Donald Trump Is An American Embarrassment
By
Leonard Zwelling
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/16/opinion/iran-us-war-trump-cease-fire.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/15/opinion/ufc-freedom-250-fight.html
Those of my readers who still support President Trump and/or who are convinced I suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome need to reflect on the events surrounding the president’s 80th birthday on June 14.
Perhaps even more than Joe Biden, Trump has become an American embarrassment. Biden was just in cognitive decline. He made no decisions that were all that embarrassing other than the one to run again. Joe Biden had only one job to do in 2020. That was to defeat Donald Trump. He did that. In 2022 he should have said that he was a one-term president and the Democrats should have had a real primary to choose their nominee.
Instead, Biden made a fool of himself. I blame his wife for not overturning the decision for him to run again. She should have known better. I believe she did know better. She just didn’t care about the well-being of the country. She just liked the perks of living in the White House. She is a true American elitist and a terrible example for young women everywhere. Jill Biden alone was a reason for Joe Biden not to run again.
By contrast, Mr. Trump seems to have his faculties largely intact even as he drifts off to sleep at meetings. When he speaks, he makes sense about half of the time—far more than Biden did at the debate that led to his undoing. Admittedly, Trump has the vocabulary of a fifth grader, but many fifth graders make more sense than most members of Congress, so Trump is in good company when he rambles on.
So, Trump has no excuse for being such a terrible stain on American history which he is destined to be, if for no other reasons than the birthday cage match on the White House lawn and the Iran memorandum of understanding (MOU) which solidifies the fact that the United States is in worse shape now than prior to the war and that Trump’s “deal” is far worse than Obama’s was. In essence, at every step at which Mr. Trump could have strengthened our position in the Middle East, he chose to weaken it going so far as to lose a war to Iran.
He will really hate that when the newspapers and non-Fox media make the point that he is a worse deal maker than his arch enemy.
As these two editorials from The New York Times on June 16 by Bret Stephens and Michelle Goldberg make clear, Trump has managed to lower the already low standards we have set for presidents since George H. W. Bush left office (January, 1993). Yes, it has been that long since we have had a president worthy of our admiration.
Let’s start with the cage match. No, I can’t say that I watched it and yes, I understand that many young American males find these bouts entertaining. However, cockfighting was popular once in America. In fact, Goldberg notes that the late, great Senator John McCain called U.F.C. fighting “human cockfighting.”
It is bad enough that the most popular of American sports is reminiscent of gladiatorial combat. That would be NFL football. But now we have the spectacle of a presidentially-sanctioned brawl on the White House lawn right near the destroyed East Wing. I guess this mirrors the Trump-sanctioned storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump clearly has no respect for the edifices that have come to be emblematic of our country.
I expect that the incidence of serious brain disorders is higher in NFL players than it was in Roman gladiators. But, like the NFL, UFC is barbaric enough and to have it be the centerpiece of the president’s birthday celebration on Flag Day on the White House south lawn is a national embarrassment.
I suspect though that history will find the adventurism of America and Israel attacking Iran almost four months ago and gaining nothing for the effort except worldwide sky-high gas prices, will be more than the footnote in the history books that the UFC matches are likely to be.
At this time, it appears that the MOU will open the Strait of Hormuz (or not) and likely lower gas prices (maybe) and that Iran will gain billions in reparation money as well as be returned assets frozen by the US (for sure). There is no nuclear deal. There is no reining in of the Iranian proxies around Israel. The ayatollahs are still in charge in Iran. The Revolutionary Guard is intact. Iran still has many missiles and drones. The Iranian people are still being subjugated by theocratic dictators.
The United States gained nothing in this war. In fact, we are worse off than when we started it and far worse off than we were when the Obama agreement was in place. Mr. Trump has managed to reproduce the multi-year folly of American adventurism that was the Vietnam War in just four months in the Middle East. Nice going, Don!
So, all of you Trumpers out there and all of you psychiatric diagnosticians that claim I have Trump Derangement Syndrome, please do write in and tell me why we are better off as a country with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. I can’t wait to read what you say.
Sure, the southern border is intact and the Europeans are spending more on defense. Trump did that in the first three months. But since then…
I believe that Mr. Trump will join the ranks of Jimmy Carter, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan. These are the presidents best forgotten. Trump is a nightmare from which we will hopefully awaken intact as a country. Alas, we are still a few years away, unless Trump is not quite as healthy as he claims to be. What is most unhealthy is the American relationship with the rest of the world. Both Israel and the United States have become pariah nations. I am quite sure no one in this country voted for that in 2016 or in 2024.
