I’m sure there was a time when Republicans and Democrats used to be able to disagree like adults. Comparatively speaking, anyway. If that ever was the case, that time is clearly dead. What we now have to deal with constantly is blanket opposition to and mockery of nearly everything Donald Trump says or does, no matter how obviously defensible.
Repair the Reflecting Pool? Outrage. Build a new White House ballroom? Lawsuits. Follow Secret Service guidance to avoid a possible assassination attempt? Mockery, apparently, if you're Trump.
This week, Trump confirmed that the Secret Service and the military secretly swapped his plane when he left the NATO summit in Turkey last month because of a possible security threat. He hid in a catering truck before boarding a separate, secret jet out of the country. The traveling press corps stayed on the original plane with no idea any of it was happening, and once they found out, they were furious that Trump's team had used them as decoys.
Cartoonists and pundits on the left responded with mockery instead of any acknowledgment that the president of the United States had just dodged another possible attempt on his life.
Trump has already survived multiple assassination attempts, including one that left him with a bullet wound to the ear. The Iranian government has made no secret of wanting him dead. Nothing about that seems to register with a press corps that cares more about a classified security decision leaving them out of the loop than about their subject making it out alive.
I get a front-row seat to how the Left processes stories like this. I'm the writer half of Margolis & Cox, a nationally syndicated editorial cartoon duo, and the syndicate we work with leans left, which means I see the competition's cartoons a lot. In the days after the plane swap became public, plenty of them piled on, drawing Trump as a chicken and mocking a man who has survived multiple assassination attempts for following his own protective detail's advice.
Look, I get criticizing policies you don’t like, and even trying to make character an issue. But not everything deserves a pile-on. Certainly, this didn’t.
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Even Bill Maher, no one's idea of a Trump defender, wasn't buying the outrage. Discussing the incident with his panel on his HBO show, Maher laid out exactly what happened. "President Trump foiled the assassins again this week," Maher said. "He jumped on the plane that wasn't the plane, but he left everybody else on the other plane. If the Iranians were going to shoot down that plane, goodbye, Marco Rubio and a lot of other people. No, I'm not judging here. I'm sure that's what the Secret Service told him to do."
Maher then posed the real question, asking whether a president of either party would have handled it differently. "My question is, because I've heard it is the president's discretion whether he could do that or not, do you think any other president would have done it differently?" he asked, naming Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and Ronald Reagan as examples. "Like, say, Jimmy Carter. He was like Mr. Christian Guy. Would he have left his friends on that other plane? What about Obama? What about Reagan?"
Panelist Kristen Soltis Anderson didn't hesitate. "Donald Trump has had a number of credible threats on his life, traced back to the Iranian government," she said. "He got his ear shot. So I kind of think if you're Donald Trump, you do what the Secret Service tells you." Maher agreed. "Yeah, I would," he said.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo backed her up. "I think they all would," he said. Maher pressed him on it. "You think they all would?" he asked. Cuomo held his ground. "Yeah, I think they would do what the Secret Service said to do," he said. "Yes, it's his decision, but you rarely go against what the Secret Service is advising."
Bill Maher says he "doesn't blame" Trump for sneaking off Air Force One in a catering truck while Marco Rubio and the press stayed on the decoy plane.
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) August 15, 2026
Then Andrew Cuomo jumps in and admits every other president would have done the exact same thing.
MAHER: “President Trump… pic.twitter.com/HLSbr8KE4g
It’s getting tiring at this point, don’t you think?
