MSNBC thinks the fact that people have to assess the real risk of goading President Donald Trump points to the bizarro world America is living in right now.
On Thursday, in the wake of the new TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) trade memes flooding the internet, host Nicole Wallace asked if goading the president with more jokes was worth it. “The Economist’s” Charlotte Howard pointed to Barack Obama’s roast of Trump pushing him to run for office in the first place before wondering why everyone is treating the president like a “senile uncle.”
“In 2011 Barack Obama gives this brilliant roast of Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner after Trump had been going after him with the birther movement,” Howard said explaining how at the time Obama completely eviscerated him. “You see Donald Trump in the moment boiling over and the reporting on it was that that was a really pivotal moment there that galvanized him to run for president. He does detest being mocked, though he certainly likes mocking other people. So, that risk is real.”
She continued: “I think the fact that we’re even having this conversation points to the bizarro world that we’re in in Trump two […] Where we’re thinking about ‘what if we make fun of Trump and then he’ll respond in this way’ and the chaos that will be unleashed could be damaging for America’s standing in the world and in the American economy. The fact that we’re having that conversation points to this weird environment in which some people seem to be treating Trump like a senile uncle who needs to be appeased.”
“You see Congress, and the people around Trump, continuing to try to placate him, trying to play into his worst instincts in a way that’s counterproductive,” Howard concluded. “I think the question is, ‘When will they grow a spine in Congress?’ When some people might stand up to him. What would be the set of events that would trigger Congress behaving like grown-ups and not trying to just pledge fealty to the the president?”
The TACO meme came after many wondered if the president was “chicken” for constantly backing off his many high tariffs when the market dropped. The president was asked about the term by a reporter Wednesday and was visibly annoyed by being labeled a chicken.
“You call that chickening out? It’s called negotiation,” Trump said before adding that the question was “nasty.”
Watch the full MSNBC video above.