Approval Of Global Leaders In Their Own Countries

 From the Morning Consult poll.

Trump Phone Calls To Other Leaders Alarmed Officials

We know that Trump's incompetence and narcissism has damaged the reputation of the United States in the world. But it is even worse than a loss of face. His behavior, especially on the phone to other world leaders, has made the world a much more dangerous place -- and it even alarmed officials in his own administration.

Here is part of how Carl Bernstein reports it at CNN.com:

In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials -- including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff -- that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House and intelligence officials intimately familiar with the contents of the conversations.

The calls caused former top Trump deputies -- including national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well as intelligence officials -- to conclude that the President was often "delusional," as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders. The sources said there was little evidence that the President became more skillful or competent in his telephone conversations with most heads of state over time. Rather, he continued to believe that he could either charm, jawbone or bully almost any foreign leader into capitulating to his will, and often pursued goals more attuned to his own agenda than what many of his senior advisers considered the national interest.

These officials' concerns about the calls, and particularly Trump's deference to Putin, take on new resonance with reports the President may have learned in March that Russia had offered the Taliban bounties to kill US troops in Afghanistan -- and yet took no action. CNN's sources said there were calls between Putin and Trump about Trump's desire to end the American military presence in Afghanistan but they mentioned no discussion of the supposed Taliban bounties.

By far the greatest number of Trump's telephone discussions with an individual head of state were with Erdogan, who sometimes phoned the White House at least twice a week and was put through directly to the President on standing orders from Trump, according to the sources. Meanwhile, the President regularly bullied and demeaned the leaders of America's principal allies, especially two women: telling Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom she was weak and lacked courage; and telling German Chancellor Angela Merkel that she was "stupid."

Trump incessantly boasted to his fellow heads of state, including Saudi Arabia's autocratic royal heir Mohammed bin Salman and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, about his own wealth, genius, "great" accomplishments as President, and the "idiocy" of his Oval Office predecessors, according to the sources.

In his conversations with both Putin and Erdogan, Trump took special delight in trashing former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and suggested that dealing directly with him -- Trump -- would be far more fruitful than during previous administrations. "They didn't know BS," he said of Bush and Obama -- one of several derisive tropes the sources said he favored when discussing his predecessors with the Turkish and Russian leaders. . . .

One person familiar with almost all the conversations with the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Canada, Australia and western Europe described the calls cumulatively as 'abominations' so grievous to US national security interests that if members of Congress heard from witnesses to the actual conversations or read the texts and contemporaneous notes, even many senior Republican members would no longer be able to retain confidence in the President.

The insidious effect of the conversations comes from Trump's tone, his raging outbursts at allies while fawning over authoritarian strongmen, his ignorance of history and lack of preparation as much as it does from the troubling substance, according to the sources. While in office, then- Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats expressed worry to subordinates that Trump's telephone discussions were undermining the coherent conduct of foreign relations and American objectives around the globe, one of CNN's sources said. And in recent weeks, former chief of staff Kelly has mentioned the damaging impact of the President's calls on US national security to several individuals in private.

Two sources compared many of the President's conversations with foreign leaders to Trump's recent press "briefings" on the coronavirus pandemic: free form, fact-deficient stream-of-consciousness ramblings, full of fantasy and off-the-wall pronouncements based on his intuitions, guesswork, the opinions of Fox News TV hosts and social media misinformation. . . .

In his phone exchanges with Putin, the sources reported, the President talked mostly about himself, frequently in over-the-top, self-aggrandizing terms: touting his "unprecedented" success in building the US economy; asserting in derisive language how much smarter and "stronger" he is than "the imbeciles" and "weaklings" who came before him in the presidency (especially Obama); reveling in his experience running the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow, and obsequiously courting Putin's admiration and approval. Putin "just outplays" him, said a high-level administration official -- comparing the Russian leader to a chess grandmaster and Trump to an occasional player of checkers. While Putin "destabilizes the West," said this source, the President of the United States "sits there and thinks he can build himself up enough as a businessman and tough guy that Putin will respect him.". . .

Almost never, according to CNN's sources, would Trump read the briefing materials prepared for him by the CIA and NSC staff in advance of his calls with heads of state. . . .

