By Tom Terzulli
(Owen Corrigan/The Fordham Ram)
It has been a couple of weeks since Donald Trump came into office as President of the United States and there has been no shortage of controversial talking points. From the proposed Muslim ban, to the talks of building a wall at the Mexican border- Trump has provided CNN panels with hundreds of hours of content for debate. Just these two issues alone have sparked intense polarization between the president’s supporters and attackers. However, I want to talk about something I believe we can all agree on. President Trump needs to do a better job. President Trump, can you please stop harping on things that only matter to your ego? Things like inauguration crowd size, apprentice ratings and whether or not you have a robe.
It all started with the much-vaunted press secretary Sean Spicer’s first press conference in his new position. Spicer insisted that Trump’s inauguration was the most watched ever, without actually citing anything to back up this claim.
This statement came seconds after his assertion that there is not a definitive way to quantify the number of people that were present at the inauguration. It is safe to say that Spicer was instructed by his boss to make a point of the crowd size and viewership, but why? Who cares about how many people watched? Who cares if Obama had a bigger crowd than you did, Mr. Trump? The answer is one person…you.
Donald Trump is the president of the United States and, as Americans, we should hope that he succeeds. However, he will not succeed if he continues to harp on these inane facts that are irrelevant, except to the Donald’s ego.
After the inauguration debacle, I hoped this would be an isolated incident and that the President would not continue to care about such minuscule facts. Still, anyone who watched him during the primaries knew it would not be long until the president would be frazzled over an insignificant matter yet again.
Last week, Trump attended The National Prayer Breakfast. I was taught that prayer is an act where one is supposed to check their ego and feel a sense of humility in worshipping. I think someone forgot to remind the Donald of that. He asked the distinguished guests in the room to keep Arnold Schwarzenegger in their prayers, in an effort to help the “Celebrity Apprentice” with its sagging ratings. He had to bring up that the ratings went down after his reality TV departure. Egotism is Trump’s disease. Sure, his statement was not one of complete seriousness, but the worst part is that this is not the first time Trump has addressed “The Celebrity Apprentice” host. On Jan. 6, he called himself a “ratings machine” while also referring to himself in third person.WHY? This was tweeted in January, just a few weeks before his inauguration. You would have to think there were about a million other things he could have been doing other than bashing the NBC show. Maybe he could have taken some of those national security briefings he reportedly has been skipping.
It all came to a head though, on Feb. 6, when Spicer trotted out to the podium once again, armed with more petty defenses. The New York Times put out an article the day before, detailing how the president spends the nights in his new home. Harmlessly enough, the article mentioned that Mr. Trump likes to watch TV in his bathrobe. That cannot possibly be considered a personal attack, but, thin-skinned Donald had to respond, naturally through Spicer.
To prove that the article was false, Spicer said this word for word: “I don’t think the president wears a bathrobe, and definitely doesn’t own one.” Seriously?
We are only a couple of weeks into Trump’s presidency and there have already been three occurrences that have exposed Trump’s thin-skinned nature. Trump desperately wants approval and adoration. He wants to be taken seriously. News flash Donald: this is not how to do it.
This is not a partisan issue either. Trump haters see this and it just reaffirms their hatred for this egotistical maniac. Even those who support him want him to just shut up and get back to helping the economy and boosting the middle class.
I want you to do well, Donald. I want you to help Americans better their lives. But please, if it is humanly possible for you, stop being the pettiest president in history.
The Fordham Ram 
