WASHINGTON _ President-elect Donald Trump seems to be so eager to be behind the desk in the Oval Office that he can't wait until he's sworn in to start running the country.
As the retiring incumbent, Barack Obama, tries to enjoy his final presidential vacation in Hawaii, he must tolerate reading about his heir-apparent already impinging on his presidential turf back on the mainland. Trump is butting in on one of the most sensitive issues of war and peace of the last 70 years.
Using his favorite communications toy, Twitter, Trump has implied he might start a new nuclear arms race. America's most notable non-expert in the nuclear field and in foreign policy has declared the United States "must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."
In a more pointed private remark to Mika Brzezinski, a co-host of the MSNBC program "Morning Joe," Trump was quoted as saying: "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all."
Such loose talk, common to Donald Trump, flies in the face of decades of somber discussion in diplomatic circles about nuclear arms. Trump's soon-to-be White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, jumped in to put a softer spin on the matter. "I think it's putting every nation on notice that the United States is going to reassert its position in the globe," is the way Spicer explained it.
But Trump's own more pugnacious remark had more threat to it, seemingly based on an impression that the American nuclear arsenal has fallen into an inferior position vis-a-vis the Russians. As both the United States and Russia have talked about modernizing their delivery systems, they agreed in 2010 to mutual refinements in the New START Treaty that indicated progress in lowering tensions. But that was before the unpredictable Donald Trump unexpectedly entered the conversation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently did say his country needed "to improve our nuclear capabilities" and that "Russia is stronger (than) any potential aggressor. ... An aggressor is someone who can potentially attack Russia, so we are stronger than any potential aggressor." He pointedly didn't mention Uncle Sam.
But he also said he agreed with Trump that "we need to discuss ways to normalize out relations," because U.S.-Russian relations "can't be worse." Putin seemed to be signaling, though, that he had little interest in raising the ante in a verbal exchange on a new nuclear arms race, seeming to dismiss Trump's bluster as typical banter for domestic consumption.
The new president-elect thus began prematurely dipping his toe in foreign policy at a very sensitive level. Meanwhile, at home he tried again to quell the dissatisfaction with his reluctance to separate his real-estate empire from his newly acquired political opportunity and obligations.
He has now declared his intention to shut down his charitable Trump Foundation to satisfy criticisms that maintaining it would be a conflict of interest with his obligations as president. As is his custom, he put a strong self-serving spin on the reason.
"I will be devoting so much time and energy to the presidency, and solving the many problems facing our country and the world, I don't want to allow good work to be associated with a possible conflict of interest," he piously observed.
But the Democratic National Committee put its own partisan version on Trump's explanation. The Dems called it "a wilted fig leaf to cover up his conflict of interest and his pitiful record of charitable giving," and said he should simply put his whole business in a blind trust, which he continues to avoid.
As for abandoning an earlier scheme of selling access to him and his children in another fund-raiser, Trump tweeted this: "My wonderful son Eric will no longer be allowed to raise money for children with cancer because of a possible conflict of interest with my presidency. He loves these kids, and after raising millions of dollars for them, and now must stop. Wrong answer!"
Such is the price Donald Trump must pay for the privilege of serving his country, and his family too. He'd be serving both by putting his tweets on the shelf as well.
