The Plot to Hack America: How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election [Malcolm W Nance] (fb2) читать постранично, страница - 4
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Trump’s Revenge: Erasing Obama’s Presidency
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is an annual spring event hosted by the White House Correspondents’ Association. Sometimes referred to as “nerd prom,” the dinner brings journalists, politicians, and celebrities to the same room and is often criticized for fostering a cozy relationship between the media and the very people they are supposed to cover. The President usually delivers a humorous monologue that is then followed by a performance by a comedian. Donald Trump was a guest of The Washington Post at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. It was just a month before the dinner that Trump had become a leading voice in the so-called “birther movement,” raising the preposterous charge that President Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii as he claimed, but rather in Kenya. Trump publically and repeatedly called on President Obama to release his birth certificate. The New York Times wrote, “The more Mr. Trump questioned the legitimacy of Mr. Obama’s presidency, the better he performed in the early polls of the 2012 Republican field, springing from fifth place to a virtual tie for first.”3 Trump’s notoriety as a blustering TV showman using blunt, racially-tinged conspiracy theories was making him a rising star in conservative circles. These insults were not lost on the President, so Obama dedicated a notable portion of his 19-minute speech to making jabs at the New York businessman:Donald Trump is here tonight. Now I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier—no one is prouder—to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald. And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter: Like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac? But all kidding aside, obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For example—no seriously, just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, at the steakhouse, the men’s cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership, and so ultimately you didn’t blame Lil Jon or Meat Loaf, you fired Gary Busey. And these are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir. Well handled. Say what you will about Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House.4After Obama’s remarks, comedian Seth Meyers didn’t let Trump off the hook. Many journalists noted Trump did not seem amused throughout the performance, particularly at Obama’s and Meyers’ insults. Roxanne Roberts, who sat next to Trump at the dinner, wrote in The Washington Post that Trump “didn’t crack a smile” at Meyers’ jabs. Meyers joked, “Donald Trump has been saying he will run for president as a Republican—which is surprising, since I just assumed he was running as a joke.” He continued poking fun at Trump, as Roberts noted, “lobbing jokes like grenades.”5 Roberts wrote, “In retrospect, Trump broke the classic rule of political humor that says that the only response to a joke about you is to laugh harder than anyone else in the room. Whatever he was thinking, Trump looked unhappy and gave pundits a reason to pounce.”6 Trump only fueled the fire when he didn’t attend any after parties, and instead headed directly to his jet from the dinner. The following day, Trump told Fox News that he “really understood what I was getting into” saying, “I didn’t know that I’d be virtually the sole focus. I guess when you’re leading in the polls that sort of thing tends to happen. But I was certainly in a certain way having a good time listening.”7 If he was listening, what he heard did not appear to please him the slightest. He attacked Meyers directly. “Seth Meyers has no talent,” Trump said in an interview with Michael Barbaro of The New York Times the day after the dinner. “He fell totally flat. In fact, I thought Seth’s delivery was so bad that he hurt himself.”8 He told Barbaro the evening was “like a roast of Donald Trump.” Still, Barbaro described him as “clearly reveling in the attention, if not the content.”9 In retrospect, the events of the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner may have at least partially motivated Trump to run in 2016. The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Alexander Burns wrote, “That evening of public abasement, rather than sending Mr. Trump away, accelerated his ferocious efforts to gain stature within the political world. And it captured the degree to which Mr. Trump’s campaign is driven by a deep yearning sometimes obscured by his bluster and bragging: a desire to be taken seriously.”10 Clearly stung by the dinner jokes, it would be natural to see how Trump might relish revenge. Harnessing the power of the conservative poll numbers running for President in 2016 would give him the power of dismantling Obama’s legacy himself.
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