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World Leaders: Yes, We Were Laughing At Trump

World Leaders: Yes, We Were Laughing At Trump

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

 

Before he was elected president, Donald Trump frequently said the world was laughing at the United States — and he promised he could change that. But on Tuesday, that hope was dashed as the United Nations General Assembly burst into laughter at his ridiculous boasting about his presidency in a speech.

It was widely interpreted as an expression of derision and disrespect for the president — and a new report from BuzzFeed News confirms this view.

Multiple foreign diplomats in attendance told the new outlet explicitly that they were laughing at, not with, Trump:

“Sometimes, when we see a behavior or listen to arguments or notions that seem so far-fetched, unreasonable, or insane, there is almost natural reaction of laughing,” one Latin American diplomat said, speaking off the record so he could speak freely.

The diplomat added, “It is not laughing at a good joke, but a nervous laugh, or a bad joke turned laughable precisely because the guy who tells the joke doesn’t realize how bad it is.”

“His words in the opening part of the speech were clearly addressed to [a] domestic audience,” wrote one European diplomat in a message that noted that other world leaders do the same. “But as he did it in the Trumpian way (bragging ridiculously about being one of the best administrations in history) people in the audience reacted how they reacted.”

“What would resonate well at a political rally in America sounded a little awkward at the UN General Assembly,” the diplomat added.

Another diplomat was even harsher in anonymous remarks to BuzzFeed, saying it was “scornful laughter, not nervous laughter.”

The report underscores a key problem with Trump’s diplomacy and his presidency more generally. While he has clearly earned fans for his unique rhetorical and personal style, a major portion of the world and the global leadership still finds him to be completely ridiculous, even as he controls the world’s most powerful military. It weakens his ability to formulate a coherent foreign policy and to convince allies and foes that he’s worth taking seriously.

Cody Fenwick is a reporter and editor. Follow him on Twitter @codytfenwick.

 

Trump Insists He Aimed For Laughs In UN Speech

Trump Insists He Aimed For Laughs In UN Speech

Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.

Attempting to explain away the embarrassing spectacle of the world’s assembled leaders laughing in his face, Trump is now claiming his United Nations speech was intentionally humorous.

It isn’t true.

In his Tuesday address, Trump delivered, with a perfectly straight face, his by-now cliché self-congratulatory hyperbole.

“In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” he said. Then the audience burst into laughter.

“I wasn’t expecting that reaction,” he said, “but that’s OK.”

Hours later, Trump apparently decided to do some damage control and came up with an entirely new version of what happened.

“Oh it was great, that was meant to get some laughter,” he told reporters later on Tuesday.

But during his speech, Trump didn’t pause for the supposedly expected laughter. In fact, his speeches never contain deliberate laugh lines, and certainly not at his own expense.

Trump has, however, bragged in almost all of his speeches about what he thinks is his incredible performance in office, taking credit for the strong economy he inherited from the Obama administration. Never has such a line been delivered as a joke, with a pause for laughter.

Those remarks are usually made in front of pro-Trump audiences at rallies filled with diehard admirers, not objective observers and skeptical world leaders.

Pro-Trump propaganda outlet Fox News certainly did not think it was a joke and edited out the laughing in clips posted online.

The reality is, Trump was caught with his rhetorical pants down in front of the world. After years of claiming that other leaders were making America a laughingstock to the world, Trump did the deed himself.

Trump failed on the biggest international stage, humiliated himself, and now he’s telling an obvious lie to try to save face.

Published with permission of The American Independent.