Even Trump's favorite Fox hosts seemed surprised he had nothing better to do during Hurricane Michael.
As the southeastern United States continued to deal with the devastation of Hurricane Michael, Trump spent his morning calling in to Fox News to rant for the better part of an hour — prompting one of the hosts to remind Trump to go do his job.
Trump talked about Hurricane Michael for about a minute to kick off his Thursday morning "Fox & Friends" interview, mostly marveling at the speed and power of the storm.
But he quickly moved on to his usual self-serving, conspiratorial rants — about 45 minutes' worth of them.
Trump defended his decision to hold a campaign rally Wednesday night, repeating his claim that it would've been "unfair" to cancel on his fans who were waiting in line to see him just because a Category 4 storm is pummeling the coast.
He promoted his usual unhinged conspiracy theories about how the FBI is out to get him.
And he floated a brand-new conspiracy theory, claiming without evidence that “there's a very good chance" it was actually someone from the New York Times, not a senior Trump official, who wrote an anonymous op-ed criticizing Trump.
"We know you're probably running short on time," co-host Steve Doocy gently prompted Trump after about 34 minutes of this.
When it was finally over, Doocy signed off by telling Trump, "Go run the country."
It's possible that Trump's long rant was inspired by Fox News cutting away from his Wednesday night rally, thus depriving him of media attention.
But Trump has also behaved in disgraceful and self-serving ways during past hurricanes.
During his first storm season in office, Trump used hurricane photo ops to promote his campaign hats and treated his visit to storm-ravaged Texas like a campaign rally.
His response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was a never-ending display of shameful self-promotion mixed with insults to Puerto Ricans and their leaders.
Usually, though, Trump at least tries to make a show of looking busy during hurricanes.
Now, he has dropped even that pretense.
As Hurricane Michael bore down on Florida, Trump seemed more concerned about his fans in Pennsylvania than the thousands of Americans who faced the storm's devastation.
And the morning after, Trump spent 45 minutes trying to play to his fans at Fox News instead of doing his job.
The rest of America deserves better.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
