This past weekend, President Donald Trump announced the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (In the following days, Trump announced that al-Baghdadi’s successor had died too.) Trump has taken the occasion as an opportunity to tout how supposedly stupendously great that his own administration is, and as part of this strange display of egomania, Trump’s fixated on a military dog that participated in the raid. This Wednesday, he tweeted a photoshopped image from conservative website The Daily Wire of himself giving the dog a medal, further digging into the strange self-obsession he’s carried on with throughout this whole situation.
Trump captioned the image simply:
‘AMERICAN HERO!’
The medal that those responsible for the image made up has a paw print on it. Trump has actually personally sought a visit to the White House from the dog, although as of Tuesday, ABC News noted:
‘What is unclear, however, is how the president will receive the dog — if it shows up.’
Trump using the dog as a prop in his parade of political propaganda began on Sunday, when he touted the creature as “a dog, a beautiful dog, a talented dog,” sidestepping around saying the dog’s name at that point and in a follow-up tweet with an image of the dog because it hadn’t been declassified. The name could be traced back to its handler, whose military unit could then be identified, which could pose a problem.
The dog was apparently injured in the original raid on al-Baghdadi’s compound, which ended with the ISIS leader detonating a vest packed with explosives that took his own life and those of three children who were with him. On Monday, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said that the dog was “fully recovering.”
In the wake of the operation, Trump has been quick to take personal credit for seeing it through — although fittingly enough, after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden, Trump complained on Twitter about personal credit given to then-President Barack Obama. This time, he didn’t stop with taking personal credit — he baselessly and pointlessly claimed that al-Baghdadi’s death was a bigger feat than bin Laden’s.
Check out Twitter’s response to Trump’s dog image…
