On the day that the Philippines president infamously called the U.S. president’s late mother a whore, President Obama responded in typical, unflappable fashion, directing his team to talk to their Philippine counterparts to see if a meeting would be “productive.”
But it got me wondering. In a similar situation, what would Donald do?
On the one hand, candidate Trump has seemed to indicate that no criticism will not be taken personally — witness his week-long, public feud with a Gold Star family who he claimed “viciously attacked” him. On the other hand, he has professed fondness for authoritarian strongmen such as Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein; the latter who apparently killed terrorists “so good.” (No matter that the alleged terrorists were simply members of his own country’s ethnic minority.)
Philippines President Duterte, who has bragged about the more than 2,000 extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers he has sanctioned since taking office a few short months ago, would almost certainly qualify as an object of Trump commendation.
Which begs the question: if Duterte called a hypothetical President Trump the son of a whore, would Trump’s admiration for bad boys trump his notoriously-thin skin? Or would we soon be nuking the Philippines?
Nancy Grossman
Leverett