“The world according to Trump” or the vision of a petrified America

The 45^e President of the United States has no equal in making people talk about him. Donald in the campaign, Donald has the Covid, Donald goes to war, Donald scolds the media, beware Donald will tweet … Four exceptional years for his most fervent supporters, four years of plural disasters for his most loyal detractors. And nearly 48 months of a breathless, sometimes grotesque, presidency that will make your head spin as this populist president has challenged and upset the codes of democracy in the United States. Chief divider, Donald Trump will have succeeded in his 2016 bet: “Make America Great Again”, at least in the minds of his supporters, white and downgraded in a multiethnic America. Will he manage to repeat the feat? Sunday evening, M6 puts on his campaign glasses for an exceptional documentary byExclusive inquiry, “The World According to Trump”. An unprecedented dive into the head of the most powerful man in the world, a finger on the button… on the remote control.

It’s a beautiful June day in Washington. The trees are in bloom in the Rose Garden, the garden of the White House, and Donald Trump is in good shape when presenting the surprise unemployment figures, at their lowest despite the historic coronavirus crisis. “I hope George is looking down here right now and thinking that this is a big thing happening for our country. George is George Flyod, that black man killed by suffocation below the knee of a police officer, last May in Minnesota. Result, nights of riots across the country. Horror in the Democratic camp. He dared, this president so criticized for not having publicly disavowed the white supremacist movements. Is there a racist in the White House?

Presidential unthought

“If you think Trump’s thinking is philosophical or abstract, you’re giving him too much credit,” John Bolton, his mustached former national security adviser, clarified. A precious testimony among the many that this documentary filmed in the aisles of power, between archive images and interviews with former collaborators. All more or less bitter to have been fired, “Transferred” in French, by a ruthless Donald except to himself. To the point of appropriating a tragic and oh so emblematic news item of America today – the death of an African-American during a police check – to boast a rather flattering economic record.

Why or rather how? How to understand the psyche of a man who did not believe in his own election, as told by one of the American journalists present during the interview between the president-elect and Barack Obama in 2016. “He looked a little panicked in looking around: “My God, what happened to me? What did I get myself into? ” “Four years have passed and if Trump seems to have donned the clothes of an authoritarian president, more comfortable with dictators than with his historical allies, the transplant has operated with an electorate neither disgusted by his sexism, video in support, nor too much looking at business. Did he not escape impeachment proceedings despite the relentlessness of his Democratic opponents?

Politically insolvent, Trump sails on sight, does not read the reports of his own administration, always prefers conflict to appeasement by playing masterfully on the register of emotion. Anthony Scaramucci, his former communications director, politically crucified after only ten days in his post, delivers an anecdote on the president’s tightrope walking: “He’s an outstanding communicator […], we were in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had just finished a meeting. He took off his coat, turned to me and said, “Hey, Scaramucci, do you want to see my speech? I said yes and from his pocket he pulled out a scribbled paper with four words: “See that? This is my speech and this is what the American people want! ”

Me, president

Strongly contested for his management of the health crisis, while on a small island of New York the indigent affected by the virus are still buried, Donald Trump offers the injection of solvents as a treatment, which will earn him mockery , derided on CNN. The Trump magic no longer operates as the United States blithely passes the bar for the highest number of deaths in the world. Even more serious in these times of health crisis, the president is a man obsessed with his re-election to the detriment of any consideration foreign to his own popularity.

In foreign policy precisely, the tension is maximum when he decides to transfer his embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thus recognizing the holy city as the capital of the Hebrew state, against the advice of these advisers. What does he think of when he asks Vladimir Putin, in front of his dumbfounded team, if the Russian leader rigged the elections? What about the love letters exchanged with Kim Jong-un? He decides alone – when he decides – and always with the aim of flattering a base flirting with conspiracy. Like this preacher evangelist arrested for his refusal to wear a mask and support from the first hour of Trump, well inspired to have chosen as vice-president Mike Pence, this “man of god”.

More than a chaotic presidency, William Karel’s documentary questions the direction taken for four years by an America at a crossroads, doubting itself when the whole world doubts it. A summary, sometimes dependent, taken from archives, enlightening testimonies from relatives and often incredible interventions by the tweeting president. Stop or else?