Two months into his presidency and meeting with world leaders, there haven't been many aggressively negative responses directed at Donald Trump by world leaders, due to their effort to give him a chance to lead. As these months have passed, however, it's quite clear that the Trump administration is determined to take a hard stance on everything at the cost of creating tension. The White House's claim in March that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower phones over the last year, sent politicians into a frenzy to try and either help the Trump administration spin the accusation or use their powers to force him to prove it.
A reaction from British intelligence over a week ago evolved from the President's wiretapping conspiracy suggesting that the UK Surveillance Agency GCHQ was involved. GCHQ responded to the accusation in a statement saying, "recent allegations made by (Fox News) media commentator judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president-elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored," according to one report by the Guardian titled: "GCHQ dismisses 'utterly ridiculous' claim it helped wiretap Trump".
Peddling falsehoods
A more recent criticism came from former British ambassador to the United States Sir Peter Westmacott who said in an op-ed published by The Guardian, that the accusation against British intelligence "could damage close ties between the two countries.
The reason the Guardian takes his criticism seriously is that Westmacott was the British ambassador to the United States until January of this year. In the months since Donald Trump became president, there is no indication that the White House is going to try and stop peddling falsehoods. Although, it has been reported that the White House spoke with GCHQ after the President made the false accusation to apologized saying that they would not press the matter anymore.
Despite this, the opposition -- or at least some who feel their credibility has taken a hit -- have not had a problem sorting out "soft" targets such as Andrew Napolitano, who was "benched" by Fox News for making the statement. But Napolitano has apparently been creating other "fictions" as he has said that he's likely to be picked for a Supreme Court nomination by Trump according to Politico, even though judge Neil Gorsuch is already having hearings.
No one else has promoted Napolitano as an option. Napolitano has been saying since December that he was being considered and even his friends have told him that he shouldn't take Trump seriously. But with the Trump White House, there is always room for fictions to become reality as many people who have been considered not credible, inexperienced or even controversial have already been given positions of power just for being loyal to Donald Trump.
White House's credibility issue
After Republicans failed to pass their repeal law against the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they were considered "losers" by all sides for not being able to do away with something that they have been after for almost a decade.
President Trump did what he does best and turned the entire issue against the Democrats, who were not involved in the repeal effort saying that they were the losers and it was their responsibility now. While Democrats feel that the ACA does have some problems, it's not at the apocalyptic level that Republicans have been pitching, so the "threat" is strange. It's only the latest of fictions that Trump is pushing, the kind he was asked about this week in an interview with Time where he said he wasn't lying, he was creating his own reality. The writer of the article Michael Scherer said on Washington Week that Trump maneuvers facts as if he were negotiating and that facts don't matter because he knows what's going on. Most feel that the White House and its president have lost all credibility.
