America’s President isolated: Trump must be helped to see reality
Kornblau’s response was adopted by 19 world leaders at the G20 summit in Hamburg where Mr Trump cut an isolated, or, as he might say himself, a “sad” figure. His peers, outraged by his flat-earther’s rejection of the Paris climate deal cold-shouldered him in a way that even his most gung-ho, Merika! Merika! Merika! predecessors never experienced. He may have worn their disdain as a badge of honour but in an ever more volatile world we cannot afford to have the world superpower go on a solo run to only God knows where. Any antipathy they might have felt towards him may have distilled into something more potent when he sent his daughter Ivanka — the first daughter — to represent him at a meeting while he was engaged elsewhere. This showed a depth of incomprehension beyond anything Mr Trump has already shown. It is another indication of the contempt he feels for the structures of the democratic, civilised world — a contempt not seen since Europe’s monarchies believed they had been ordained by God to rule in perpetuity.
Ivanka’s over-reach pales into insignificance compared to the difficulties caused for the president by his son Donald. Unsurprisingly Mr Trump used the nothing-to-see-here defence when it emerged that his son had met a Russian lawyer during last year’s election campaign. The president, under criminal investigation in the affair, might have fobbed off questions about the meeting but a video came to light yesterday which shows how very forgetful Mr Trump may have been. The video, reportedly shot in Las Vegas in 2013, shows Mr Trump dining with the Azerbaijani-Russian family who would later offer information on Hillary Clinton. If these
