David Cay Johnston: Trump Is Determined to Provoke War to Draw Focus From Racist and Erratic Behavior
Thursday, January 18, 2018
By Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh, Democracy Now! | Video Interview
SNIPPET:
AMY GOODMAN: Well, David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, joins us here in our studio, out this week with his new book. It's called It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, David. You have been covering Donald Trump for over 30 years. You heard what he had to say about it: Look where you are, and look where he is today. But you've also been covering President Trump through this first year. Can you talk about, as we move into the first anniversary of his inauguration, what has surprised you most, since this is a man you have known back to his early days as a developer going bankrupt in New York?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, Donald hasn't, frankly, done anything that's surprised me. And I said, and there's lots of video of me saying, before the election, he would be increasingly erratic, his racism would come out, that he would try to find an excuse to use nuclear weapons, because during the campaign, he said, "I'm very good at war. I know more about ISIS than the generals. And of course we're going to use nukes." And, lo and behold, last week, the news breaks that they are loosening up the rules on the use of tactical nuclear weapons -- that is, a nuclear weapon that will take out a block, not a city -- and possibly even authorizing their use for a cyberattack. He's looking for --
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this is amazing. I mean, just to reiterate this --
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Oh, it is.
AMY GOODMAN: -- using nuclear weapon attack for a cyberattack.
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Right. And hopefully, the military will not follow an order to do this. But clearly, he is determined, if he can figure out how to do it, to provoke a war. After all, what helps strengthen your position if you're a dictator-in-waiting, which is what Donald is, but some kind of incident that will stir the public and focus people away from his crazy, racist, uninformed, ignorant behavior?
Full interview and transcript:http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43264-david-cay-johnston-trump-is-determined-to-provoke-war-to-draw-focus-from-racist-erratic-behavior