Donald Trump just ridiculously ripped off President Obama again
For as much time as Donald Trump spends dishonestly attacking President Obama and trying to tear down his biggest accomplishments out of spite, Trump has also had some notable instances of simply copycatting Obama’s words and ideas. Today Trump ripped off Obama in particularly weird fashion.
Just hours before the Super Bowl kickoff, Donald Trump told CBS Face The Nation today that he would have a hard time with his son Barron playing football, due to the health risks involved. This was an odd remark considering that A) he almost never publicly acknowledges Barron’s existence one way or the other, and B) he’s frequently slammed the NFL for recent rule changes that he feels have made the game too “soft” in the name of player safety. In other words, Trump obviously doesn’t believe what he just said today. But if this weren’t coming from a bloodthirsty lunatic like Trump, we’d probably find it reasonable in general for the President of the United States to express hesitation about his son playing football. In fact we’ve heard it before.
Back in late January of 2014, on the eve of the Super Bowl, President Obama revealed in a New Yorker interview that if he had a son, he’d have hesitation about his son playing football. It’s not as if Trump copied Obama’s exact words on the matter; he didn’t. The reason we’re accusing Trump of ripping Obama off in this regard is that Trump is suddenly taking the same oddly specific stance that Obama once did, even though based on Trump’s own consistent remarks on this, he clearly does not believe it.
This leads us to the question of why Donald Trump would choose to rip off this particular Obama position just before the Super Bowl. Trump did spend the interview trying to “sound reasonable” for once, so perhaps his handlers figured the best way to do that was to arm him with some Obama-like positions. Or maybe Trump asked his handlers for a way to hurt the NFL just before its big game, and this was what they came up with. In any case, by tomorrow, Trump will probably be back to accusing the NFL of being too soft.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report