Eric Metaxas Claims Trump Spoke Hyperbolically About Having Total Authority

Yesterday, Donald Trump told reporters in the daily Coronavirus briefing that the president has total authority to open the states for business. Listen:

Trump sure sounded like he meant all of that to me. However, one of his court evangelical apologists said he was “speaking hyperbolically.”

Greg Thornbury disagreed and they continued their conversation. However, it is uncanny to me how anyone could watch those exchanges and think Trump did not take himself seriously. In fact, today he tweeted this:

I don’t actually fear Trump being able to take over as a dictator in certain respects. However, he did stonewall the Congressional investigation into Ukraine and Robert Mueller’s investigation as well. He got away with ignoring Congressional oversight. He seems to believe he has this power and apparently wants to use it.

I know it has been asked before, but can you imagine the gnashing of teeth from conservatives if Obama said something like this?

35 thoughts on “Eric Metaxas Claims Trump Spoke Hyperbolically About Having Total Authority”

  4. the more I think about Trump’s behaviour here, the less I think it is an issue of his meglomania and more about his narcissism.

    A month ago when there was talk about a nationwide shutdown at the federal level, Trump was saying it was something for the governors (states) to decide. I.e. Trump didn’t want to be blamed for shutting down the economy. Now that the focus is shifting to restarting the economy, Trump wants to be the “hero” who saved the economy.

    Like as a kid, when you had to get a shot. Trump doesn’t want to be the “mean man” who gave you the shot, he wants to be the guy who gives you the lollipop afterwards. Apparently, Trump thinks his supporters aren’t mature enough to realize it is the shot that actually helped them, not the lollipop.

    1. I knew this was trumps strategy, I didn’t think Kusner would be stupid enough to actually admit it:

      He (Kushner) went on: “But the President also is very smart politically with the way he did that fight with the governors to basically say, no, no, no, no, I own the opening. Because again, the opening is going to be very popular. People want this country open. But if it opens in the wrong way, the question will be, did the governors follow the guidelines we set out or not?”

  5. We were told here by a lawyer “three years of law school and 30 years as a practicing attorney and judge” that this falls under the commerce clause of the Constitution because it is commerce between the states. He argued that that was the rationale for why a national order could shut it down (and should, in this lawyer’s view) and that would also be the rationale for why it could be opened back up.

    I disagreed with him, but he assured me he was correct. I wonder if he stands by that now that Trump has switched sides.

    That’s the irony: Many people argued that Trump did have national power to order this. Now that Trump has claimed that power they have suddenly switched sides.

  6. Trump is a wanna-be dictator. He’s constantly testing to see what he can get away with, while his enablers pass it off as “joking” or “hyperbole” when there’s pushback. He’d LOVE to have all the powers that he claims, just as his “friends” ( for which read “people he can use, who use him for their own ends”) Putin, Kim, and MBS have. Eric Metaxas is giving Trump too much credit for intelligence, and too little for ambition.

    1. About as funny as like telling rape jokes to a crowd of abused women…

      There is no “just kidding” excuse from the President of America when people are dying in the thousands every day, and millions are suffering great personal and economic hardship in our effort to save lives. The man is a disgrace as every level, and so are his sycophants like you and Metaxas.

        2. Did you not hear? People are dying in the thousands every day and it’s still getting worse — almost 5,000 deaths recorded just yesterday, every one of them a personal tragedy. I have a nephew who has been bedridden for a week from the virus.

          Not one president in living memory (and I’m not young) would be cracking jokes in public at a time like this, at anyone’s expense. Are you so lost that you cannot even understand how a national leader is supposed to act in a national crisis anymore? Or are you just a pathetic swamp-dwelling troll like Trump?

    2. About as funny as like telling rape jokes to a crowd of abused women…

      There is no “just kidding” excuse from the President of America when people are dying in the thousands every day, and millions are suffering great personal and economic hardship in our effort to save lives. The man is a disgrace as every level, and so are his sycophants like you and Metaxas.

