As you may have heard, President Donald Trump really thought that being president of the United States was going to be a simple job that didn’t involve much difficult work. “I thought it would be easier,” he told Reuters, while waxing nostalgically about his old life. Much of what he’s experienced in his short tenure has taught him differently. Health care is complicated. North Korea is difficult. Who knew this?
The latest revelation involves the Middle East peace process, which is technically one of the several hundred things under Jared Kushner’s purview. Back on May 4, Trump was pretty convinced that undoing 60 years of tension between Israel and Palestine was, “frankly maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years.” Now that he’s actually gone to the region, however, he is singing a different tune. From Monday’s White House pool report, furnished by Politico’s Annie Karni:
Recently, Trump has said that he believes “peace in the Middle East is “not as difficult as people have thought.” On Monday night, he said, “I’ve heard it’s one of the toughest deals of all.” And he sounded a little more tempered in his confidence: “But I have a feeling we’re going to get there eventually,” he said. “I hope.”
On the matter of “getting there eventually,” Trump may first have to master some of geography’s trickier vagaries. For instance, in traveling from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Jerusalem, it would be incorrect to say that you’d “just got back from the Middle East,” because ― fun fact! ― Israel is surrounded on all sides by either the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, or the Middle East.
Who knows how this will affect White House hopes for a “lasting peach?”
Trump was reportedly “exhausted” after spending three days abroad. I, too, am exhausted.
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Jason Linkins edits “Eat The Press” for The Huffington Post and co-hosts the HuffPost Politics podcast “So, That Happened.” Subscribe here, and listen to the latest episode below.