Jake Tapper examines Trump’s first week, spent settling into the Oval Office, which he shares with portraits of his predecessors, who tell us about life in the White House through the magic of animation. We catch up with Trump while he is hanging portraits of some former Presidents, but it is Andrew Jackson with whom Trump feels a special kinship. Trump claims “a lot of people compare Andrew Jackson to the campaign of Trump.” Is my hearing going, or did he say ‘the campaign of Trump’ not the Presidency of Trump? If so, Trump’s slip is in keeping with his idea that the next four years are to be a continuation of his campaign, filled with rallies, hats and signs filled with adoration. Perhaps that is why he cannot move forward until we all say he had the very biggest crowd size ever (Dear Leader).
According to Trapper, not all Presidents have been as cozy in the Oval Office, Reagan compared it to being ‘a bird in a gilded cage.’ Most interesting I think, was Nixon, who according to Woodward and Bernstein, actually talked to the portraits, and while Jake shares some of Nixon’s conversation, we’ll never know whether they ever answered him.
While this is the first I’d heard of Trump’s similarity to Andrew Jackson, many have compared him to Richard Nixon. Trump would do well to listen to the words of one of the most vindictive men to ever sit in his new office: “Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”