By George Barron
With a Marine helicopter sucking up fuel in the background, waiting for the President to come aboard, Mr. Trump had stopped to answer a few questions from the press. I cringe with embarrassment almost every time somebody from the Washington Press Corp asks a question. They regularly display their ignorance or stupidity at the same time that they are asking questions that are designed to demean President Trump. It’s annoyingly ironic.
One such question was how engaged he was in the process of negotiating for the border barrier and funding the government. I found his answer revealing and comforting. He said that he was very engaged in the process through principle.
Now the word principle is tossed around from time to time with different twists to its meaning. But when President Trump used it to describe how he was leading the negotiations I don’t think I’m being presumptuous when I say that I knew exactly what meant. A principle, as defined in the ‘all knowing’ Google definitions search, is a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning. And that’s what President Trump brings to the negotiation table.
When asking the question, the reporter no doubt intended for the President to struggle with an answer. Her intent was to expose Trump as a buffoon, unable to follow the details that are associated with such complicated negotiations. You know, like the CEO of Boeing is stupid because be can’t wire the electronics on the plane. I can be sure that the intent of the reporter was to make Trump look bad because that’s always the intent of the reporters when they ‘question’ him.
So President Trump’s answer was perfect. He is the leader of the negotiations in principle. One principle that he has often stated is that we don’t have a country if we don’t have borders. And a fundamental truth is that we don’t have a secure border now. Especially the southern border. These and other principles guide his negotiations for a physical border wall. Regardless of who is working out the details. We wouldn’t even be talking about the subject if Donald Trump wasn’t elected.
Doing things out of, or managing by principle, is something that Washington and the press cannot understand. Any motive beyond self-interest puzzles them. So you can imagine the brain twisting that they are doing to understand a man that is acting out of principle. Especially one that they have repeatedly accused of not having any.