When it comes to his treatment of others, it’s difficult to say the president meets Cicero’s criteria. In fact, Trump is better described as “ruthless” than “just.” This is not solely my assessment. It’s his own self-perception. “When someone attacks me, I always attack back… except 100x more,” he tweeted in 2012, describing his attitude of unequal retribution as “a way of life.” Trump echoed the sentiment in his book The Art of the Deal, writing that when he believes he is being treated unfairly, “my general attitude, all my life, has been to fight back very hard.”
Trump’s hit-hard philosophy is not reserved for those who have legitimately wronged him. The president picks fights indiscriminately. The volume of examples is breathtaking. Look no further than his Twitter account on any given week, or a short digest of the news. One moment he might be attacking soccer star Megan Rapinoe, and the next he is mocking the prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen. Other times, he is assailing his own top officials.
The attacks on his hand-picked chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, are a recurring example. Trump regularly launches unprovoked broadsides against Powell and his independent agency, which the president is frustrated that he doesn’t control. In separate Twitter outbursts, Trump suggested the Federal Reserve chairman “cannot ‘mentally’ keep up” with central banks in other countries and asked followers which was a “bigger enemy” of the United States, Powell or China’s dictator? All of this because Powell’s agency has been candid about economic indicators that show the president’s policies have been risky.
Giving nicknames to his targets is a favored tactic, too, allowing the president to turn attacks into instant memes. He road tests the insulting monikers with friends and is elated he has a new one to give to Dan, the social media aide. There’s Da Nang Dick (Senator Dick Blumenthal), Pocahontas (Senator Elizabeth Warren), Low Energy Jeb (former governor Jeb Bush), Slimeball (Jim Comey), MS-13 Lover (Speaker Nancy Pelosi), Dumb as a Rock Mika (MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski), the Dumbest Man on Television (CNN’s Don Lemon), and so on. Often Trump hones in on physical features, using names like Fat Jerry (Representative Jerry Nadler), Little Marco (Senator Marco Rubio), and Dumbo (for his former Secret Service director). Other acid-tongued presidents have had words for people they didn’t like, but I can’t think of any who regularly went out of their way to humiliate people with childish nicknames. If there is any silver lining, its that he typically keeps the R-rated ones within the West Wing.
There are no two ways about it. Trump is a bully. By intimidating others, he believes he can get what he wants, not what is fair. It’s a philosophy he brags about. He regales staff with stories about filing meritless claims in court against other companies in order to coerce them to back down or to get a better deal. That’s how you get them to do what you want. During the 2016 campaign, journalist Bob Woodward asked Trump about President Obama’s view that “real power means you can get what you want without exerting violence.” In his response, Trump made a revealing confession: “Real power is through respect. Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word, fear.”
President Trump shows no mercy. Political opponents are wartime opponents, and there should be no clemency. Trump remains fixated on his previous presidential rival years into his tenure, continuously disparaging and demeaning her. It might be a different situation if he expected to face off again with Hillary Clinton, yet she appears to be finished with public office. Don’t get me wrong. No one in the Trump White House is a fan of Hillary Clinton, but we started to find the president’s chronic animosity toward her to be a little weird. He has tweeted about Clinton hundreds of times since taking office. He has even flirted with using the powers of his office to investigate and prosecute her, as we will discuss. Electoral defeat is not enough; Donald Trump wants total defeat of his opponents.
Cicero said “justice” is to be measured by whether someone keeps promises, too. Sadly, Trump’s past is rife with allegations of stiffed contractors, unpaid employees, broken agreements, and more. An investigation by USA Today found he’d been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the span of three decades, many of which included claims by individuals who said he and his companies failed to pay them. His businesses also received repeated citations from the government for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act and failing to pay overtime or minimum wage.
The trail of broken contracts runs parallel to another Trump trait, his lack of generosity. Kindness and liberality are part of Cicero’s justice checklist, but they are not a part of Trump’s character. His philanthropic history is full of empty words and questionable practices. The president’s surrogates claim he has given away “tens of millions” to charity over his career, yet investigations by journalists have found the cash donations to be far less than he boasts.
Most of Trump’s charitable giving was apparently done by the Trump Foundation. Rather than fund it himself, the businessman reportedly used outside donors to fill the foundation’s coffers, allowing him to write checks with his name on them without diminishing his own wealth. This is not unheard-of. Other personal foundations are boosted by outside donations. But in December 2018, the foundation was forced to dissolve after a state investigation in New York accused it of “a shocking pattern of illegality,” including “functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Trump’s business and political interests.” In one instance, he used ten thousand dollars in money from his charity to buy a six-foot oil portrait of himself. So much for the spirit of giving. That’s not to say Trump doesn’t donate his own money. He’s made a big show within the White House of his decision to forego the $400,000 presidential salary, periodically giving away his paychecks in grand fashion to highlight his magnanimity. Whether it’s at the Department of Transportation or the Surgeon General’s Office, he brags about it on Twitter and in person. Trump has gone as far as to insist recipients stage photo ops with the checks—prominently featuring his name, signed in a big Sharpie—to show their gratitude. I don’t recall other presidents calling attention to their generosity like this so regularly. You should see the awkward reaction from agency heads who realize they are expected to humbly exalt the president when he throws pocket change their way, after burning through millions in their budgets in ways they wouldn’t have recommended under any other president. As one joked to me, at least it’s a way for him to pay the taxes he probably owes the American people.
Together, these examples paint a clear picture. Donald Trump is not a paragon of justice. He is not worried about maintaining “good fellowship” with people, treating others fairly, keeping his promises, or demonstrating generosity. While he has sought to cultivate the image of an unselfish billionaire, he is not. Many of us who’ve joined his administration recognize he is a vindictive and self-promoting person, one who spends inordinate time attacking others to advance his interests. Those qualities translate into governing. As a result, we have all learned the hard way that the president’s modus operandi emphasizes combat over peacemaking, bullying over negotiating, malice over clemency, and recognition over true generosity. In sum, he is the portrait of an unjust man.
The President’s Courage
Cicero says courage is the “virtue which champions the cause of right.” The president believes he is the champion of great, righteous causes. He carries the banner on any number of public issues with his fight-to-win style. A courageous person takes both credit and blame when they are the leader, yet Trump refuses to do the latter. When his team loses, Donald Trump is nowhere to be seen. That’s when he shows his true colors. Look at any legislative fight the administration has had with Congress. If we were on the side that failed, the president did everything to avoid blame for fear of being labeled “the loser.”