Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Will this be President Trump’s ‘Osama moment’?

Trump’s presidency is, in many ways, the Obama Undoing Project. Look at the Iran deal, environmental legislation, labour laws, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and much else. Anything Barack did, I can undo better. That could be the Donald’s leitmotif. (Put aside Obamacare, for now.)

One Obama-era accomplishment cannot be undone, however: the killing of Osama bin Laden. (If Trump could raise the most famous terrorist of all time from the dead, just to call his predecessor a loser, he might.) But today, if all the reports are true, Trump will take particular delight in announcing that America has taken out Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis, and arguably a more evil anti-American than bin Laden. For Trump, it will be an Obama moment, his Osama moment. It will taste like winning.

To understand the significance of this moment in Trump’s head, let’s rewind to April 30, 2011.

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