Donald Trump continues to push forward in his effort to become the presidential nominee of the Republican Party for the 2016 election. He is racking up delegates very quickly and has a large lead over the second place contender Senator Ted Cruz from Texas.
Some people have looked at the numbers and calculated that it is basically impossible for Cruz to stop Trump at this point. The only question that remains is whether Trump will simply win a large majority of delegates or whether he will be able to accumulate enough to be uncontested at the convention in July.
The hallmark of the Trump campaign is his use of inflated and fear-inspiring rhetoric on nearly every topic that comes his way. Trump gives speeches that imply he will do everything wonderfully and without mistakes. He touts his previous business success and exaggerates things to exorbitant ends. He never gives details on his public policy (or really on anything. The media was amused by this at first. People treated Trump like a joke until it became clear he is the likely Republican nominee. This made many people stop and start listening more closely to his bombastic statements. The results were not flattering for Trump or his campaign at all.
Andrea Mitchell appeared on “Meet the Press” recently to talk about Trump’s rhetoric and claims. It is already known that the website PolitiFact rated 75 percent of Trump’s statements as false in some way. Some new audio emerged of Trump giving a 90-minute interview to several respected New York Times reporters. The interview and transcript were published by the newspaper. What emerged from the interview sheds new light on whether Trump is qualified to lead the country.
The interview focused largely on foreign policy. This is a complicated area where nuance and knowledge of history are required. Trump plowed through some questions with reckless and uninformed statements. He suggested that the United States should back out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, unless we were given billions of dollars. This was criticized by many in America and overseas because it would have a destabilizing effect on the world. Trump suggested the United States should stop importing oil from the Middle East. He claimed that Iran was the largest trading partner of North Korea when it is actually China.
Trump went even further in proving his ignorance about the world and history. He suggested the United States should abandon defense agreements with countries like Japan and South Korea. Trump was fine with the idea of allowing those countries to possess nuclear weapons when it has been the goal of the world to stop that from happening for decades now. He even shrugged off any concerns about a nuclear war in that area since it did not involve the United States. Whenever Trump was asked about a foreign policy issue he did not understand, he simply changed the subject. This is what happened when a reporter asked him whether he would use tactical nuclear weapons against terrorists in the Middle East. Trump changed the topic and started introducing himself to everyone in the room. The reporters did not ask the question again.
Andrea Mitchell said that Trump “is completely uneducated about any part of the world.” She went on to describe other parts of the interview. Trump complained that Iran was not buying any planes from the United States. A reporter had to explain to Trump that current sanctions prevent that from happening. It was incredibly frightening for many pundits, experts and world leaders to hear about the ignorant foreign policy rantings of Donald Trump. His rhetoric and ignorance are actually incredibly dangerous for the country and the world.