LETTER: Donald Trump, the legend?

In his Tuesday op-ed, syndicated columnist Rich Lowry believes that the “legend of Donald Trump continues to grow” based on the president’s June 22 decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. But any such claims bring to mind the adage: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

Trump-2 has proven you can fool too many of the people too often. In foreign affairs, however, Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and the Iran-Israel war present clear and convincing evidence why Mr. Trump’s skills as a showman have not changed the mathematics of the adage.

Mr. Trump’s statements to the press on June 24 are self-explanatory: “I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either. We basically have two countries … they don’t know what the (expletive) they’re doing!”

The shoe is now on the other foot given Mr. Trump’s admonitions to Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on Feb. 28: “You’re not in a good position; you don’t have the cards right now; you’re gambling with World War III.”

Four U.S. presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. On display in South Dakota at Mount Rushmore are huge carvings of the faces of four U.S. presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

My advice to the president would be to borrow from the tariff mistake playbook and hit the pause button on boastful empty bravado. And in keeping with Mr. Lowry’s “legend” theme, as things stand, it is frightening to imagine Mr. Trump joining either foursome.