EricHiggin said:
Sure, but assuming the team had whatever info they felt they needed, even if Trump asked, 'are you sure all these area's will be impacted', the obvious answer from them would be, 'yes'. Should Trump trust his team or assume they are always wrong? Based on something like severe weather, it's not like he would have been able to clearly tell they might be wrong. While I'm not saying it wouldn't be Trumps fault in anyway, since like you said, he would have to approve it, the overwhelming majority would be because of the team, and so Trump should apologize and have all the blame publically put on him? Like I said, even if he was honest and apologized yet pointed out it was due to mistakes the team made, the people who were upset would just blame Trump anyway, plus paint him in a negative light for trying to put the onus on the team, when in reality, it was the majority their fault. This is quite possibly why he wouldn't bother apologizing, since he's getting blamed no matter what he does, so he might as well publically support his team instead of throwing them under the bus. I'm sure behind closed doors that team would have gotten an earful though to make sure it doesn't happen again. Yes it still looks bad on the administration, but not as bad as pointing out some people within it made some mistakes. Trump is a constant target anyway, so he might as well just take another punch to save face for that team. |
Things would be very different under different circumstances.
First of all, I don't really think anyone is under the impression that Trump really does much listening, or going over things with a fine-toothed comb. He seems to be either reading from a teleprompter or just kinda winging it. I think this is one of the things that makes a Trump Lie different that your typical "Politician Lie". A politician typically lies by knowing all the facts and manipulating them to say what they want them to say (through bias interpretations or misleading selection of evidence). A Trump Lie on the other hand involves him just saying something with no facts to back it up other than something he may or may not have heard somewhere over the past week or so.
Second, Trump never really admits error on his own part, so it would feel like scapegoating were he to simply blame it on someone else. A culture of accountability starts at the top, and if the people at the top are always desperately pointing fingers at others and never taking any blame, you haven't developed any accountability.
That said, if this were a normal presidency, I still believe the President should apologize, because it doesn't really matter where he got the information. He is the boss. If someone below him failed to do their job, that reflects on him as the boss and the environment he has created. He should ensure that he is backing himself up by people who he can trust to tell the truth and not simply Yes Men (another area where Trump is failing), and when a mistake is made under him, he should take credit as the head of that chain of command.
