It’s an unvarnished truth: Donald Trump, now at the ripe age of 80, struggles with the rigors of international travel. The shrinking of his world appearances and the brevity of his overseas trips offer a telling glimpse into his physical decline.
One can hardly ignore how his age manifests itself more starkly when he ventures beyond the familiar confines of the United States.
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One has to question the wisdom behind allowing Trump to ramble for hours in the White House briefing room on Tuesday, only to whisk him off to Switzerland for a world stage appearance the very next day. The juxtaposition of his self-perception as a global powerhouse against the backdrop of Davos was illuminating.
During his time at Davos, Trump stated:
“We’re going to help the people in California. I know Gavin was here. I used to get along so great with Gavin when I was president. I think Gavin’s a good guy and we’re gonna, if he needed it, I would do it in a heartbeat. I’d love to see. We did help them a lot in Los Angeles, a lot with the early, early, in my term, when they had some problems.”
“But we would love to do it. I would say this, if I were a Democratic governor or whatever. I would call up Trump. I’d say, come on in, make us look good, because we’re cutting crime down to nothing and we are taking people out, career criminals who are only gonna do bad things and we’re bringing them back to their countries.”
“But where we’ve done it has been amazing, and we have a capacity to do it at much greater levels. We’re cutting illegal aliens off welfare and other government benefits that I’ve directed to start immediately. There will be no more payments to sanctuary cities because they’re really just sanctuaries for criminals.”
“They’re really protecting criminals, and those are the ones we have to get under the crooked murderers, drug dealers, the mentally ill, who have been released into the United States. Despite that, we have the lowest crime numbers that we’ve ever had in the history of the country. Just came out.”
As Trump spoke, the camera captured Governor Gavin Newsom’s reaction—his stillness and subsequent laughter at Trump’s remarks spoke volumes.
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