On Thursday evening, the Trump administration authorized the launch of 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian military airfield. The move was intended as retaliation for a chemical attack using deadly nerve agent sarin, that killed at least 70 people in a Damascus suburb. Just hours earlier, Trump had said of the attack, “I think what happened in Syria is a disgrace to humanity. [Bashar al-Assad’s] there, and I guess he’s running things, so something should happen.”
Playing the part of the Commander-in-Chief as much as he knows how, Trump delivered prepared remarks from his private country club Mar-a-Lago, in which he stuck to the script and indulged in none of his signature embellishing. The strike has been lauded as swift and decisive by his colleagues in Congress, and presidential by cable pundits.
“I will tell you,” he said to reporters on Wednesday, “that attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me, big impact. That was a horrible, horrible thing. And I’ve been watching it and seeing it, and it doesn’t get any worse than that.” CNN reports that it was the photos of the injured and killed children that caused Trump ultimately to take action. But to believe that is to set aside Trump’s ability to ignore Assad’s longtime predilection for using deadly weapons against Syrian citizens, as well as Trump’s past statements on Syria—many of which are compiled here—that directly contradict Thursday’s actions. Beyond that, it is to ignore Trump’s history of amorality, and that Trump’s one constant is self-interest.
What is most remarkable in reviewing these past comments isn’t that Trump breezily spoke in rebuttal to himself, nor is it how shamelessly comfortable he feels shooting missiles into a country, rapidly producing refugees he’s banned from his own country. Rather, it’s our own willingness to set these aside, in the pursuit of unbiased commentary, or politics, or some sort of reconciliation of Trump the Narcissist and Trump the Child Defender. His actions on Thursday—actions that are, by many accounts, fairly standard military retaliation, and perhaps, retaliation that a man bent on showing his power might opt for—shouldn’t change the narrative or complicate our view of Trump. He’s still the same man: volatile, vain, and flailing.