President Donald Trump has bragged about being "like a genius" and a "very stable genius," but his arrogance is taking on a new level of hubris.
Axios reported Sunday that after Trump has taken risks on what he calls "big sh*t," and avoiding World War III, he can do anything.
There are two things Trump's team said people warned were disastrous if he did it, moving the Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and withdrawing from the Paris Accord. In the three years Trump has been in office, the climate hasn't changed to the worst-case scenario predicted 50 to 100 years from now. So, clearly, he thinks he's winning. For people who believe in science, however, they understand the way it works.
Under Trump's leadership, the United States has had increasingly worse hurricanes more frequently, with multiple states suffering the impact. At the same time, Miami roads are now officially underwater as sea levels rise. The fire season in the west has gotten significantly worse. Outside the United States, climate change has been noticeable as well. Australia can attest to it.
Moving the embassy was part of a political problem. Trump said that he would solve Middle East peace, and has announced a plan twice. Both times it has flopped. In the case of the embassy and the so-called peace plan, Trump didn't include the Palestinians; it has only included Israeli officials.
"Over the past month, Trumpworld's sense of being unbeatable has only grown," Axios reported. "This is partly because the president sometimes defines victory in narrow terms, like pleasing the base and juicing the markets."
Previous presidents were concerned about Killing Gen. Qasem Suleimani because it might cause long-term foreign policy blowback or, at the very least, immediate retaliation by the Iranians.
Trump didn't care, but that was exactly what happened. Many Iraqi allies were seriously injured and at least 64 Americans were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries. Trump, who doesn't generally understand science, dismissed the TBIs as "a headache." What doctors and researchers have learned over the years is that such injuries can cause chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE, the disease often cited involving football players.
"NFL players Ray Easterling, Junior Seau, Shane Dronett and Dave Duerson were found to have CTE after careers of repeated blows to the head. All died by suicide. Duerson left his family a message before asking they send his brain to be studied," wrote CNN in a report about TBIs.
Whatever consequences there have been for Trump's actions have been inconsequential to the president.
"Everything we've heard from Trump's aides over the last month suggests he will give less and less credence to voices urging caution," Axios said."
One senior White House aid said that Trump thinks he's succeeded, even though advisers told him to be a more prudent and stable leader.
"This sense of invulnerability is why the White House thought it could get away with hosting a gathering of world leaders at Trump's private club in Doral" for the G7 summit, said Axios. It didn't go well.
"I swear to God, this guy is the luckiest SOB that's ever lived," said a former White House official who still speaks with Trump. "That's not to say he hasn't done [the] right things. But the flip side is, he's one of these away from a massive F-up."
