Former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien reveals his deep contempt for President Donald Trump in a new book, while mourning former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential candidacy.
Chrétien, who was prime minister during much of the 1990s and was chummy with then-President Bill Clinton, derides Trump as “fanatical,” and “unspeakable.” He believes Trump’s reaction to the 2017 Charlottesville protests “exposed for us the true face of Donald Trump,” according to The Canadian Press, which also published an interview with the former Liberal Party leader Tuesday.
Chrétien also declares that Trump’s election heralded the “end of the American Empire.” (RELATED: Former Canadian PM Harper Says Elites ‘Got It So Wrong’ About Trump)
The book, entitled “My Stories My Times,” which was obtained by The Canadian Press, is ostensibly a memoir of Chrétien’s years leading Canada. But he expends a lot of words and energy attacking Trump and praising the Clintons, saying he was prompted to write the book because he was “tired of observing the surrealist vagaries of President Trump and of listening to his nonsense.”
Chrétien continues, “It’s been very sad to observe the monumental error our neighbours to the south made in November 2016. I fear that Hillary’s defeat, and the arrival of the fanatical Trump, mark the true end of the American Empire. You can understand why Aline and I are so happy to have the Clintons as friends, and almost as proud to be removed as far as possible from the unspeakable Donald Trump.”
Chrétien, in the interview, reiterated his belief that the American Empire is passing away.
“You know, you see the emergence of the Chinese and the decline of America,” he told CP. “When I’m travelling the world, I feel that their influence is going down very rapidly. You know, empires disappear. A lot of people are nostalgic about the British empire. A lot of people in France still dream of Napoleon; he’s dead since a long time. Life is like that.”
Chrétien dismissed Trump’s handling of the NAFTA renegotiations that recently produced the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), saying all of Trump’s threats to impose crippling duties on Canada amounted to “a lot of talk for nothing,” he told CP.
“He changed the name and not much else,” Chrétien insisted.