2016 March 27^th

One of Donald Trump’s paid flacks was interviewed this afternoon and I watched some of it. She was asked about the attacks by Cruz and Trump on each other’s wives and quite predictably gave the Trump line that Mr. Trump had to defend himself, and that Mr. Trump was attacked first. If someone is on Trump’s payroll Trump will inevitably be referred to as “Mr. Trump.” That’s helpful because when you hear “Mr. Trump” you know that what comes next is paid for by Donald Trump.

Trump was interviewed by The New York Times on his foreign policy views and the results were made public.  His new motto seems to be “America First.”  It's unlikely that Trump knows the interesting background this movement had in rendering our armed forces hopelessly unprepared during the lead-up to WW 2. He probably neither knows nor cares.

He believes that we should stop our support of the Saudis and stop buying their oil. We are not oil independent yet, so should we then get our oil from where? Trump doesn’t say. It is true that the Saudi’s support programs aimed directly toward destabilizing our allies but destabilizing the Saudis gives Iran an even freer hand in the region; not smart.

He would allow (encourage?) South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear weapons. This would presumably relieve us from using our nuclear umbrella but also eliminate any control we might have over their weapon use. Trump also maintains that the South Koreans pay “practically nothing to support our troop presence there.” Only to Donald Trump would the 800+ million dollars a year South Korea pays us seem like “practically nothing.”

Earlier, on Morning Joe, when asked on whom he relied for foreign policy advice, he claimed that he relied on himself. He claimed that he had a very good brain for foreign policy so he consulted with himself first. He was also asked in his Times interview what books or foreign policy articles he read. There were no specifics although he did say to a Times questioner, “Your newspaper.” Perhaps we have Sarah Palin redux.

He made a point of claiming that he didn’t want to be predictable, for example in the use of nuclear weapons, so that America’s adversaries would be kept off-balance. Yes, of course, but if you are unpredictable it also means that your allies don’t know what to expect from one moment to the next and that makes it very difficult for them to support you. And if you have considerable doubt that the plan you are about to suggest makes any sense at all, wouldn’t a comment like “I don’t want to tell you because I prefer not to be predictable” be the perfect response?

A bit of Trumpian inconsistency: Trump has claimed that the 14 people killed in the San Bernardino California massacre could have been saved had people there just exercised their “second amendment rights” and been armed. Interesting idea, except that no one is allowed to bring a firearm into any of Trump’s rallies. I wonder why?