Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM’s radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show” and a columnist for The Daily Beast. Follow him @TheDeansreport. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.
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Dean Obeidallah: Trump loyalists upset Mitt Romney being considered as secretary of state
Some want Romney to apologize first for criticizing Trump in campaign, he says
Looks like some Donald Trump supporters are still holding a grudge against Mitt Romney for the way the 2012 GOP nominee criticized Trump during the campaign. The President-elect is considering Romney for secretary of state, and according to news reports, before these Trump insiders will support Romney, they want him to apologize for calling Trump such things as a “phony” and a “fraud.”
Kellyanne Conway, one of Trump’s top advisers, used the language of betrayal to describe how Trump supporters feel about Romney, telling CNN’s Dana Bash, “I’m all for party unity, but I’m not sure we have to pay for that with the secretary of state position.” After being criticized for assailing Romney publicly instead of conveying her thoughts to Trump privately, Conway tweeted that the “point is the volume & intensity of grassroots resistance to Romney is breathtaking.”
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a big-time Trump supporter, even offered detailed instructions on what Romney must do before he could be forgiven: “There’s only one way that I think Mitt Romney could even be considered for a post like that (secretary of state) and that is he goes to a microphone in a very public place and repudiates everything he said. …”
Huckabee is on to something. If an apology is a prerequisite for supporters to forgive Romney, then the President-elect should follow this advice and publicly apologize to those groups of Americans he cruelly attacked if he wants us to forgive him. Actually, Trump should take Huckabee’s exact instructions and go “to a microphone in a very public place” and make it clear that he’s truly sorry for the vile words he said about so many communities, which were far worse than anything Romney said regarding the businessman.
So where should Trump start apologizing? Well, it would make sense for him to begin with the Latino community, given that he started demonizing members of it from the beginning of his campaign with his lie that Mexico was sending “rapists” and drug dealers to the United States.
Views on the Trump Transition
Next, Trump can take a limo ride to Paterson, New Jersey, home of a sizable Muslim population, and apologize to Muslim Americans for the horrible comments he made about that community. For starters, Trump can acknowledge he lied when he told a rally crowd he saw “thousands” of Muslims cheering in New Jersey on 9/11. (A “pants on fire” falsehood, Politifact said.) And he should add his sincere regrets for stoking hate against Muslims with his irresponsible comments such as “Islam hates us.”
Perhaps soon thereafter Trump can hold a press conference – something he has not done since July – and offer a heartfelt apology to the disabled community for mocking the physical appearance of journalist Serge Kovaleski, a man who suffers from a chronic condition that limits the movement of his arms. As a reminder, when Kovaleski refused to support Trump’s lie that “thousands” of Muslims cheered in New Jersey on 9/11, Trump publicly mocked the reporter at a November 2015 campaign rally by mimicking his disability.
In transition: President-elect Trump
And if Trump really wants to try to build goodwill, he should make a speech apologizing to the women of America. After all Trump not only bragged about sexually assaulting women in the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, he mocked Carly Fiorina’s face and, worse, he publicly shamed the 11 women who accused him of sexual misconduct by calling them all liars. True, some women were not troubled by these comments, but a public apology to the big chunk that were could possibly build bridges.
There are, of course, others Trump might want to consider apologizing to – to prove he has changed as a person and learned right from wrong. For example, Mercutio Southall Jr., a Black Lives Matter protester attacked by Trump’s fans at a campaign rally in November 2015. The day after the event, Trump stunningly defended his white supporters beating this man up.
No one can guarantee that a Trump apology will actually cause these people and communities to forgive him. For many Americans – including myself – it will take much more than just an “I’m sorry” by Trump to make up for the hate he spewed during his campaign, leaving in its wake a slimy tide of bigotry, xenophobia and misogyny in America.
If Trump truly wants to be the president of all the people, as he tells us, the first step is apologizing to those he wronged. Without that, he has no chance of ever being a president for all.