Not a Fake: WH Releases Menacing Letter Trump Sent Turkey's President - So Intense People Thought It Wasn't Real
President Donald J. Trump might as well be Muhammed Ali at this point. The man has mastered the rope-a-dope fighting style, and the establishment media and his political opponents still haven’t caught on.
Like “The Greatest” did inside the ring, Trump does inside the White House. He teases the media by making himself a target and watches them throw flurry after flurry of rhetorical punches — or in Jim Acosta’s case the effeminate hand-slapping favored by squabbling little girls and spoon-chested effetes.
Once they’ve expended all of their energy creating a narrative, straw-manning the president, and tattooing the most outlandish theories and claims to their collective foreheads, Trump throws a haymaker that lays them all out.
It has happened time and again — now to the point that it’s genuinely hard to pick out just once instance to highlight.
It’s Trump’s preferred strategy in dealing with the media. Well, it’s one of his preferred strategies. (Rush is right that Trump loves talking to the press near Marine One instead of the White House briefing room because near the presidential helicopter they get no time on camera and can hardly be heard.)
This time he chose to withdraw a handful of troops (reports vary, with The New York Times reporting 100-150) from northern Syria, knowing that stopping Turkey from establishing a buffer between its border and the Kurds was looking less and less likely.
Instead of risking American blood and treasure, Trump withdrew a small number of troops.
The media pounced. Accusations flew: Trump deserted our allies. No one will ever trust us again. Trump’s buddy Putin will fill the power vacuum.
Trump publicly warned Ankara that the U.S. would impose economic consequences if the Kurds were wiped out. The media mocked the president’s threat.
Turkey did move into Syria once Trump withdrew those troops, and as fighting escalated, Trump withdrew more troops totaling around 1,000.
Not content to let Turkey do whatever it was going to do, ABC ran alarming footage from the Turkey invasion front — only it wasn’t. It was from Kentucky. At a gun range.
Hours after apologizing for running the fake video, ABC ran a fake Trump quote, making the president sound incredibly insensitive about potential loss of life in the region.
Trump had roped the dopes. They were all in. Doomsday predictions. Fake videos. Fake quotes. They opened a Costco-sized can of recrimination against the president for every unpleasant truth he’d ever told about them.
And then Trump let loose with the haymaker.
On Wednesday, the White House released a letter Trump sent to Turkey’s President Racep Erdogan on Oct. 9, the contents of which can only be described as explosive.
It was so explosive, in fact, that Twitter’s banks overflowed with declarations that the letter simply had to be a fake. No president would write something like this to another world leader.
Twitter was wrong. Trump, in the space of four short paragraphs, told Erdogan that if he made a false move, Trump would “be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy.”
The letter, posted by Fox Business’ Trish Regan, went on to warn Erdogan that history “will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen.”
“Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool!” Trump cautioned.
EXCLUSIVE: I have obtained a copy of @realDonaldTrump’s letter to #Erdogan. @POTUS warns him to not “be a tough guy! Don’t be a fool!” Says he could destroy Turkey’s economy if #Syria is not resolved in a humane way. Details tonight at 8pm #TrishRegan #FoxBusiness pic.twitter.com/9BoSGlbRyt
— Trish Regan (@trish_regan) October 16, 2019
And as sure as Erdogan called Trump’s bluff, Trump revealed it wasn’t a bluff at all, ordering a halt to trade negotiations with Ankara, and raising a 50% tariff on U.S. steel imports from Turkey.
The media wanted so badly for Trump to betray the Kurds and let Turkey waltz into Syria without paying a price.
Trump, however, had no intention of that. He knew that while America (rightly) has no stomach for sacrificing more servicemen in the sands of the Middle East, the U.S. controls massive economic levers — levers capable of crushing most other nations, including Turkey. And steel prices are, undoubtedly, just the start.
While higher import prices for the U.S. are no good, they’re a lot better than filling VA beds and families receiving condolence letters from commanding officers and the White House.
Trump’s incredible letter shows two things.
First, the president fully intends to continue engaging the world in such a way that despots are deincentivized from needlessly shedding blood, but he won’t necessarily risk American blood to do so.
Second, the president is following in the footsteps of Ronald Reagan. Trump’s letter is a cowboy letter, in some ways channeling Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday.
Holliday wasn’t just a cowboy. He was smart, cunning, confident and cocky — a description that fits Trump well. Holliday was fond of telling those who wanted to fight him, “I’m your huckleberry,” signalling that if they wanted to play for blood, he was willing to take them on.
Reagan was doubtless a cowboy. The Iranians acknowledged that on his first inauguration day. Trump is a cowboy too, a sort of Doc Holliday 2.0. And Turkey’s Racep Erdogan is learning the hard way that Trump is, and always will be, the bad guys’ huckleberry.
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