The White House is fond of theming their message of the week from time to time. We’ve had “Infrastructure Week,” “Made in America Week,” and even “American Dreams” week, whatever that meant.
Perhaps this week was themed “Bigotry Week” without anyone knowing it, a conclusion one might logically reach after a flurry of anti-Muslim and anti-black tweets by President Trump, followed by a speech he gave today in Missouri where he mocked Asian leaders.
Yes, a president of the United States mocked Asian leaders with a derogatory impersonation while cameras were rolling at an official pubic event. His speech was to supporters at a rally designed, ostensibly, to build support for the unpopular GOP tax bill making its way through congress. As tends to happen at these events, Trump went off script with a meandering anecdote that, to him anyway, illustrated a larger point about a particular policy.
That’s when everything went south. In the middle of a story about how trade and defense go hand-in-hand, Trump described a nameless “ally” that was once an enemy that we now defend, a nation who he said needs to pay us more for that defense (he practically coughed and said “Japan”). He then recounted how he brought this topic up to Asian leaders on his recent trip there, and then unleashed racially tinged body language to portray their reaction. It was disturbingly similar to his infamous, cringe-worthy impersonation of a disabled reporter during the campaign.
More often than not, the White House’s carefully constructed messages of the wee tend to fly off the rails before they even start after an erratic tweet by the president or some new development in the special counsel’s investigation. But we’re almost through Wednesday and “Bigotry Week” is going swimmingly.
You can see a video of the entire segment of Trump’s embarrassing impersonation below.
