The Associated Propagandists are once again trying to gin up controversy about President Donald Trump during an overseas trip.
But the AP hasn't exactly had the luck of the Irish lately convincing people it is actually capable of objective reporting.
While the Democrat Party house organ was able to spin a sensational headline that feeds a running narrative about Donald Trump, at least in this case, the AP wrote a headline check its body could not cash.
The AP's framing of President Trump's remark on Irish re-unification is suggestive of the Left's preferred narrative that he is a reckless hothead, a bumbling idiot who is running an amateur-hour foreign policy.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that a unified Ireland would be “fantastic” as he waded into a complex and politically charged subject during a weekend visit to a tournament at his Irish golf course.
But a closer examination of what Trump actually said shows that at least in this instance, he was quite respectful and was merely expressing his hopes for Ireland.
“I don’t want to cause any problems but I’d love to see it unified,” Trump told a reporter who sought his opinion on the issue. “It’s going to happen eventually. It may as well happen now.
“I think it would be a fantastic thing,” the Republican president said, adding that “the U.K. will have something to say about it, obviously.”
At his next stop, Trump acknowledged there is “no good answer” to the reunification question as he addressed business leaders from both countries gathered at the U.S. ambassador’s residence.
It doesn't get much more benign than that, regardless of what you think about the politically charged Ireland reunification issue.
There was another political hot potato that Donald Trump addressed on his visit: The rising tensions over the Falkland Islands.
Trump once more raised the prospect of conflict between the U.K. and Argentina over the Falklands. Argentina’s President Javier Milei, a Trump ally, has recently restated his country’s claim to the territory of about 3,500 people, which is about 300 miles (480 kilometers) east of the southeast coast of Argentina.
Trump has previously said Washington could reconsider its neutral stance on the islands’ sovereignty. On Saturday, he expressed skepticism that Britain would be able to retake the Falklands as it did after Argentina invaded in 1982.
Once again, however, he expressed his desire to play peacemaker should a war resume over the disputed territory.
“I’m sure I’ll be called into that potential disaster, but if they do, I’ll probably be able to settle, settle it out,” he said.
The AP writers, Darlene Superville and Jill Lawless, made sure to add as many wedges as they could in the background of the article.
But even then, their reportage showed that Trump was actually quite diplomatic on his foreign trip.
Trump also held talks in Dublin with Irish President Catherine Connolly, a left-wing politician who joined protesters when Trump visited Ireland in 2019 during his first term in office. She is now Ireland’s elected, largely ceremonial head of state. A supporter of the Palestinian cause, Connolly has in the past has criticized U.S. policy in the Middle East and called Trump a “bully.”
Connolly said in a statement after the meeting that she conveyed to Trump “the strong view of the Irish people that the normalization of war and genocide can never be accepted.” She gave Trump several gifts, among them a collection by the late Irish poet Michael Longley that includes the sonnet “Ceasefire.”
Asked about the meeting, Trump first had his protocol chief, Monica Crowley, answer before he was pressed and said it was “very nice.” “We discussed a lot of things, quickly,” Trump said.
Then AP made sure to report on a protest further down in the story, but the whole of the reportage made it look like a fledgling ensemble of Never Trumpers who are against any kind of diplomatic relations with the United States so long as the president they personally dislike is in charge.
There were many more developments on Trump's foreign trip, and for that, one can turn to RedState colleague Becca Lower's excellent overview.
As for whether Donald Trump said anything truly offensive on his foreign trip, all I've got to say is these Irish eyes are smiling.
Because at least on this foreign trip, I can happily assess that any reports of "controversy" appear to be very much overblown.
As for the Associated Propagandists, however, their coverage, as always, should be seriously scrutinized.