On Trump's Visit to Ireland

 

At 11:50 this morning, the president of the United States made a special stop on his way to promote his private golf course in Doonbeg, County Clare, Ireland. For exactly 35 minutes, a rambling Donald Trump stood at the podium inside the 250-year-old Deerfield Residence in Dublin, Ireland, to speak to a room full of our Embassy personnel, Irish business leaders, and government officials. 

For exactly the next 35 minutes, the president read from the cheat sheets in his three-ring binder, he compared Kamala Harris to cage fighting, gave the room a lesson on how golf games are scored, complained about NATO and threatened that there would be an announcement about that soon, joked that the first lady chose to stay home because the flight was too long, before saying to a room full of Irish people, apparently thinking he was being funny, “Let me tell you, you are some of the most vicious bastards.”

…While Donald Trump made that stop on his government-funded vacation to promote his own golf course, Ireland didn’t let him or anyone else forget how they feel about him, not even while he was giving his erratic speech. He opened his remarks with a lengthy explanation about how he gave the United States Ambassador to Ireland, Edward Walsh, the job because he is a good golfer. Then he spent some time telling a story about how the Secret Service treats everyone around him as “collateral damage,” and that “they don’t give a damn about you.” He laughed as he said it. His story was, “I was with the head of the biggest company in the world. We’re playing golf and we have, you know, hundreds of Secret Service all over the course.” 

And then, “But the guy said, ‘Well, you know, I’m a very big executive, so if something happens with the president, they see all these trucks and tanks. This is a big deal.’ And he said, ‘What about me?’ ‘Sir, I’m sorry. You’re considered collateral damage. You’re on your own, sir.’ He didn’t feel too good. He wasn’t sure he should finish out the round, actually.” The people in the room laughed along with him. Then came another odd moment where Trump said something about himself that he says others ask too, “Does Trump cheat?” He continued with, “I can’t cheat. You have 250 Secret Service agents running down. It’s not that I wouldn’t cheat, but you can’t move the ball.” He once again admitted something so many of us have known for as long as we can remember. Donald Trump cheats, and the only reason he doesn’t as often on the golf course lately is because, by his own admission, there would be too many witnesses. 

He didn’t say that he had a moral objection to cheating, or that he didn’t because cheating is wrong. He said he doesn’t cheat right now because of how easy it would be to get caught. Those were words from the sitting President of the United States of America. He also chose to disparage former President Joe Biden, a man beloved by many Irish, while on a visit to the Emerald Isle. Biden’s family has deep roots in Ireland, going back to his great-great-grandparents who came to America during the Great Famine. 

During a visit Biden made in 2023, the Irish parliament told him he was “one of us.” There were thick crowds of people lining the streets, even in the rain, shouting “Welcome home, Joe,” as he went by. He received a standing ovation at Dublin Castle. And in Trump’s remarks today, he called the United States “dead” under Biden, saying, “We had a president who didn’t know who the hell he was. Couldn’t walk down a flight of stairs. Couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs.”

Then came the most dependable part of any speech Trump gives. The cover for the deeply embarrassing wound he suffered when he lost the 2020 election. It’s the one thing he always says, as if lying will make anyone forget the truth. “We had a rigged election, as you know. It was totally rigged. Because I won three times. I didn’t win twice. I won three times.”

When he should have been focused on diplomacy in a foreign country, he instead went to military violence and the time he kidnapped a foreign leader. He focused an entire section of his speech around Venezuela and other places he has brought terror to. “We had a short military conflict, I call it,” he said. “They said, ‘Could you maybe not use the word war?’ Because when you use the word war, it’s a little different.” Then, barely a minute later he said, “We took that over. We won the war. We paid for the war many, many times over.” 

One section he said these were each a “military conflict,” and then suddenly they were a “war,” the very thing he said he has been told not to say. He also took a moment to brag about 65 billion barrels of oil, as he said it was “good for five hundred years,” and described finding oil in Venezuela like looking for new real estate to buy. “You just look at the ground; you see oil all over the place. You say, ‘That looks like a good location to start.’” He spoke about Iran in the same light. “I think Iran is a military conflict. We’re knocking the hell out of them.” He then described how the United States is ramping up weapons production, forcing defense companies to build five and six new plants, before describing Gatling guns that can create “a wall of lead” and lasers that melt drones until “they look like they got poured out of a hot plate.” Maybe the worst thing he said today was that NATO allies refused to help in the Strait of Hormuz, and that, “You’ll be hearing that later.” A threat and a warning all in one.

Towards the end, he went into a tangent about how he has been reading stories about communism in Ireland and that “we’re shutting it down pretty good.” He said, “We’re not going to have any communists running our country. That I can tell you.” In just a few minutes, he bragged about two wars, threatened NATO allies again, and tried to insert himself and his disinformation and drama into a sovereign democratic nation’s politics. When he was done speaking, “YMCA” by the Village People was blasted through the speakers, and he started pretending to take golf swings… .

-from It's a Lovely Life by Heather Delaney Reese's