Trump focuses on bunker busters and babbling while our burger prices blow up | Opinion
I don't think Trump is able to do two things at once. Reading his Truth Social posts, I'm not entirely sure he's capable of doing one thing at once.
- President Trump, who campaigned on lowering grocery prices, has overseen record high beef prices while engaging in a Middle East conflict.
- Trump's social media posts about the bombing of Iran have been criticized as immature and erratic.
- Public opinion polls show low approval for the bombing and growing concern about escalating conflict.
- Trump's focus on the conflict and social media is seen as a distraction from his campaign promises to improve the economy and address food prices.
Look, I don’t mean to be “that guy,” but the president who ran almost exclusively on lowering grocery prices seems to have lost both his focus and his marbles.
While President Donald Trump was ordering bunker-busting bombs dropped on Iran, burger-loving Americans who in no way wanted to get involved in a Middle East conflict were dealing with ground beef prices that hit a record, wallet-busting high of $5.98 per pound in May.
And the commander in beef? He’s on the social media site he owns posting all kinds of weird nonsense that has nothing to do with lowering food prices.
What kind of president bombs a country then says, 'Bullseye!!!'?
One post on the attacks on Iran included this: “Bullseye!!!” You know a president is serious when he uses three exclamation points and sounds like a 12-year-old boy who just hit a can with a rock.
Responding to widespread reports the U.S. bombing raid did less damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities than the administration claimed, Trump wrote: “The sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it.”
How Churchillian. “The Battle of France was a COMPLETE AND TOTAL success and everyone knows it, we just sent our troops to Dunkirk for some beach time. Enjoy the R&R, boys!!!”
Online babbling, foreign bombing. And America's food prices remain high.
Trump continued his babbling about the damage done to Iran’s nuclear facilities: “Only the Fake News would say anything different in order to try and demean, as much as possible ‒ And even they say they were ‘pretty well destroyed!’ Working especially hard on this falsehood is Allison Cooper of Fake News CNN, Dumb Brian L. Roberts, Chairman of ‘Con’cast, Jonny Karl of ABC Fake News, and always, the Losers of, again, Concast’s NBC Fake News. It never ends with the sleazebags in the Media, and that’s why their Ratings are at an ALL TIME LOW ‒ ZERO CREDIBILITY!”
There’s a lot to unpack there, from some homophobia directed at Anderson Cooper to random capitalization that can best be called “troubling” to, for some reason, putting quotes around “Con” in the first “‘Con’cast” reference and then abandoning the quotes on second mention. It’s like he’s following the Stylebook for the Terminally Deranged.
Trump cares only about pretending to look tough on TV
The president of the United States capped off his June 23 online ranting by posting “CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, IT’S TIME FOR PEACE!”, which is just a deeply weird thing to say right after dropping more than a dozen 30,000 pound bombs on a country.
But let’s get back to hamburgers. I'm hungry, and if I were a Trump voter who believed he would be laser-focused on lowering my grocery bill, I’d be downright hangry.
Trump actually made the military's planning more difficult
What we’re seeing from the Trump administration right now is there’s no meat between the buns.
The New York Times reported that Trump’s decision to attack Iran was influenced by the attention Israel was getting: “The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved.”
And his bizarre and threatening social media posts warning Iran that America might take action actually caused problems with our military planning: “But even as the military planning was being conducted in secrecy, each of Mr. Trump’s social media posts seemed to be telling the world what was coming. The president, said one military official, was the ‘biggest threat to opsec,’ or operational security, that the planning faced.”
Can someone gently and respectfully grab President Trump by the shoulders and shout: “Dude! Focus!”
An unpopular president, Trump isn't doing himself any favors
I’m not an isolationist, but we presently know more about the cost of our hamburgers than we do about specific reasons for the attack on Iran or what was accomplished.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll released June 23 showed only about a third of Americans supported the attack and 84% are concerned about the conflict growing.
The same poll shows Trump’s approval rating slumping to 41%, a number that should slide more when people get a load of what their Fourth of July barbecue is going to cost.
Fewer bombs, more burgers. That's the true American spirit.
Trump won reelection because a small majority of Americans naively believed he would make the economy better and address food prices. He hasn’t done either of those things. Now we’re bombing another country in the Middle East, and he’s rambling incoherently on the internet while cosplaying G.I. Joe.
I don’t think the man is able to do two things at once. Reading his Truth Social posts, I’m not entirely sure he’s capable of doing one thing at once.
But he should pay attention to the fact that Americans, it’s safe to say, would like fewer bombs and more burgers. Perhaps someone can let Trump know that, if they can pull him away from watching Fox News and embarrassing the nation on social media.
Follow Paste BN columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk