‘Twas the day before Christmas and President Trump was stirring on Twitter, addressing a litany of issues including his demand for a border wall that led to a partial government shutdown, the resignation of his secretary of defense and his treatment of allies who don’t pay their fair share for military protection.
The yuletide tweetstorm concluded with: “AMERICA IS RESPECTED AGAIN!”
Trump, who is spending the holiday in the White House instead of at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida because of the shutdown, kicked off his Twitter tirade by defending his demand that a border wall be built on the southern border.
Trump made the wall a signature campaign issue and said Mexico would pay for it.
“Virtually every Democrat we are dealing with today strongly supported a Border Wall or Fence. It was only when I made it an important part of my campaign, because people and drugs were pouring into our Country unchecked, that they turned against it. Desperately needed!” he wrote to his 56.5 million followers in one of the six Monday morning tweets.
The partial government shutdown entered day three on Monday after the White House and congressional lawmakers couldn’t reach an agreement on Trump’s wall.
The president said he would hold out for $5 billion, but Democrats were offering only $1.3 billion for border security.
Trump then addressed criticism from Defense Secretary James Mattis, who in his resignation letter rebuked the president for his poor treatment of allies, after Trump said he would withdraw US troops from Syria.
His decision to pull the troops caught many in his administration, Pentagon officials and congressional lawmakers off guard and set off a firestorm of criticism.
In another tweet, he said he values allies but with conditions.
“To those few Senators who think I don’t like or appreciate being allied with other countries, they are wrong, I DO. What I don’t like, however, is when many of these same countries take advantage of their friendship with the United States, both in Military Protection and Trade,” he wrote, before remarking on the difference between him and Mattis.
“We are substantially subsidizing the Militaries of many VERY rich countries all over the world, while at the same time these countries take total advantage of the U.S., and our TAXPAYERS, on Trade. General Mattis did not see this as a problem. I DO, and it is being fixed!” he said in a posting.
And he continued the feud he and GOP Sen. Bob Corker began Sunday and trashed Brett McGurk, a special presidential envoy for the US-led coalition fighting ISIS in Syria, who fast-tracked his resignation last week.
“For all of the sympathizers out there of Brett McGurk remember, he was the Obama appointee who was responsible for loading up airplanes with 1.8 Billion Dollars in CASH & sending it to Iran as part of the horrific Iran Nuclear Deal (now terminated) approved by Little Bob Corker,” Trump said.
Then with the stock market still rattled by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s late Sunday call to bankers to see if they had enough cash on hand in advance of Monday’s market opening, Trump used a golf analogy to slam Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
“The only problem our economy has is the Fed. They don’t have a feel for the Market, they don’t understand necessary Trade Wars or Strong Dollars or even Democrat Shutdowns over Borders. The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch – he can’t putt!” he said.
Neither helped.
The Dow Jones dropped by more than 300 points in early trading.