Donald Trump disgustingly diminishes the presidency when he retweets crazy conspiracy theories or hateful messages from white supremacists. He did the former again earlier this week when he amplified a nutcase accusation that the Obama-Biden White House worked with Iran to keep Osama bin Laden alive while staging the death of a bin Laden body double.
The retweets provide yet more evidence that Trump is neither morally nor temperamentally fit for the Oval Office.
To be sure, retweets do not necessarily imply endorsements. Sometimes, they amount to mere information sharing. Still, when something is as loony as the bin Laden nonsense, the only sensible way to share it is by specifically noting its craziness. As in, “Get this! What will people believe next?!”
Instead, Trump clearly delights in spreading stories like that one, as if he embraces anything and everything that can possibly put in a bad light anybody he perceives to be an adversary at the time. He did it when delightedly sharing the vile insinuation in 2016 that U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s father conspired with President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. He did it when repeatedly retweeting messages from white supremacists, including ones who openly identified as such. And now, this week, he did it twice, not just with the story about faking bin Laden’s death, but also with one alleging that “Biden and Obama may have had [Naval Special Warfare] Seal Team 6 killed.”
This is not just deplorable; it’s unacceptable. And it was right that Robert O’Neill, the SEAL Team 6 member generally acknowledged to have killed bin Laden, strongly pushed back against Trump after the tweet, even though O’Neill has been a Trump supporter.
“Very brave men said [goodbye] to their kids to go kill Osama bin Laden,” O’Neill Tweeted. “We were given the order by President Obama. It was not a body double.”
Trump should apologize for demeaning his office. Then again, if every instance of his demeaning the office were to receive an apology, Trump would be saying he’s sorry for quite a long time.
