President Trump, unlike a host of politicians, prioritizes the truth — perhaps because he is not a politician.  His announcement on September 11 of the death of Charlie Kirk is a good example.  Hours before the death was confirmed by the media, Trump announced on Fox and Friends that Kirk had passed away.  No theatrics, no politics — just the fact that Kirk was dead.

Trump is thoughtful and precise in his use of language.  One can see this when he hesitates to answer the media’s gotcha questions and returns a clear, truthful answer.  Also like Charlie Kirk, he is never afraid to face his opponents.  For a decade now, Trump has faced down hostile reporters (the fake news media) and answered calmly with the truth.

When Trump is uncertain, he makes that clear, as when he recently announced that a “framework” (not a deal) had been achieved to preserve Tiktok and transform it into a company friendly to America.  He probably knew that a “deal,” more than a framework, was likely and who the players were, but he did not take credit for a deal that had not yet been finalized.  No “Mission Accomplished” until the mission was actually accomplished.

Trump is unique among recent presidents in the care with which he employs language, which is to say the care he gives to thought and the importance he ascribes to honesty.  He did not become a colossus in the business world by misleading others or going back on his word.  Trump is wise enough to understand that once caught in a lie, he will lose his reputation, and reputation is everything.

No recent president has been this truthful.  Clinton was often deceptive (“it depends on the meaning of ‘is’”), Bush II was weak and evasive, and Obama seemed deliberately misleading (his campaign to “nudge” his listeners to change their ways is one example).  Biden was secretive; when he did speak, he came across as close to illiterate.  Biden’s many gaffes were not just unimportant mistakes: they were reflections of an individual who was so engrossed in politics that he seemed not to care about or even to be capable of expressing the precise truth.

By contrast, Trump answers questions in a straightforward and honest fashion.  He can often be seen pausing before he answers so as to speak clearly and accurately.  He genuinely cares about the truth.  When asked in a recent interview what his one “bucket list wish” was, he answered: to make America great again.  It’s clear that the president has thought deeply and long about that one task and that he brings everything he has, 18 hours a day, to completing it.

There again, Trump is unique.  He has set a noble and ambitious goal for himself, and he labors tirelessly to achieve it.  Can the same thing be said for Clinton, Obama, or Biden?  Clinton’s “goal,” it seemed, was to remain in office and to satisfy certain ignoble desires.  Biden had no goal, so far as I can tell.  Obama often said his goal was to “transform America,” but he did so in ways that were opposed by more than half the public.  A weak foreign policy, socialized medicine, de facto racial quotas, and government-funded abortions and genital mutilation are not changes that the public approved of, and they were not designed to make America great again.

Obama wanted to transform America because he did not like America as it was and had been for centuries.  As Michelle Obama famously declared, she had never been proud of her country...until its people elected her husband president.

Trump, by contrast, is working to make America great again.  What his careful wording reveals is that Trump is proud of what his country had been, and that he wants to restore, not transform, it greatness. 

Trump was never more honest than he was in addressing the United Nations on Sep. 23.  Other presidents have paid lip service to the U.N.’s feeble efforts at peacekeeping and addressing poverty and disease, but Trump made it clear that he does not respect the U.N. and does not wish to continue funding it at current levels.  In his speech, Trump stated that the U.N. “is not even coming close to its potential.”  After highlighting the many accomplishments of his first seven full months in office, Trump turned to his audience and said, “Your countries are going to hell.”  One couldn’t get more blunt than that.

“It’s too bad,” he said, that the United Nations “did not even try to help” with any of the international problems he has solved on his own.  As for the U.N., “all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up.  It’s empty words, and empty words don’t solve war.”  On another matter, Trump insisted that “not only is the U.N. not solving the problems it should — too often, it’s actually creating new problems for us to solve.  The best example is the number-one political issue of our time: the crisis of uncontrolled migration.”

At the U.N., Trump was nothing if not direct, but he was hardly negative.  He held out his hand to any nation who wished to join the U.S. in peace and prosperity.  He insisted that the U.N. had great potential.  Again and again, Trump said that his purpose was to “save lives”: in ending war in Ukraine and Palestine, in halting illegal migration, in blocking illegal drugs from entering the U.S., in fighting crime, and in ending the Green New Scam.  

Likewise with trade: “In the United States, we want trade and robust commerce with all nations, everybody.  We want to help nations; we’re gonna help nations.  But it must also be fair and reciprocal.”  At the moment he uttered these words, Trump was facing an audience comprising the representatives of all of America’s trading partners, many of whom are now facing new tariffs.  But instead of sugar-coating his remarks, Trump was honest and direct. Yes, for many years, other nations have taken advantage of the U.S.  Now is the time for fair and equal trade.

In concluding, Trump again sought friendship: “Let us all work together to build a bright, beautiful planet, a planet that we all share, a planet of peace and a world that is richer, better, and more beautiful than ever before.  That can happen.  It will happen.”

Not since Reagan have we had a president who spoke with such honesty and directness.

“Speaking the truth” may seem like a simple matter, but it is not.  It is, in fact, a crucial test of character, and one at which many of our national leaders have failed.  One ought to listen to Trump when he speaks.  He has earned that privilege through his many years of speaking the truth.

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.