To say that Donald J. Trump is a controversial president is something of a dramatic understatement. In a lot of ways, this seems to have been unavoidable — whether he realized it or not, he set the tone for his entire administration the moment he came down the escalator in Trump Tower and announced his candidacy. The trend itself shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
But, there’s criticism and then there is “looking for any and all opportunities to turn even seemingly innocuous events into something that can best be described as a firestorm of condemnation.” With President Trump’s recent alleged comments about the immigration debate and the status of certain countries, it seems that even Democrats are beginning to think that we’ve needlessly ended up with the latter.
The “Sh–hole Controversy”: Breaking It Down
In case you’re unfamiliar with the current dustup over President Trump’s immigration comments, the story goes something like this: in January of 2018, during a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators, Trump allegedly described certain countries (that are primarily black or Latino in nature) as “sh–hole” countries. More specifically, the quote that he supposedly used was “why are we having all these people from sh–hole countries coming here?”
To his credit, Trump has not denied the fact that he used harsh language during the meeting itself. In a way, this is to be as expected with a topic as controversial as this one, particularly when emotions run high. He has denied using the phrase “sh–hole,” however, and people in the room continue to argue about whether he used a similar term like “sh–house” or whether he uttered such a phrase at all.
In a meeting on Capitol Hill a week later, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen even swore under oath that she did not hear that or any similar word used — period.
When You Lose CNN…
After a week of debating the differences between a hole and a house and whether or not such language is fit for a presidency, something unique happened during a discussion on CNN with contributor John Berman.
When speaking with Washington Post contributor Josh Dawsey, the following exchange took place:
Berman: “It all comes down to the difference between a hole and a house.”
Dawsey: “So, Josh, I’m tempted to say that Republican senators Perdue and Cotton are going on TV denying the comments were said, and they’re hanging it on the difference between a ‘blank-hole’ and a ‘blank-house.’”
Berman: “One might reasonably ask, are you f-ing kidding me?”
Indeed, it seems that Berman had a moment of realization that many have had in the last week: who actually cares about this at all? He just happened to have his on live television.
In an era where there are very serious problems going on in the world, the language that someone used in a private meeting with other adults is not among them – regardless of how harsh they may have been or the sentiment behind it. Sometimes adults get mad in situations when emotions are high and sometimes they use “adult” language. This is something that has been true long before Donald Trump became President of the United States, and it will be true long after.
Why does this matter right now? Aren’t there more important discussions to be had? (Hint: yes).
If this were any other leader at any other point in history, would these even amount to so much as a blip on the cable news radar? No, probably not. Future generations are absolutely going to look back on this moment in history with wonder. They’re going to learn about it in high school history classes. However, it won’t necessarily be for the reason that certain people seem to think that it will.
When you’ve officially lost some of the hosts at CNN, perhaps the biggest rival that Trump has had in the media during the majority of his first term, you know that your controversy has reached a breaking point.
~ Liberty Planet
