the office he holds really worthy of all this praise and adoration? Pence might as well have just thanked Trump for not “screwing it up.”
Going further on from the above, Pence insisted that the U.S. fight against ISIS would not let up, even though that slack is exactly what the president has been accused of following his abrupt decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. Some have already left, and there have been reports about pushing to keep some in Iraq to keep fighting ISIS.
Pence said:
‘What the United States of America demonstrated last night is this president, this country will be unrelenting in our fight against ISIS or any terrorist organization that threatens this country.’
“We’re not going to let up, we’re not going to stop the fight,” @VP tells @margbrennan of U.S. fight against terrorism overseas. Adds that the U.S. will continue to enforce the safe zone he and @SecPompeo pic.twitter.com/isqd819hVa
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) October 27, 2019
During his own Sunday press conference, Trump also resorted to egomania. Although this is not a popularity contest — and that shouldn’t need to be said — Trump made sure to insist that taking out al-Baghdadi was a greater feat than taking out al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, which U.S. forces did under the watch of — wait for it — Barack Obama. In other words, even in a moment of national gravity, Trump can’t help but rush into insisting how much better than Obama he supposedly is. There are so many other issues here, but Trump ignores them.
