It's always about him.
Trump's surprise visit to Iraq turned into another campaign rally, because he literally can't concentrate on anything that doesn't pump up his own ego. CNN New Day's John Berman talked to Gen. Mark Hartling:
"General, I want to start with you. Let's just talk about the trip. A stop in Iraq, and also a stop at the air base in Germany, And these are visits that do matter, not just to the troops but also these leaders, and an important step, albeit one that took a long time to do, but a big step," Berman said.
"Congratulations for him for after two years in presidency visiting soldiers in Iraq. It's important," Gen. Hartling said. "They do get energized and fired up when they see a commander-in-chief visiting them in a war zone. It shows a sense of camaraderie, and the folks back home concerned about their loved ones that the president understands what they are doing when he goes there. just the very nature of the trip is a good thing. It's some of the other things that occurred, as I am sure will be pointed out soon, it makes the run for a long side not as good as it could have been."
"What are you talking about there? You had concerns about the politicization, and troops did bring their political paraphernalia, and the troops, perhaps in your mind should not have had the Make America Great hats, right?" Berman asked.
"Yeah, that's the Department of Defense and U.S. Army, but it's a Department of Defense regulation that you don't have paraphernalia, and you don't politicize events, and they were not doing that when they were greeting the president, and the hats are not something they allow at these events. We tell them beforehand: Do as much selfie taking, but we would like you to keep the politics back home, and truthfully all the commanders and in two cases the presidents have done that. This was over the edge."
"Over the top," Berman said.
Well, of course. Did anyone suffer from the delusion that the troops would be anything more than props for the TV reality show that runs 24/7 in his head? The past two years have trained us to expect nothing more than the bare minimum -- and even that, he'll find a way to ruin.
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