The only thing that matters is loyalty to him, and since he feels that Netanyahu ‘let him down,’ well that just means he’s fair game to be insulted.
Israel is under attack, the Left is grotesquely revealing to us just how deeply the roots of antisemitism have crept into the academy and the entire generation of American youth they teach, and Donald Trump is back in the news with a tastefully timed take that makes it about himself and his petty grievances. Trump was rallying in West Palm Beach, Fla., as part of his infrequent (but likely successful) campaign for the Republican nomination last night. Given the desperately serious nature of the events unfolding in Israel as well as West Palm Beach’s large and proud Jewish community, one might have hoped Trump would have chosen the moment to either say something dignified and resolute, or at least — it is Trump, after all — something bluntly fierce in support. But then that’s never been the man’s style. So of course he instead chose the occasion of an existential threat to the Jewish state to launch into a long, rambling (and — notably — oftentimes rather hoarse and tired-sounding) monologue about how badly Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had let him down during the January 2020 operation to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian terror mastermind.
The context of the clip — which has circulated endlessly on social media since last night — is worth clarifying here, since I imagine very few commenting on the excerpt linked above have listened to Trump’s entire nearly two-hour-long speech from last night. (I only do this myself because they pay me, folks.) Trump gave the entire speech extemporaneously, free-associating on themes, and he found his way here by riffing (at various times throughout the speech) on his administration’s foreign-policy successes in the Middle East, to wit withdrawing from the Iran deal, crushing ISIS and assassinating Soleimani, and being “the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House by far.” It was actually his version of a pro-Israel argument, basically: “Israel never had it so good while I was in office, and now that Joe Biden stole the election from me, it’s all gone to hell for Israel; nobody would have invaded with me around,” in so many words.
As a confirmed anti-Trump man, I had to actually admit to myself, watching the speech, how I thought he was doing a reasonably impressive job up until this point. He was his typical discursive, unfocused self, but he had stand-up comic energy and jokes to go with his attacks. He hammered the Biden administration on its Iran policy, blamed three specific actions for allowing the Hamas attack, and whether or not the claims were nonsense factually, as political theater he sounded much more in command of his brief than you would ever expect for Donald Trump. And then, returning to the subject of the Soleimani assassination after the better part of an hour, he put his foot in it.
The clip circulating online omits how Trump opens, which is a shame because you can actually see how the gears in his mind are turning all over his facial expression. At 41 minutes into the speech, Trump announces, in response to a pro-Israeli fan in the crowd: “Under my leadership we will stand with Israel 100 percent, and we will not let them fail.” Then, as the crowd cheers, you can see him pause and draw in his cheeks as his eyes flit back and forth, as if wondering whether to proceed. And he does: “Don’t forget, you know, I did have a bad experience with Israel, though, when we took out Soleimani.” You should watch the video — it is impossible to transcribe, as Trump rambles and diverts in his normal fashion forever between points — because Trump is actually revealing matters I was unaware of myself (he literally asks at one point, “Is this classified? I don’t think so”), namely that the Israeli government allegedly backed out of the operation to assassinate Soleimani at the very last moment after months of joint planning, forcing the United States to go it alone.
That is what you need to know before the widely circulating clip begins. I have undertaken the task of aurally transcribing the rest, so for those of you who choose not to watch or listen yourselves, please understand that the following paragraph was indeed spoken mostly as one unbroken run-on sentence:
But I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down, that was a very terrible thing, I will say that. And, so when I see, sometimes, the intelligence, you talk about the intelligence, or you talk about some of the things that went wrong over the last week, they’ve gotta straighten it out because they’re fighting, potentially, a very big force, they’re fighting potentially Iran, and when they have people saying the wrong things everything they say is being digested by these people, because they’re vicious and they’re smart, and boy are they vicious because nobody’s ever seen the kind of sight we’ve seen, nobody’s ever seen it, but they cannot play games, so we were disappointed by that, very disappointed but we did the job ourselves and it was absolute precision and magnificent, beautiful job, and then, uh . . . Bibi tried to take credit for it, that was a — <laughs> thaaat didn’t make me feel too good, but that’s all right. So they gotta strengthen themselves up.
Now that’s the good ol’ narcissistic self-centered Donald Trump I know and love. When Trump says “the intelligence,” he is referring obliquely to news that Egypt had delivered warnings to Israel about Hamas’s plans ignored by the Netanyahu government. People are hitting Trump for saying that Hezbollah and Iran are “smart,” but that’s a diversion, one that Trump in fact specifically addressed earlier in the speech —“Hezbollah is very smart, they’re all very smart, the press doesn’t like when I say it.” The narcissistic and quintessentially Trumpian insult is implying that Israel getting surprise-massacred was somehow related to Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal insult of getting antsy about participating with the Trump administration in a targeted assassination. Trump treats it like a personal offense from Netanyahu to his strongman dignity, rather than (right or wrong) a matter of the utmost geopolitical calculation for Israel.
The timing couldn’t be poorer, the topic more tasteless, or — and this is what matters to me — the psychological insight more clarifying. Trump sets his own unique scale for political comportment and by his standards this hardly rates a 3 or 4 for me. But it is so perfectly of a piece with all his other public utterances that it crystallizes so much about why he is the way he is: The only thing that matters is loyalty to him, and since he feels that Netanyahu “let him down,” well that just means he’s fair game to be insulted, even when he’s leading his nation through war.
Ron DeSantis — a man who spent time in Fallujah and also understands exactly how important the Florida Jewish community has been in strengthening the Republican Party’s south-Florida gains — denounced it instantaneously, and properly, last night. But what tells you how egregiously stupid a ramble this was from a political perspective is that it somehow allowed Joe Biden (of all people) to legitimately dunk on Trump over Israel (of all issues). There the president’s account was this morning, with a link to Trump’s speech, writing: “Our nation’s support for Israel is resolute and unwavering. And the right time to praise the terrorists who seek to destroy them is never.” Biden’s team doesn’t feel the need to add any further commentary; it just gives you a straight link to the video, so you can see for yourself. They’re confident enough that’ll do the trick for the average voter (to say nothing of the average Jewish voter).
Will it matter to Trump’s supporters? We shall see, but of course I remain pessimistic as ever, because their bond to him is a prerational one. And while Trump pays attention to the instincts of the base — he didn’t denounce Israel here, mind you, he just callously and stupidly made it all about himself in a matter of world-historical importance — he also sends cues to his cadre of online influencers, who are significantly more “new Right” (oh, let’s not beat around the bush — some of these people are crypto-antisemites) and will now feel they have permission, if not a downright obligation, to start “just asking questions” about the war with Hamas.