This week’s crisis inside the Trump White House is related to Bob Woodward’s new book, which proves that the president knew exactly how deadly and contagious the novel coronavirus was but refused to fully inform the American public, which has so far led to more than 190,000 deaths from the virus, the most on the planet.
Last week, however, the administration was dealing with fallout from an article in The Atlantic which alleged that Trump had called American soldiers who died in combat “losers” and “suckers.”
The president repeatedly denied he had said any such things, but few who have heard Trump speak derisively about any number of people or groups over the past four years doubted the validity of The Atlantic’s reporting.
And now we have a longtime friend of the president, Fox legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, weighing in on the issue, and he makes it clear in an op-ed he wrote for Fox that he has absolutely no doubt Trump did indeed utter those demeaning words, noting:
“I have been a friend of Donald Trump since 1987 through the New Jersey legal community in which his sister and I were active as judges. Trump and I have also known each other through my on-air television work at Fox News. Trump enjoys a personal familiarity with many of my Fox colleagues and me. To this day, he and I speak on the phone from time to time over matters public and private.”
Knowing Trump so well for so long leads Napolitano to conclude that Trump is guilty of slurring the men and women of the armed forces:
“I provide this brief personal background as a setting for an analysis of this ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’ allegation. It appears more likely than not that he did say these things.
“I say this because — for better or worse — Donald Trump is unfiltered. He often says what first comes to his mind without thinking of the likely consequences — including the hurt — his words could produce. And he believes he can repair any hurt with more words.”
But some injuries caused by hasty words cannot be repaired with more talk. This is one of those. And even though some hardcore supporters of this president may try desperately to convince themselves that such hateful comments never left his mouth, the people who know him best have no doubt he did. That alone says it all.