Now we don't need to wait for
controversies to tail US President Donald Trump when most of them are his own
creation. And they are aplenty - even if it is just six months for Trump in the
White House - he brought presidential order to block people from Muslim
majority countries in the US; he
withdrew the US from global trade and climate deals, the Trans Pacific
Partnership (TPP) and the Paris Climate Deal; he has tried hard but has failed
so far in repealing his predecessor Barack Obama's healthcare act; he has
cracked down on immigrants and introduced an immigration bill this week to
slash down the number of legal immigrants; and his campaign pledge to build a
wall along the Mexican border and make Mexico pay for it.
The 45th US President is
writing the newest chapters of the book on few controversial US Presidents so
far. A CNN analysis few days back, in fact, had found a term to describe Trump
- The Most Un-presidential President. Ever since Trump's inauguration, his
popularity has been rapidly coming down and new survey has found 61 per cent of
registered American voters disapproving his way of governance.
Now another major US
publication, The Washington Post, that has already done its series of
revelations and expose on Trump's misadventures and has been in Trump's firing
line of his vitriolic wit and tweets, has come out with another bombshell. The
Post has released leaked transcripts of Trump's phone conversations with his
Mexican and Australian counterparts. And like said, they are so un-presidential
that the White House did not release them in first place.
When we go through the entire
transcript, we can easily look into the mind of Donald Trump, that why he is so
- someone who believes he is the greatest person on the earth and then goes on
to boast it.
There is no denying to this
established fact that the US President is the most powerful person on the earth
- but he is certainly not the greatest one. That is a human virtue that doesn't
need the power corridors of the White House. By virtue of being the US
President, Donald Trump, indeed could have been the most powerful person in the
world. But the irony is, he is not even the most powerful one in America, owing
to the spate of controversies around him and his family. The robust system of
checks and balances in the US administration cannot allow him to be so. What
can be a better testimony to this than his failed attempts to repeal Barack
Obama's healthcare act that he so vehemently detests or wide criticism in the
US that his travel ban plan from Muslim majority nations attracted.
The transcript shows him
fighting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Australian Prime
Minister Malcom Turnbull like some small time, factional politician and not the
President of the United States of America, an office that is most powerful in
the world and is also supposed to be the most dignified one. But how can it be
dignified when its inhabitants are not.
This one 'I am the greatest
person on the earth' is a perfect example of it. While discussing with his
Australian counterpart an already agreed deal to take in Nauru and Manus
islands refugees who were trying to enter Australian through sea route but were
caught and imprisoned, he can be seen using un-parliamentary words not just for
human lives but also for his predecessor Barack Obama who had signed the deal
with Australia. Trump declares the deals signed by Obama stupid and rotten.
Portions of this
Trump-Turnbull conversation were leaked earlier which had created tension
between the US and Australia. Reportedly, after the 20-minute conversation had ended,
Trump had described Turnbull, who is considered a moderate, a brawler and not a
shrinking poppy, something that Trump had expected before the call.
But what shocks is the utter
disregard for human lives that Trump has. During the course of conversation
with Turnbull on January 28, Trump says, "I am the world’s greatest person
that does not want to let people into the country. And now I am agreeing to
take 2,000 people and I agree I can vet them, but that puts me in a bad
position. It makes me look so bad and I have only been here a week."
Even if Turnbull assures that
they are not bad people but economic refugees and Australia has full knowledge
of their backgrounds, Trump keeps on repeating his scorn for the refugees as if
he is not hearing what Turnbull is saying, "I am taking 2,000 people from
Australia who are in prison and the day before I signed an Executive Order
saying that we are not taking anybody in. We are not taking anybody in, those
days are over."
©SantoshChaubey