The common, overwhelming dynamic that characterizes Trump's conversations with both authoritarian dictators and leaders of the world's greatest democracies is his consistent assertion of himself as the defining subject and subtext of the calls -- almost never the United States and its historic place and leadership in the world, according to sources intimately familiar with the calls. . . .

"There was no sense of 'Team America' in the conversations," or of the United States as an historic force with certain democratic principles and leadership of the free world, said the official. "The opposite. It was like the United States had disappeared. It was always 'Just me'."

Germans Fear Trump More Than World's Worst Dictators

This chart should trouble all Americans. The YouGov Poll asked 2,000 German citizens which world leaders they feared the most. Donald Trump won hands down. About 41% of Germans feared Trump the most. In fact, more feared Trump than the other four (all dictators) combined.

This is from a country that for the last few decades has been one of the best allies of the United States. It shows how much Trump has damaged this country, when Trump is feared more than the leaders of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.

We MUST vote him out of office next November!

Trump Is The Least Trusted Of The Major World Leaders

The chart above is from the Pew Research Center Spring 2018 Global Attitudes Survey of 25 countries. The people in those countries were asked if they trusted five important world leaders (Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Donald Trump) to do the right thing.

Macron (France) and Merkel (Germany) did pretty well in the survey. People had confidence in Merkel by a 21 point margin, and confidence in Macron by a 12 point margin.

The Chinese and Russian leaders didn't do so well. Xi Jinping (China) had a negative 22 point confidence rating, and Putin (Russia) had a negative 32 point rating. But the least trusted of all was Trump, who had a negative 43 confidence rating.

World Leaders Don't Respect Trump (& The Public Knows It)

Donald Trump has attacked our democratic allies and praised several dictators (Putin, Duterte, Erdogan, etc.). This has resulted in a loss of respect for this country and for Donald Trump. And the American public knows this. In a new poll, 66% (about two-thirds) of the public says other world leaders do not respect Trump, while only 33% says they do respect him. And the same is true of a majority of almost every demographic group.

Only one group thinks world leaders respect Trump -- Republicans. Republicans still prefer to live in the false reality of Trump's imaginary world. They have no use for facts or truth. It just goes to show that the GOP is no longer a political party -- but a cult of personality without any values. The only thing that's important to them are Trump's lies. At this point, I honestly think Trump could walk up and punch them in the face and they would believe him when he denied doing it.

The chart above uses the results of a new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between July 15th and 17th of a national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,272 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 3.2 points, and for registered voters is 3 points.

U.S. Public Likes Foreign Leaders More Than Trump

The orange narcissist living in the White House is not going to like these poll results. It seems that Americans like several foreign leaders more than they like Donald Trump -- Justin Trudeau of  Canada (by14 points over Trump), Theresa May of Great Britain (by 12 points), Emmanuel Macron of France (by 11 points), and Angela Merkel of Germany (by 8 points). While those four leaders have a much higher favorable rating than unfavorable, Donald Trump's rating is up-side down by 10 points (favorable 42% to unfavorable 52%).

This information is from the new Economist / You Gov Poll -- done between July 15th and 17th of a national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,272 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 3.2 points, and for registered voters is 3.0 points.

U.S. Public Says World Leaders Don't Respect Trump

Do world leaders respect Donald Trump? Does Trump respect other world leaders? The American public says NO to both of those questions. About 60% of Americans say world leaders don't respect Trump, and 59% say Trump doesn't respect other world leaders. I doubt that any other president (of either party) has had numbers this bad (in either respect from other leaders or respect for them). This means the public believes Trump is damaging the reputation of this country in the world.

This survey also asked the American public to give a favorable or unfavorable rating to several important world leaders (see charts below). Trump did not fare well. Three world leaders (Merkel of Germany, Trudeau of Canada, and Macron of France) had a higher favorable rating from Americans than Trump did. And four world leaders (Merkel, Trudeau, Macron, and May from Great Britain) had a lower unfavorable rating than Trump did. That has to be embarrassing for Trump.

These charts reflect the results of a new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between April 29th and May 1st of a random national sample of 1,500 adults, with a 3.1 point margin of error.

Photo Evidence Of Donald Trump's G-20 Humiliation

When Donald Trump met with the NATO countries, there is video of him shoving another leader aside to get to the middle of the front row for the photo of the group. It speaks to Trump's narcissistic personality that he felt he should be the center of attention.