    3. No, I doubt anyone missed the “humor” in Trump’s tweet. However, you seem to have missed the veiled threats.

  8. Metaxas is misinformed and or lying. The Reproductive Act signed by Gov. Cuomo does not specify allowing abortion in the ninth month of pregnancy. It is apparent the only way these Trump supporters feel they can effectively support their Autocrat in training is by falsehood and conspiracy theory.
    When I say autocrat in training – I joke of course- but sometimes I do wonder when Putin will give Donnie his diploma for graduating from Vlad The Invader’s School For Dictators.

    1. Mextaxas is lying about the Reproductive Act. Lying for Jesus (Republican) is acceptable in the Lord’s sight, when it is about abortion.

  9. It may be that Trump is creating a hostage to fortune here, rather as he did when he proclaimed that social distancing would be relaxed by Easter: he risks showing his powerlessness against Nature (and indeed against the decentralized nature of so much of the government in the good ol’ United States)! And perhaps it would be useful for that to be more obvious to more people in an election year …

    1. This is what’s so concerning. With these daily briefings Trump’s ignorance and arrogance are impossible to ignore. I notice we’re not seeing his congressional lackeys leaping to defend him as they did before. It is impossible to watch these sessions and then sing his praises.

      Doubtless they’d say they’re “sheltering in place” and “now is not the time”, but the truth is they can’t defend him in real time without looking like the buffoons they’ve become.

      1. I hope it’s true that the more one sees of Trump, the less one likes him, even among his followers. Watching him, it’s hard to escape the realization that he knows absolutely nothing about what he’s blathering on about, and that his proposals are dangerous. Doing what he wants done has already killed people, and will kill more if it continues.

  10. If there’s one thing that has been made clear by the past several years, it’s that conservatives in actuality have no principles. Only when a Democrat is in office do they care about separation of powers and legal and fiscal boundaries. When they are in office, anything goes.

    That’s not principles – that’s raw worship of power for its own sake.

  11. If there’s one thing that has been made clear by the past several years, it’s that conservatives in actuality have no principles. Only when a Democrat is in office do they care about separation of powers and legal and fiscal boundaries. When they are in office, anything goes.

    That’s not principles – that’s raw worship of power for its own sake.

  12. ” especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain.”

    this comment is far more concerning to me than his nonsensical “total authority.” He is threatening governors with the federal aid for the pandemic.

  13. Metaxas is parroting Q conspiracy followers. Like them he blinds himself to Trump’s overtly obvious character flaws, in favor of becoming an apologist for Trump’s supposed superior intellect.

    1. If Metaxas thinks thinks Trump has a superior intellect, then he can’t have much of an intellect himself.

      It really is a kind of madness.

  14. How can Trump speak hyperbolically about the Constitution? In order to engage in hyperbole, which is to say to engage in exaggeration, you have to know what it is you’re exaggerating. And Donald Trump has never, and I mean never, demonstrated the slightest familiarity with, let alone understanding of, the Constitution.

    He previously has cited Article II as granting him awesome powers without betraying any actual knowledge of its provisions, leading one to conclude that he has heard his lawyers discuss it as a way to justify whatever boneheaded scheme he was up to at the time. And he glommed on to it as a handy, and dismissive, excuse he can toss out whenever challenged.

    While what I know of Metaxas convinces me I would never want to be stuck at a dinner table with him, I always thought he had some intelligence. Meaning, he knows damned well that Trump is a fool. So Metaxas is lying himself. He has signed on with a team, one that he believes will further his own ends, knowing he must lie a lot to reap the benefits. Metaxas is as much a liar and con artist as Trump is, without Trump’s excuse of stupidity.

    1. “I would never want to be stuck at a dinner table with him,”

      dinner table? imagine being stuck in quarantine with this guy. I pity his family.

    2. Jeff was the one who, just a few days ago, was claiming the federal government did have this power through the commerce clause. It would be interesting to know how he now says they don’t, or how he parses this out.

      1. I’m not Jeff, but one important distinction is the difference between the federal government having a power and the President having a power.
        The federal government could perhaps force reopening of some sort through the commerce clause, but that would require Congress to pass legislation and the President to sign it. As opposed to a unilateral decree by the wannabe dictator in the White House.

        1. Thanks. I agree with that. But I think it odd that many were calling for Trump to shut things down without Congressional action.

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