How can Trump be so stupid?

This week has been the lowest point of Trump's presidency so far

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Image courtesy REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

It was the hardest thing to mess up. President Trump, responding to an act of white supremacist domestic terrorism, in which one American was killed and at least 19 others were injured, should have condemned the violence and those responsible for it in the strongest possible terms. He should have praised the civil rights investigation being launched at the behest of his erstwhile ally Attorney General Jeff Sessions and offered his prayers — never mind the thoughts — for the victims, their families, and everyone else involved.

Stark, simple, straightforward, perhaps cliché-ridden, but none the worse for it: It is the kind of things presidents unfortunately have to do all the time. On a scale of "breathing" to "passing universal health-care the same day you announce in immaculate Classical Persian the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula," it was somewhere near the "2 + 2 = 4" level of difficulty.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.