On Sunday's Meet the Press, former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates tried to downplay the divisiveness that is Trump and his administration.

Gates is selling a book.

Many long time Republicans who oppose Trump are nevertheless afraid to rock the boat ( The Lincoln Project would be the opposite.) and bend over to offer up a modicum of praise of Mango Mussolini. Also, it's hard to sell national security books without a core of Republican buyers.

Robert Gates served under Republican and Democratic administrations, and while acknowledging Trump's unfitness made this specious claim.

Host Chuck Todd reminded Gates that he called Trump “unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief” in 2016.

“Has your assessment of him changed?” Todd wondered.

“I would say this, Chuck, first of all, unlike his three predecessors, and I write about this in the book, at least he hasn’t started any new wars,” Gates replied.

Gates is flat-out wrong. Trump did start a war. Only it was a war with the American people, his own constituents.

From the moment he came down the escalator in Trump Tower and declared that Mexican immigrants were rapists and murderers, Trump waged a racist war of the ugliest kind.

True, Trump hasn’t started dropping bombs in Iran or in Venezuela, but he has been dropping bombs on the LGBTQ community, undocumented workers, refugees, women, and all who disagree with him.

During his presidential campaign he portrayed America as a lawless country, in flames and infested by gangs like MS 13.

And he went to war with a Gold Star family during the Republican National Convention: a family lost their son in service of this country and Donald Trump vilified the mother and father.

He targeted the free press from the outset and called them the enemy of the people.

As commander-in-chief, he immediately stripped LGBTQ rights away from military members.

He spoke of female journalists and reporters in the most vile representations imaginable.

He waged war against our NATO allies while sucking up to autocratic dictators like North Korea's Kim Jong Un, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and of course his favorite, Russia's Vladimir Putin.

Then he began waging war against the United States Constitution by secretly sending his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to force the newly elected president to smear Joe Biden.

Then after the coronavirus struck in China, he delayed action to prepare for the pandemic. Over 116,000 Americans are now dead in Trump's war on science and common sense.

Drink bleach, shine a light up your butt.

He continually lied about the outbreak, it’s infectiousness, and then promoted snake oil to the public.

After yet another policeman murdered a black man named George Floyd, instead of embracing the moment and denouncing the police brutality behind it, instead he turned his hatred onto American protesters.

While most of the protests were peaceful, he tried to bring in active military to "subdue" them and called governors jerks for not responding with tremendous force against civilians.

America is certainly at war and it’s at war with its president. It's a war he started.

In spite of the CDC’s recommendations of social-distancing, the George Floyd lynching and Trump's response ignited a fury. Americans came out to protest even at the cost of being infected.

So tell me, Mr. Gates, what, besides your book sales, are you looking at?