Democratic strategist James Carville ripped into President Trump’s recent moves on Ukraine and tariffs, accusing the president of deliberately hurting the country.
“He’s actually trying to harm the United States,” Carville charged in a video released Tuesday, pointing to the president’s 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico as well as his explosive Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week.
Carville, a longtime vocal critic of Trump’s, compared the president’s actions to that of other past Republican leaders he has strongly criticized, such as George W. Bush during the Iraq War.
“However, I never would for one minute thought George W. Bush wanted to harm the United States,” Carville said. “I don’t think Trump likes the United States. I honestly believe that the most compelling answer to all of this is he doesn’t like this country.”
The Democratic strategist ticked through his various criticisms of Trump, asserting the GOP president “doesn’t like the Constitution,” international alliances that have existed for decades or the separation of powers within the U.S. federal government.
“We know he believes that we’re a terrible country, we’re terrible people … we know that. We know, like many people, he didn’t want to serve in armed forces, but we know that. We know that he is trying to destroy the military by getting rid of every competent person he could find, we know that. We know today that he doesn’t care about high prices,” Carville asserted.
“What could explain all that?” he continued. “I think the simplest and most direct explanation is the president of the United States hates the United States.”
Trump has dismissed Carville’s criticisms before, knocking him last month as “weak” and a “broken down loser” who is “going crazy” after the Democratic strategist went on Fox News.
Carville, speaking before Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night in which he vowed a new “golden age of America,” said he hopes Democrats handle Trump’s second term with the “utmost gravity of utmost peril” while operating within the limitations of the minority in the House and Senate.
“If the country is going to be saved, they’re going to have to play a key role in it,” he said of congressional Democrats.
