The Washington Post Editorial Board Just Sat Down With Donald Trump. It Didn’t Go Well.

“Electing him will still be a radical risk.” –Washington Post Editorial Board

Donald Trump had a meeting with the editorial board of the Washington Post Monday evening. It didn’t go well. Here’s what the editors had to say afterward.

“We met with Donald Trump. Electing him will still be a radical risk.”

That was just the headline.

“Unfortunately, the visit provided no reassurance regarding Mr. Trump’s fitness for the presidency,” the Editorial Board writes.

“I’m not a radical person,” he told us as he was leaving. But his answers left little doubt how radical a risk the nation would be taking in entrusting the White House to him.

They also noted Trump’s “breezy willingness to ignore facts and evidence.”

Are there racial disparities in law enforcement? “I’ve read where there are and I’ve read where there aren’t,” Mr. Trump said. “I mean, I’ve read both. And, you know, I have no opinion on that.” Global warming? “I am not a great believer in man-made climate change,” he said.

They observed that “no one can match the chasm between his expansive goals and the absence of proposals to achieve them.”

He would remake the nation’s libel laws, but how, given Supreme Court jurisprudence on the First Amendment? “I’d have to get my lawyers in to tell you,” he said. How could he implement a ban on non-citizen Muslims entering the country? “Well look, there’s many exceptions,” he said. “There’s many — everything, you’re going to go through a process.”

And they mocked him.

His answer to racial disparity and urban poverty is to create jobs. But how? “Economic zones,” “incentives” and improving the “spirit” of inner-city residents. “You have to start by giving them hope and giving them spirit, and that has not taken place,” Mr. Trump said. How would he push back against Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea? “We have to be unpredictable,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re totally predictable. And predictable is bad.”

The Editorial Board concluded Trump is “empty policy basket” who “makes almost impossible the kind of substantive debate on which democracies depend.” And they slammed his “lack of clarity” as “dangerous.” 

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license