What did Donald Trump do today?
He "joked" with a dictator about illegally staying in power after his term ends.
Trump has spent much of his second term desperately looking for some kind of peace deal he can claim he has brokered, in order to burnish his case for the Nobel Peace Prize he feels he deserves. This has created an opportunity for other nations, who can curry favor with him by "nominating" him. Five countries have done so already, extracting favors in the process. The most recent two countries to do, Azerbaijan and Armenia, allowed Trump to "negotiate" a cease-fire this week, although it had been in the works for years.
Today, Trump gave Ilham Aliyev, the leader of Azerbaijan, a tour of the White House. Aliyev is a dictator who has held power by force and sham elections for 22 years, and whose family has been in de facto control of the country since the early 1990s. When he told Trump how long he had been in office, Trump replied that that made him "tough and smart"—the same kind of openly admiring language he's used to describe China's Xi Jinping and North Korea's Kim Jong-un for their ability to remain in power.
Trump took the opportunity to show Aliyev a White House office crammed full of "Trump 2028" merchandise, and teased his own plans to cling to power:
TRUMP: You know you're not allowed to run, uh, a — the — so — I mean — 'cause everyone —
ALIYEV: [laughter]
TRUMP: I'm 28 points higher than everyone—
ALIYEV: [laughing] I know.
TRUMP: The — the — it's funny, so this drives them crazy, look. [Holds up a "Trump 2028" hat]. "Four more years." So that's sorta cool.
The "28 points" number is nonsense: with barely one in three Americans approving of his performance, only one president has ever been this unpopular at this point in their term, and it was Donald Trump in 2017.
Trump frequently "jokes" about remaining in power after his second term ends, or "wonders" about whether the 22nd Amendment really applies to him. In reality, Trump tried to stay in power in 2020 even after he knew he'd lost a fair election to Joe Biden (according to his own Attorney General), first through frivolous lawsuits, then by attempting to corruptly influence state officials, and finally by inciting a violent insurrection against Congress in an attempt to prevent them from certifying Biden's win.
Why does this matter?
- Americans get to choose their own government whether the president likes it or not.
- It shouldn't be this easy for a dictator of a tiny country to manipulate the President of the United States.