What I hear most often as I travel the country are five words: “I am praying for you”.
I hear it so often.
“I am praying for you Mr. President”.
He by contrast is praying for Arnold Schwarzenegger, his replacement on the reality show The Apprentice.
The ratings went right down the tubes and I wanna just pray for Arnold if we can for
those ratings, okay?
Who then, is praying for the rest of the world?
Thrown into turmoil by this president’s aggressive, some would say reckless foreign
policy.
There was the call to the prime minister of Australia, one of America’s closest allies.
Mr Trump cut it short because he’s furious that his predecessor had agreed to take in
1,250 refugees currently held in camps in Nauru and Manus Island.
The President assured me that he would continue with, honour the agreement we entered into
with the Obama administration with the respect to refugee resettlement.
This morning that assurance was thrown into doubt by a presidential tweet.
Do you believe it?
The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia.
Why?
I will study this dumb deal!
Also on twitter, he repeated yesterday’s statement that Iran had been put on notice
for testing a ballistic missile.
In 2015, the US, Iran and five other countries signed a deal to stop Iran from developing
a nuclear weapon for at least a decade.
A deal President Trump is determined to undermine.
The then Secretary of State said the stakes couldn’t be higher.
When I left college I went to war.
Then I learned in war the price that is paid when diplomacy fails.
President Trump has never seen war and has no experience of diplomacy.
“Put on notice” is a provocation to Iran and won’t go well with America’s allies.
I think there’s no other way to interpret it other than a threat.
I think the Iranians for years have gotten used to these American colloquialisms like
“all options are on the table”.
I think the danger of Trump’s foreign policy is that he’s very much a unilateralist that,
rather than building bridges, he even frays relationships with old allies like Australia
and Mexico.
Enter the man tasked with calming it all down, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson.
Sworn in as Secretary of State last night.
This morning, trying to offer reassurance to worried Korea diplomats.
I know this was a hotly contested election and we do not all feel the same way about
the outcome.
Each of us is entitled to the expression of our political beliefs.
But we cannot let our personal convictions overwhelm our ability to work as one team.
Yesterday President Trump got on Marine One, accompanied by his daughter and the man who
carries the nuclear codes.
He was visiting the family of a Special Forces officer killed during a botched raid on supposed
Al-Qaida members in Yemen.
It’s under investigation because several women and at least one child were killed.
The first such raid of this administration may well have been, in the undiplomatic language
the president might use, a disaster.
After the President’s jibes at this morning’s prayer breakfast, Mr Schwarzenegger responded.