facebooktwittertelegramwhatsapp
copy short urlprintemail
+ A
A -
webmaster

AP
WASHINGTON
It's BEEN a getting-to-know-you first week for both President Donald Trump and the nation.
Trump's personal traits on display during the campaign seemed more pronounced in the august setting of the White House.
The new president made haste to turn 'the Trump effect' into action. Old fights took on new oomph. And as the nation was learning more about Trump, the president was learning more about the ways of Washington.
On an almost daily basis, Trump demonstrated his fixation with putting a yard stick to the size of his support.
He vastly overstated turnout for his inauguration - repeatedly. He revived unsubstantiated claims that he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton only because 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally.
He rehearsed anew details of his 'great victory' in November. He complained in advance that the press would undercount the size of Friday's anti-abortion rally in Washington. At the CIA, he speculated 'probably almost everybody in this room voted for me.'
The tussle over the size of the inaugural crowd led Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway to introduce a new phrase to the lexicon: 'alternative facts.'
Trump held a series of meetings and signed a number of executive orders and actions in his first week aimed at showing he was ready to deliver on top campaign promises on everything from unwinding President Barack Obama's health law to building a wall on the Mexican border and ditching the trans-Pacific trade deal.
White House advisers styled it 'the Trump effect,' writ large.
By Day 2, Conway was suggesting an 'unbelievable' level of presidential activity."Everything in Trump world feels like we did it in dog years," she told one TV interviewer."You have to multiply it by seven."
Caveat: All modern presidents have tried to get off to a quick start in their first week in office. Trump added some drama to week one by getting into a very public international spat with a key US ally.
The president first announced a scheduled meeting with Mexico's president, then suggested maybe Enrique Pena Nieto shouldn't come if he didn't agree that Mexico should pay for the border wall.
Pena Nieto quickly took the hint and the meeting was off. The dispute between two nations with $1.6 billion a day in cross-border trade played out - where else? - on Twitter.
The two leaders did talk by phone for an hour on Friday in what Trump called a 'very, very friendly call.'
copy short url   Copy
29/01/2017
1046