For his part, President Trump at a press conference shortly after the op-ed was posted on the NYT website, on the same day, vehemently responded by asserting that: "Nobody has done what this administration's done in terms of getting things passed and getting things through." He then elaborated:
So nobody has done what this administration has done. And I agree, it's different from an agenda which is much different than ours, and it's certainly not your agenda, that I can tell you. It's about open borders, it's about letting people flee into our country, it's about a disaster in crime for our country. So they don't like Donald Trump and I don't like them because they're very dishonest people. Remember this also about the New York Times: When I won, they were forced to apologize to their subscribers. They wrote a letter of apology, it was the first time anybody's ever done it because they covered the election incorrectly. So if the failing New York Times has an anonymous editorial, can you believe it, anonymous, meaning gutless, a gutless editorial (Fritze and Korte, September 5, 2018).
This anonymous editorial was written a day after pre-publication reports of Bob Woodward's new book, Fear, appeared in The New York Times, which alleged that some of Trump's aides view Trump as unstable and uninformed and dangerous. Woodward's book was itself published on September 11, 2018, on the seventeenth anniversary of the infamous 9/11 attacks on the US.
Later that month, the US Senate took up President Trump's Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy by advancing Kavanaugh to the highest court in the land. And though the Senate eventually confirmed Kavanaugh on October 6, 2018 by a very partisan 50-48 vote, the Senate confirmation had to await a slew of sexual allegations against Kavanaugh which culminated in a September 28, 2018 testimony before Congress of the allegations by supposed-victim Christine Blasey Ford along with Kavanaugh's teary reply and denials. Many Trump supporters saw Ford's sexual allegations as merely a Democratically-backed tactic to attempt to forestall the conservative Kavanaugh confirmation to the nation's highest court, and thus the apparent partisan-driven political narrative was advanced further, especially by Democrats who sought to tarnish Kavanaugh as the type of privileged white-male chauvinist heralded by President Trump and his allies
Then, on October 3, 2018, Reuters reported that Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a citizen of Saudi Arabia who had gone into self-imposed US-exile in June of 2017 after the Saudi royal family prohibited him from writing and making appearances after criticizing Donald Trump in late 2016, had gone missing. Initially Turkish newspapers, and eventually the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo????an himself, alleged a premeditated murder of Khashoggi directed by the Saudi regime and carried out within the confines of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. And though denials flowed from Saudi regime spokesmen at first, they eventually conceded that Khashoggi had indeed been killed within the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, though explaining that it was the result of a fist-fight that had gotten out of hand. This admission by Saudi Arabia must be premised on the existence of actual audio and/or video proof of the killing, though Turkey, to date, is withholding publicizing the evidence while milking the Kingdom of as many concessions as possible. The continuance of this shakedown of Saudi Arabia and the possible dislodging of the presumed mastermind of this murder--Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud (MbS), the heir-apparent to the throne--will be played out in the coming weeks. However, the fact that members of the US Congress--all of whom have heavily criticized Donald Trump at one time or another and see him as dangerous--spoke up to trash Saudi Arabia, just a few weeks before the US midterm elections, indicates that this public shaming of the Kingdom is a calculated effort designed to put President Trump in a bind and either force a termination of Trump's arms deals with the Kingdom or sever his close ties to MbS and what all members of Congress regard as America's traditional honey pot.
Interrupting the Khashoggi drama then-unfolding in the world press, a series of at least 14 improvised explosives (IEDs) was sent to prominent Democratic Party leaders and supporters during the week of October 22-26, with a suspect, Cesar Sayoc Jr., an alleged Trump supporter, eventually being nabbed in Florida and charged with the crime (Brown, October 26, 2018). Democrats, of course, laid the blame for such violent behavior directly at the feet of President Trump and his belligerent rhetoric he uses to stir up his supporters at rallies around the nation.
The next day, Saturday, October 27th, as if to further emphasize the message of belligerent rhetoric by President Trump leading to violence, a lone gunman, later identified as a "raving anti-Semitic white nationalist"--who thinks Trump is too soft--rushed into a Pittsburg, Pennsylvania temple, the Tree of Life synagogue, and opened gunfire on the Jewish congregation killing 11 and injuring six others (Robbins, October 29, 2018). After an exchange of gunfire with police, the shooter, Robert Bowers, surrendered and was taken into custody. After a deluge of criticism blaming Trump for instigating such violent behavior amongst rightwing extremists, President Trump and his wife flew into Pittsburgh on Tuesday, October 30th, to meet with survivors and attempt an forestall further criticism of his combative outbursts.
Whether any of these events have swayed potential voters one way or another will be determined by tomorrow's US midterm election results. As the world waits and watches, the results will definitely impact positioning for the 2020 presidential elections, as well as for how world leaders will interact with Trump--either as a strengthened caudillo or as a wounded warrior.
References
"Alt-right." Accessed October 27, 2018. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc [wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right].
Anonymous. September 5, 2018. "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration," The New York Times. New York, NY: The New York Times Company [click here].
Brown, Nicole. October 26, 2018. "Bombs sent to Democrats, Trump critics: What to know." amNewYork. New York: Newsday Media Group [.amny.com/news/bombs-sent-to-democrats-1.22434938].
Chhor, Khatya. May 20, 2017. "Comey dismissal prompts calls for independent probe into Trump's Russia ties." France 24. Paris, France: France Me'dias Monde [click here].
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