While speaking with reporters on Tuesday after a meeting with the King of Jordan, President Donald Trump tried to make a point about the terrorist organization Hamas. “You know what a bully is,” he said. Then he immediately explained that throughout his life he found the bully to be “the weakest person.”
The man has a complete lack of self-awareness. Being a bully was essential to his rise to power, his return to power, and how he maintains control of the Republican Party.
Which is why it’s not a party for genuinely decent people like Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Trump made that comment with Secretary of State Marco Rubio sitting next to him. He may not remember, but in 2016 Rubio called him a “con artist” who “spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy.”
Like every Republican running for the party’s nomination that year, Rubio was a target of Trump’s bullying. If he had the strength to stand his ground, he wouldn’t Secretary of State today.
Trump is also very fond of bullies. For instance, in 2018 he praised Republican Rep. Greg Gianforte of Montana for assaulting a reporter: “Any guy that can do a body slam, he’s my guy.”
And he has a soft spot for people who commit violence on his behalf. Last Sunday he went to bat again for the Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted police officers. “I pardoned J6 people who were assaulted by our government,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. Everyone in the room knew he was lying. He topped that off by claiming his pardons were “a great thing for humanity.”
Two weeks earlier, Vice-President JD Vance said Trump wouldn’t pardon anyone who “committed violence on that day.” To please his dishonest boss, he immediately changed his tune.
I don’t think Vance was always a bully. But he’s embraced the role and the lying that goes along with it, most notably last September when he attacked an entire community. In a post on X referring to “Haitian illegal immigrants” in Springfield, Ohio,” he wrote “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”
Vance knew the Haitians were in the country legally. And an aide told him the pet part of his story wasn’t true either.
I’m sure Murkowski was disgusted by what he did. And being a lifelong Catholic, I suspect she was offended by his recent unjust criticism of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
During an interview on Face the Nation two weeks ago, Vance said the USCCB “needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants—are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?”
His not-so-subtle message was the church could lose its funding by not fully supporting Trump’s immigration policies. That’s a form of bullying.
The bishops responded to him with strength. First, with the truth that the funds they receive “are not sufficient to cover the entire cost” of the legal immigration programs they administer. Then by informing him the programs are “a work of mercy and ministry of the Church.”
On Fox News a week later, Vance defended his position by explaining how an “old school” Christian concept shows every citizen’s compassion “belongs first to your fellow citizens,” and only “after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”
In response, Pope Francis and others referred to the parable of the “Good Samaritan” to show how Vance got that wrong too.
But they didn’t point out how Vance himself needs to look in the mirror.
He ended his argument on Fox by demonizing the American “far left” as people who “seem to hate the citizens of their own country.” That’s the same man who as a candidate for Senate in 2021 echoed Trump’s worst instincts by saying “I think our people hate the right people.”
There’s not a bone in Murkowski’s body that’s comfortable with the direction that kind of thinking is taking the party. To preserve her moral integrity, she should walk through the door to political independence.
• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.
