It’s not the same, but he wasn’t requesting that they not act.
He was requesting -pretty explicitly that they not act YET. The YET is implied by the words “stand by” which suggests that a request for the action under discussion is imminent.
This is veiled threat, and the veil is pretty thin.
I’m a little puzzled by the way you seem to give Trump so much benefit of the doubt. What’s up with that? For someone that purports not be a Trump supporter, you seem pretty supportive.
I admit that I am completely contemptuous of Trump and I always have been. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been intensely interested in cults, con games and white collar crime.
Sometimes, you don’t need to consider the entire body of evidence before making a judgement against someone. Sometimes, one data point is enough, if it’s strong enough.
Donald Trump ran a con game that defrauded hundreds of people out of large sums of money. The scam, a get rich quick con game called Trump University, preyed on senior citizens and the desperate unemployed. The amounts were large enough to represent the life savings of many of the marks. People were encouraged to go into debt and give the money to Donald Trump, who praised them for mastering the art of using other people’s money.
Trump U sucked people in slowly. The intro course was not that expensive and promised to teach you the secrets to obtaining independence and wealth. The secret was always…you need to buy the NEXT class to find that out. The final class, the end game, cost $35,000.00.
Trump has led people to believe that this was some branding deal, that he just rented out his name to the real con artists. But that is not true. Trump U was one of Trump’s brainchild’s and he held an 80% financial stake.
Even though he was never criminally prosecuted, a court did find that he had defrauded his students and ordered him to give everyone their money back.
To me, this is a disqualifying event. He used his name to steal money he didn’t need from people that couldn’t afford to lose it, in a large scale and organized way. It’s factually undeniable that he did this.
My opinions on his character and his trustworthiness all stem from this one data point. It’s not because I’m in a liberal bubble or reflexively hate everything he does. When I analyze his actions, I consider the parameters of his moral character and this particular thing, more than anything else, tells me where that boundary lies.
