As he rather inelegantly pointed out, we are political consultants. Most of us worked in Republican politics for decades before — almost exclusively because of Trump’s nomination in 2016 — we walked away from the GOP. That the leader of the free world is this thin-skinned is, of course, monumentally concerning. It also shows he’s ignoring his much greater responsibilities.
On the other hand, this is not a city councilman railing at the local scold at a town hall meeting. Trump is the commander-in-chief of our military. He is charged with running the executive branch of the federal government and its millions of employees. None of that matters to him. It never has, and it never will.
As someone who had the honor and privilege to work in the White House under President George W. Bush, I still find it shocking, more than three years in, how quickly the country’s chief executive flies into a very public rage. I agree that the video was powerful (although I’m biased). But no commercial should have the power to derail the leader of the free world.
