Henry Rollins has criticised Donald Trump’s grasp of his presidential and military power.
Henry Rollins has never been shy about his political opinions, and in a new conversation on Independent Americans With Paul Rieckhoff, he offered a blunt assessment of Donald Trump’s approach to global politics and presidential authority. Rollins spoke at length about what he sees as the US president’s limited understanding of the responsibilities attached to the role, especially when it comes to military power and international stakes.
Discussing Trump’s time in office, Rollins said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), “I don’t think Donald Trump – I saw this early in his first administration – he didn’t understand the incredible power of the office. The president of the United States is arguably the most powerful person in the world, the commander in chief in charge of the most lethal, well-equipped, technologically intense military force. We can blow up the entire universe, and the person who has control of that must be — my opinion, again — a three-dimensional chess player. It’s not checkers, it’s not tic-tac-toe.”
“Ultimately, you are sending young men and women somewhere where they might not come back alive or they might not come back completely intact as they left. And before you do that, you’d better have a whole lot of meetings with a whole lot of experts and liaise with Congress and talk to a whole bunch of people before you send one person that risks a skinned elbow, much less a catastrophic injury. And this president, in my opinion, doesn’t get that.”
Henry Rollins went further, saying he believes Trump enjoyed the performative side of power without fully grasping the weight of his words. “[Trump] digs his power, it seems to me, but he doesn’t understand that when he says something, he can affect the stock market. He can change the course of rivers, and if it were me, I would be wielding that power with an unbelievable amount of caution with some people advising me. Like, ‘I can’t find Venezuela on a map. Bring in the Venezuela expert,’ where you had some presidents who could tell you, ‘Here’s the last five presidents that country had. Here’s what the Tet Offensive was.’”
“I mean, we’ve had some really smart presidents in times of war and in times of peace, and we don’t have one now. And I’m not trying to get beaten up by some Trump fan, but you have to admit this guy is incredibly inarticulate and he broad brushes topics that should be painted with a one-camel-hair brush. Some of this stuff is really tricky and really delicate.”
Rollins has publicly aligned with progressive politics before, notably backing Bernie Sanders during the 2015 presidential race. At the time, he referred to Trump as “a bored rich guy,” a characterisation consistent with his long-standing criticism that has been well-documented since then and during both of the President’s terms.
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