Trump puts nation in "peril" to bask in undeserved media afterglow

In case you missed it, Donald Trump spent weeks warning that his Muslim ban was all that stood between the United States and a flood of terrorists, first as a way of explaining why his administration offered zero notice to affected federal agencies, and then as part of his campaign against the 48 (and counting) courts that have ruled against the unconstitutional ban.

If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the "bad" would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad "dudes" out there!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2017

Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017

Now, there has been yet another delay in replacing the original order, but despite his repeated insistence that the absence of such a ban imperils our country’s citizens, this delay comes from Trump himself.

Already proven a liar by waiting three weeks since the original order was struck down, Trump had planned to sign the revised Muslim ban the same day as his first address to Congress, but according to an administration official, has delayed that order because he does not want to disturb the warm media afterglow from his speech:

A senior administration official told me that, you know, they had just decided to delay signing the new executive order, which would be the revised travel ban. That was scheduled to be signed today. But following all of this positive reception that the speech got, and the overwhelmingly positive coverage that we’ve seen, you know, they’ve decided maybe it’s best not to cut into that. And they also want to give the executive order its own moment, is what this official told me.

To be clear, Trump’s Muslim ban never actually had anything to do with national security — it was about appeasing his xenophobic base, and his already weeks-log delay in implementing a new executive order proves that. This bit of reporting further serves to illustrate Trump’s attenuation to his media coverage, which is also not news.

What is news is that despite all the lying in his speech, and despite this craven admission that Trump is, by his own standards, imperiling our national security in order to enjoy the undeserved praise that speech is receiving, our media continue to give it to him. This was not some administration official going rogue — this was messaging, and the message is that Trump does not care about national security, and does not care who knows it.

If the past 24 hours are any indication, that audacity will continue to be rewarded, at least by our flawed national media. But the rest of us are watching, and we see right through it.