To the consternation of many on the left, President Obama took on the role of exasperating but willing mentor to Donald Trump—an exasperated Henry Higgins to the latter’s Eliza Doolittle—almost immediately after the election. But after a few weeks of good will, a certain frostiness began to set in, largely the result of an inevitable power struggle between the president and the president-elect. The Obama administration’s decision not to veto a non-binding UN resolution demanding that Israel cease building settlements in occupied Palestinian territory late last week seems like it could be a breaking point between the two men. Trump lobbied the Obama administration at the behest of the Israelis and has harshly criticized the U.S.’s refusal to veto the resolution, which was passed 14-0 (with the US abstaining) by the UN Security Council. And on Wednesday, he took to Twitter to condemn the Obama administration for its treatment of Israel, which receives nearly $4 billion in US aid every year:
The idea that Israel is being treated “with such total disdain and disrespect” by the Obama administration is a bit rich, given the amount of US aid the country receives and the fact that Netanyahu has ignored and disrespected Washington whenever he has felt like it over the past eight years—an attitude that predated the Iran deal, whatever you think of it. It’s especially rich coming from Trump, though, whose entire political career is based on treating Obama, who he said was not born in America, with “total disdain and disrespect.”
But let’s not put the cart too far in front of the horse. Trump has also tried to use a “not” joke—possibly for the first time in American political history. But, while Trump’s best tweet pats himself on the back for not falling for Sacha Baron Cohen’s schtick, it seems that he could have learned something from the movie Borat.