New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman appeared on the Tuesday edition of CNN’s The Situation Room and, in addition to flaunting his love for communist China, suggested that President Trump is mentally unstable even though “I'm not a doctor.”
After commenting on the breaking allegations of feuds between Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Friedman expressed his life-long admiration for how fluid and productive the brutal, murderous Chinese regime are compared to Trump.
“Well, they're utterly, you know, flummoxed. But they're watching all of this, too. You know, the overwhelming reaction had been in China, Wolf, is some — China's moving ahead. They're not spending their days doing this kind of nonsense, and trying to figure out whether their leader tweeted something, you know, in Chinese characters that made no sense,” Friedman swooned.
He also gushed about how China’s “laying down more high speed rail around the country” and “moved to a completely cashless society” (totally ignoring environment impacts and basic human rights) while the U.S. has a President “who's denying science and issuing tweets on the basis of The Drudge Report.”
“I think they have his number. I think they think he's a chump, and I think they know, believe they can easily deflect him with shiny objects, and that he'll never bring down the trade hammer on them that he threatened to do,” he added.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has repeatedly compared the Trump family to the eventually-slaughtered Romanovs from Russia, so it was only natural that someone would make a similar comparison.
This time, Friedman suggested the Trumps were akin to a ruling family in the Middle East:
Well, we've actually started to resemble one of these Gulf States. We have a President who's I think equivalent of an emir. We have a crown prince, his name is Jared. We have a crown princess, her name is Ivanka. We have a family that doesn't draw sharp lines between its own wealth and the wealth of the government. We have relatives who play off the notoriety in their connections with the regime. This is not the kind of government we have ever seen before where the president's son-in-law and daughter are two of the key advisors in the government, and it's not the America we've known, Wolf.
Channeling fake news anchor Dan Rather from last week, Friedman concluded by emphasizing that he’s “not a doctor,” but would nonetheless diagnose the president as someone who’s not “a stable person.”
“I'm not a doctor but this kind of behavior, attacking people around you. How in a crisis are these people going to behave as a coherent team when every decision they have to make, they have to worry about the next day their boss is going to tweet against them,” argued the liberal columnist.
Here’s the relevant portions of the transcript from CNN’s The Situation Room on June 6:
CNN’s The Situation Room
June 6, 2017
6:54 p.m. Eastern
WOLF BLITZER: Speaking of tweets, yesterday, the President was tweeting that the Justice Department made a major mistake in their revised travel ban, like the original travel ban, and today, the White House is refusing to say whether or not the President even has confidence in the attorney general, Jeff Sessions. We've covered Washington for a long time. You remember anything like this?
TOM FRIEDMAN: Well, this is unprecedented obviously, Wolf. First of all, we have a president who's got a sign on his desk, the buck stops everywhere but here. So, he's never responsible for anything, number one. Number two, I think the implications of this, Wolf, forget the Sessions-Trump relationship. They haven't filled out how many positions in this government -- literally hundreds, and senior ones, deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries.
BLITZER: Ambassadors.
FRIEDMAN: Yes. Imagine how many people are going to work in a government where the president will literally turn on you on a moment's notice on Twitter, someone as close as Jeff Sessions was to this guy, probably his most loyal, you know, supporter during the campaign. Or, you know, the administration calls and said we'd like to join the administration, Wolf, and you go home and you tell your kids, I ought to join administration that believes that climate change is a hoax. What do you think kids, should I do that? So, you know, I would say it was bad enough before all of this, but when Trump starts going after Sessions, someone that close, the message is nobody is safe. And I think that will be — create a (INAUDIBLE) inside the administration. I don't see how they're going to fill this ship up with anyone of confidence who would want to expose themselves to that kind of thing.
BLITZER: You're just back in Washington from a trip Asia. You were in China, South Korea. What's the reaction you were hearing to President Trump over there?
FRIEDMAN: Well, they're utterly, you know, flummoxed. But they're watching all of this, too. You know, the overwhelming reaction had been in China, Wolf, is some — China's moving ahead. They're not spending their days doing this kind of nonsense, and trying to figure out whether their leader tweeted something, you know, in Chinese characters that made no sense. They're laying down more high speed rail around the country. You know what's amazing thing being China? They've moved to a completely cashless society. You can buy vegetables on the street from a seller with your cell phone and his cell phone. They're really forging ahead in the 21st century and we're basically — we've got a leader who's denying science and issuing tweets on the basis of The Drudge Report.
BLITZER: Do they have confidence that President Trump could handle a crisis with North Korea?
FRIEDMAN: Oh, what the Chinese have confidence —
BLITZER: The Chinese, the South Koreans?
FRIEDMAN: — I think what the Chinese have confidence in, is after Trump came in and scared them on trade, he's going to do all this, I think they have his number. I think they think he's a chump, and I think they know, believe they can easily deflect him with shiny objects, and that he'll never bring down the trade hammer on them that he threatened to do.
(....)
BLITZER: You wrote a pretty powerful column the other day in which you refer to President Trump as the emir of the United America Emirate. Tell our viewers what you were driving at.
FRIEDMAN: Well, we've actually started to resemble one of these Gulf States. We have a president who's I think equivalent of an emir. We have a crown prince, his name is Jared. We have a crown princess, her name is Ivanka. We have a family that doesn't draw sharp lines between its own wealth and the wealth of the government. We have relatives who play off the notoriety in their connections with the regime. This is not the kind of government we have ever seen before where the president's son-in-law and daughter are two of the key advisors in the government, and it's not the America we've known, Wolf. Sorry.
BLITZER: So, where do we go from here?
FRIEDMAN: I don't know. But I think we're heading to a very bad place. We have a president who as I said earlier does not behave not only presidential, he doesn't behave as an adult. He behaves in a juvenile way and, Wolf, stock market's high. We have haven't had a crisis yet. God forbid, something really big happens. I'm not — certainly not looking forward to it and I hope it doesn't. But this man has behaved in such an erratic way, when the sky is blue and the market is up, I truly fear how he'd behave in a crisis.
BLITZER: The bottom line being?
FRIEDMAN: Bottom line is I don't think he's a stable person. I'm not a doctor but this kind of behavior, attacking people around you. How in a crisis are these people going to behave as a coherent team when every decision they have to make, they have to worry about the next day their boss is going to tweet against them.
