* Who can forget that vicious rhetorical fusillade during the campaign that Donald Trump leveled against the George W. Bush Administration for its Mideast warmongering? Also, remember that no one was more hawkish than John Bolton, a key Bush adviser, who still, unconscionably, thinks the 2003 Iraqi invasion was the right call. And now he’s Trump’s national security adviser. And likely the last one to have his pre-tweet ear.
* Speaking of Bolton—John not Michael–sobering to recall that North Korea once called him “human scum” for his outspoken cynicism about NK motives. As a result, it vowed not to deal with him. But that was then and this is–not?
* Here’s a quote that really resonates at a time that Robert Mueller is going after the Trump Organization–and Trump has begun going after Mueller specifically. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets.” That was Donald Trump Jr. in 2008.
* As we know, President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Trans Pacific Partnership. It was part of candidate Trump’s anti-globalization, pep-rally rhetoric. Count on it being back in the news.
Recall that Trump has underscored–appropriately–that China has been an intellectual-property outlier. Ironically, a key focus of the TPP is intellectual property rights, data security and privacy. An international forum to hold China accountable would seem relevant. So much for relevance.
* Trump, as we’ve seen for too long a time, is less about building than branding. Whether a business or a country. Beyond embarrassing.