US president Donald Trump has been met with fierce criticism online, after boasting about the powers afforded to him with the White House job and joking that he “could have banned fishing” if he wanted to.
Speaking in the Rose Garden on Thursday, Trump took a swipe at the previous administration by saying he has undone a “Biden disaster” to allow for the selling of “a lot of fishing rods”.
Addressing a person named Johnny, believed to be Johnny Morris, the billionaire founder of Bass Pro Shops, the 80-year-old continued: “You’re gonna sell a lot of rods. I could have made it so you couldn’t sell… you couldn’t sell anything.
“I could have banned fishing.
“The power of this office is crazy. I could have banned fishing and driven Johnny right the hell out of business, OK?
“I think I’m gonna do that, maybe just a quick order just for a day or two ‘til he calls me and says, ‘please, president, please, you’re putting me out of business, sir’.”
The remarks were subsequently slammed on social media, with progressive political commentator Alex Cole writing on X/Twitter: “If someone told me Democrats paid Trump to make Republicans look stupid, I would believe it. This s*** is embarrassing.”
“Invoke the 25th amendment NOW,” tweeted Mayra (@LePapillonBlu2):
News curator @SkylineReport commented: “Power doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you’ve always been”:
“Man, if only we had any sort of indication the king was mad with power,” said economist Sky Marchini:
One X/Twitter user commented: “This is not normal behaviour”:
And another wrote sarcastically: “War on fishermen, great midterms strategy”:
What a load of carp.
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