Trump's traits are far from presidential – but are we even surprised?

The National

27-07-2025

Can't speak for other Scots, but it sure isn't what I expect of Scotland's head of a would-be state. It might have been expected were we talking about almost any other US president, but Donald Trump has surely forfeited any right to demand respect or the normal courtesies of diplomatic life.
Do we really want to see images of a warm handshake between the First Minister of Scotland and this shyster? Every single report from Trump's first term speaks of total chaos orchestrated by a monstrous ego. All that's changed is that this time he's surrounded by spineless sycophants.
The best we can hope for now is that our FM will not use the meeting to stage some form of Keir Starmer tribute act; to flatter and fawn over this notoriously thin skinned, convicted felon. Not content with stuffing the White House with super obedient loyalists, Trump's systematically approved the firing of scores of people whose principal job was to protect the American people.
READ MORE: Trump International golf tournament to receive £180k from Scottish Government
To take an instance not at all at random, the man who was flown down to Florida to question Ghislaine Maxwell, erstwhile fixer for the late Jeffrey Epstein, technically represents the Justice Department as deputy attorney general, but actually was one of Trump's principal defence lawyers! The very same Justice Department which already holds the Epstein files. Or so they said, until Trump decided they didn't actually exist.
Since even the MAGA base has been publicly querying their president's links to the man jailed for trafficking underage women, Trump now flails around looking for any and all distractions including accusing ex-President Barack Obama of treason.
Obama has long been a fixation for Trump; maybe because he represented everything Trump doesn't. Maybe because Obama once told a very public joke at Trump's expense at the Correspondents' annual dinner.
(Image: Julia Demaree Nikhinson, via REUTERS)
Trump ran a 'birther' campaign alleging, quite untruthfully, that Obama had been born abroad and was therefore not eligible to stand for president. In fact, President Obama was born in Hawaii to an 18-year-old American mum. His dad was Kenyan.
Trump's latest wheeze is to take the longstanding right from anyone born in America to be an American. He could do worse than start that nonsense with his first-born adult children, all of whom first saw life before their mother was naturalised.
You will recall that candidate Trump accused Obama of likely to spend his presidency playing golf too often!
In reality, the American taxpayer has just forked out some $23 million to fly the current president to Florida to play golf at his own resort. The resort where his security detail are expected to stay at enhanced rates. He goes there on Air Force One – not a cheap option when you consider that a following plane houses his bulletproof cars. This doesn't include the quarter of a million dollars the local authorities spend on presidential protection every time.
The White House tells us that Trump plans to discuss the brilliant trade deal he concluded with Keir Starmer when the men meet on Monday. That would be the deal which will currently cost Scottish exporters a 10% tariff on goods such as whisky and salmon. Small wonder the US president keeps citing this deal as exceptional.
Back home he's known as the TACO president, as in Trump always chickens out. Though woe betide any journalist who has the temerity to raise this. One did the other day and was duly monstered.
The facts tell a different story; what seems to be the presidential modus operandi is that he thinks of a tariff number and doubles it. Then when he abruptly reduces the initial figure, the countries involved are meant to fall at his feet in gratitude.
He even managed to impose tariffs on one trading 'partner' where no alleged deficit existed. It was widely thought that the startling imposition on Brazil had rather more to do with Trump's right-wing pal and former president Jair Bolsonaro facing jail. Which suggests that tariffs are now being deployed as political weaponry.
Doubtless, the argument will be made that realpolitik demands that you deal with whomsoever is the elected leader of America. This would hold good if the elected person had not attracted wholesale buyers' regret. If his poll ratings were not going swiftly south, except in his own head. If his behaviour indicated a scintilla of understanding how a president should behave and speak. If he hadn't trashed all his supposed allies whilst openly admiring authoritarian dictators.
He is a proven crook and serial cheat. Ask any of the traders he hired but failed to pay. Ask any of the women he used as temporary playthings. Ask just about anyone with the misfortune to have had dealings with him.
He actually encouraged the very conspiracy theories of which he's now being accused. One of them suggested Hillary Clinton was part of a Democratic paedophile ring operating out of a basement pizza parlour.
The premises turned out not even to possess a basement. Does none of that count for anything? Does none of that underline that this is a man with whom we should not be seen doing business.
It certainly does for Joseph DeLappe, the American who set up a stall in Aberdeen at lunchtime on Friday which featured an American flag with the legend 'SORRY' stitched along the front.
He says he did it in order to offer an apology for what his president has done, and what his country has become. Something tells me Trump will not find time to drop by.
The actor David Tennant has just released a short video where he alleges Trump has said he's looking forward to going to Scotland because people love him there. Cue Tennant saying: 'On behalf of the Scottish nation, no we effing don't!' You suspect Mr Tennant has more of a finger on the national pulse than those advising the First Minister.
The very fact of his coming here to promote his own commercial interests should have rung loud alarm bells. Like most of his activities, it's the wrong kind of first for a White House resident. Then again, before the ink was dry on his many executive orders, he had already launched his own crypto currency, swiftly followed by another promoted by his current wife. If you might be wondering 'has he no shame?', the answer is NO.
No shame, no dignity, no class, no clue about decency. He cares about golf, certainly. Which is why he's here to open yet another course and doubtless to whinge about how the wind turbine off the north east coast spoil the view. Let's hope the FM suffers from selective deafness at that point.
And just how will the man who promised at every rally, and in his acceptance speech, to 'drill, baby, drill' explain his fossil fuel enthusiasms to an administration which hardly shares his perspective.
Infamously he is a climate change denier – even as his own country is ravaged by floods and wild fires. He suggested the fires in California – a Democratic state – were caused by the failure to clear the ground of forest debris. He roundly denied the failure to warn about the devastating floods and flash floods in half a dozen states had anything whatsoever to do with his arranging for the dismissal of weather experts.
That's another Trump trait – the refusal to accept blame for anything anywhere. If he is in the market for a Scottish motto, how about: 'It wisnae me!'