The president’s fellow Republicans learned that to their chagrin in 2016, and reached common conclusions about his character.
“A con man,” said. Sen. Marco Rubio. “Utterly amoral,” said Sen. Ted Cruz.
“Dishonesty is Trump’s hallmark,” declared Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee. “He’s playing the American people for suckers.”
Increasing numbers of Americans have reached that conclusion. In a Quinnipiac University poll this month, 62 percent called the president not honest, up from 52 percent last November.
Moreover, 63 percent said Trump does not share their values. That undercuts his ability to lead average Americans, lawmakers, business executives or foreign leaders toward common goals.
“In a president, character is everything,” Republican commentator Peggy Noonan has written. “You can’t buy courage and decency. You can’t rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring those things with him.”
Trump has brought other values, as today’s news conference again made clear.
One reporter asked about Sen. John McCain’s call that he more strongly defend National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster against the same extreme-right fringe that marched in Charlottesville.
“You mean Sen. McCain who voted against us” on health care? he shot back.
Another journalist asked whether Trump placed white supremacists and their counterprotesters “on the same moral plane.”
“I’m not putting anybody on a moral plane,” the president said.
