If Trump’s Tree Falls in a Forest
If Trump’s Tree Falls in a Forest Fadi Mansour | Al Jazeera Correspondent, Washington DC
As I ran in a formal suit with our gear under the sizzling heat of Singapore’s humid summer, I was racing against other journalists and cameramen. We had all been lured by the real-estate agents’ magic word: Location. In our hundreds, we entered the Capella resort where the historic press conference between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un was to take place. After the event was announced – at the last minute – members of the media had waited in line for hours before boarding the dedicated buses that would take us to the venue. It was a complete and utter mess. Today, when I look back at Trump’s four-year term, I realise much of it was exactly the same as that day: racing, chasing and chaos. Al Jazeera, like all other global media outlets, was fascinated by Trump. Why wouldn’t we be? He was spinning the world and beguiling people day and night – by tweet! With his fingers on a keypad, Trump waged trade wars; ordered military attacks; signed deals; and mobilised electoral masses. Not only did his tweets lead trends, they also set the tone for the stock markets to go up or down. And the media closely
covered it around the clock. Trump turned the media industry upside down, transforming a very local story into a global affair. He provided an irresistible recipe for flavoured ‘political entertainment’ with all the necessary ingredients and extra garnish. Not only did Trump defy logic and common sense, he broke all norms. Although Trump has branded journalists “the enemy of the people”, the media kept running after him with bated breath. During four years of this steeple chase race, boundaries between the local and global media vanished. From Trump’s inauguration ceremony at the porch looking down upon the Capitol, to his final Marine One flight out of the White House, I covered it all live. Trump exhausted his last days and minutes in office, doing all he could to find a way to cling to power. The world watched on, asking: “Will the reins of government be handed over peacefully to Joe Biden?” The Marine One hovered above our heads in the White House, flew to the Capitol then returned to linger above us for a while, before slowly fading away into the sky.
That was Trump’s final lap over Washington DC, which he described as the “swamp.” For four years, Trump had seemed more than eager to nestle in his Florida golf club, but when he lost the presidential race, he became haunted, unwilling to leave. Between the two inauguration ceremonies, Al Jazeera’s cameras followed Trump; from Japan to South Korea; and from China to the Middle East. We accompanied Trump on one of the longest tours of a US president in Asia.
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