I’m getting a little tired of writing stories about Trump not being quite on the level with a number of the basic functions of government and the economy. For starters, it’s a little stupid – of course he’s not going to be totally on top of everything, given the fact he was elected as an outsider who had never been in politics before.
But this one is definitely a little peculiar. The Huffington Post – along with the New York Times – has been particularly voluminous sources of stories in the genre of ‘Trump doesn’t understand basic economic function/government operation’.
Apparently, Trump wasn’t totally clear on how the US dollar works, and whether a strong dollar was better for the economy or a weak dollar. Behold:
President Donald Trump was confused about the dollar: Was it a strong one that’s good for the economy? Or a weak one?So he made a call – except not to any of the business leaders Trump brought into his administration or even to an old friend from his days in real estate. Instead, he called his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, according to two sources familiar with Flynn’s accounts of the incident.Flynn has a long record in counterintelligence but not in macroeconomics. And he told Trump he didn’t know, that it wasn’t his area of expertise, that, perhaps, Trump should ask an economist instead.
Mike Flynn, in case you were wondering, is Trump’s national security advisor and a prolific retweeter of weird anti-Muslim memes and Hillary Clinton conspiracy theories. Basically, exactly the bloke you want to connect to when you’re wondering how the dollar works.
An unconfirmed part of the story suggests that Trump made the call at 3 in the morning. Which, to be fair, is also the time when I’m lying awake thinking about stuff.