That did not happen at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg. The top photo is of the G-20 leaders. Note that Trump is NOT front row center, but has been moved down toward the end -- a clear sign that he no longer is considered to be a leader by the other nations of the G-20.

There is always a group picture of the G-20 leaders during their yearly meeting, and the American president is always given a spot of honor in that picture (front row near the center), because the U.S. president was considered to be a leader of the free world and a prime architect of world economic policy. Note in the other photos that Bush in 2008, Obama in 2009 and Obama in 2016 all had positions on the front row near the center (and while I didn't include the 2010 through 2015 photos, the U.S. president was given the same position of honor in those also).

That is no longer true. Trump has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement on global change, and has expressed his desire to pull the U.S. out of trade agreements it has signed. Both have made the other members of the G-20 unhappy with Trump -- and they no longer look to the U.S. president for leadership. Trump's place in the photo expresses that feeling very clearly.

I doubt Trump (with his narcissistic personality) was very happy with this demotion, but he has earned it. You cannot be looked to as a world leader when you make it clear to everyone that you come first, your own country second, and the rest of the world is only an afterthought.

Trump Compares Poorly To Leaders Of Other Democracies

The chart above shows what the American public thinks of the leaders of five of the largest and wealthiest democracies. It shows each leaders net favorability (favorable minus unfavorable). And it doesn't make Donald Trump look very good. He is the only one to have a negative net favorability (-14). The others are Trudeau-Canada (+11), Merkel-Germany (+11), Macron-France (+7), and May-Great Britain (+4).

The chart uses information in a new Public Policy Polling survey -- done between June 9th and 11th of a random national sample of 811 registered voters, with a 3.4 point margin of error.

Obama Poses A Bigger Threat Than Russia Or China ?

This chart was made from information contained in a new Reuters / IPSOS Poll. It was done between March 16th and 24th of a random national sample of 1,059 Republicans, and has a margin of error of 3.4 points.

The survey asked Republicans which leaders posed an imminent danger or a serious threat to the United States -- and the Republicans showed their shameful ideological and racial views. They rated President Obama as being a bigger danger to this nation than either Putin of Russia or Xi Jinping of  China (the only nations on the list that actually have the military power to be a danger to this country).

In fact, the only leader they rated as being a bigger imminent danger to the U.S. than President Obama is Kim Jong-un of North Korea. And when you combine the imminent & serious scores, only Kim Jong-un and Ayatollah Khomenei of Iran were rated as bigger dangers to this country.

How dare they say such an outrageous thing about our president!

They will probably claim it is because of his leftist policies, but anyone with half a brain knows that is not true. We have had far more liberal presidents than President Obama (Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson), and Republicans would not have claimed they posed a greater danger than foreign leaders that didn't like us. Any reasonable person examining President Obama's policies will quickly realize that he is a moderate (in the tradition of Clinton or Carter).

They make this outrageous assertion, just like many more of their assertions about our president, for one reason only -- because he's a Black man living in the White House. Not every Republican is a racist, but far too many of them are these days -- enough of them to accuse him of being a danger to this country. They should be ashamed, but shame doesn't seem to be possible in the current Republican Party.

Bush Not Trusted Worldwide

According to the website World Public Opinion.org, George Bush is one of the most unpopular and least trusted leaders in the world. Only Ahmadinejad and Musharraf are ranked as low as Bush.

WPO.org did a survey of 20 countries, with nearly 20,000 respondents. They asked the respondents what leaders they "trusted to do the right thing". There were only two countries that gave Bush a higher positive rating than a negative rating (and the United States was not one of the two) -- Nigeria and India. Thailand was evenly split.

Overall, Bush received a 23% positive rating and a 67% negative rating. In the U.S., he had a 42% positive and 56% negative. Here are how the leaders were ranked:

Ban Ki-Moon (United Nations) 35%

Putin (Russia) 32%

Brown (Great Britain) 30%

Hu Jintao (China) 28%

Sarkozy (France) 26%

Bush (United States) 23%

Ahmadinejad (Iran) 22%

Musharraf (Pakistan) 18%

According to the director of WPO.org, the mistrust of George Bush has created a worldwide vacuum in leadership and no one has really stepped up to fill it. Sadly though, even the leaders of China and Russia are trusted more than the current leader of the United States.

Bush has been a disaster as a leader, both at home and abroad.