Only 12 percent of Irish people surveyed believe that Donald Trump will be good for Ireland and will support him. I’m surprised the number is that high.
I think every European country feels the way Ireland does. Russia alone has praised Trump and cheered him on to victory. There seems every opportunity to question why that would be the case.
Trump increasingly appears unhinged to Europeans. Picking a fight with China over Taiwan, refusing intelligence briefings, accusing the CIA of playing politics with the issue of Russia hacking the election -- this sounds like a man who has no clue how to exercise power, or has some divine ability to do so that we mere mortals cannot ascertain yet.
The notion of skipping the daily intelligence briefing seems particularly dumb and counter productive. CIA operatives around the world risk their lives to secure the information he so blithely dismisses.
We have no idea how many terrorist incidents in the homeland were avoided by their covert work. It is absolutely critical the commander-in-chief is up to the minute in terms of key information.
We now know President George W. Bush utterly underestimated the Osama bin Laden threat that the daily intelligence briefing made clear reference to, but that he and others ignored. We don't need to remind ourselves of the outcome of that intelligence failure. We are dicing with death here.
A president who fails to be informed of the latest intelligence is playing Russian roulette with American lives and is, frankly, inexcusable. I predict it will be a disastrous step.
ISIS and other terrorist groups will be only too glad to bait Trump into some ill-considered action as soon as he takes office. I believe millions who voted for him will come to regret their actions.
What plots and armed actions will Trump miss after deciding that Mike Pence can substitute for him in those briefings?
The first task of a president should be to keep America safe. One of the ways he can help achieve that is to arm himself with the best intelligence available.
By refusing to do so, Trump is granting the enemy the real opportunity to outfox and out-think him. He clearly considers himself the smartest guy on Earth, but he may well find out quickly how little he knows.
Trump shouldn't lose sight that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost three million, and he has no mandate other than the ridiculously outmoded Electoral College.
What is most worrying is that he does not know what he doesn't know, and will not cede to experts in the field their ability to read the terrorist threat.
The CIA discovered through careful intelligence that Russia had interfered in America’s election. Trump should be all over that, ready on his first day in office to send a clear signal to Vladimir Putin that the world will be watching him closely.
Instead, Trump blamed the CIA and said they had a partisan agenda.
As it turns out, I recently interviewed the CIA chief John Brennan and can report it is highly unlikely he would be a shill for anyone. He strikes one as the epitome of the Joe Friday “just the facts” school of intelligence gathering.
Brennan has served both Republican and Democratic administrations which surely indicates he's focused on his job, not who is occupying power.
Irish people, Europeans and Americans are right to be worried about Trump. Domestically there are enough checks and balances, but in terms of foreign policy Trump can essentially act on his own.
We can only hope he does not rise to the bait when bad actors like North Korea or ISIS decide to test him. This is the future of the planet we are talking about here, not firing someone on Celebrity Apprentice.
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