It’s time for all Americans – especially my Washington press corps colleagues – to respect the wishes of all who voted to elect Donald Trump our president by finally being willing to take him at his word.

So it’s time for our news media’s talking heads and instant interpreters to rethink our craft’s default assumption – that Americans have grown numb to Trump’s outlandish name-calling and untruthful words and ways.

It’s time for us to stop assuming our role must be to somehow tell you what our president really intends to do to you. No more. Our real job is to make sure we all are focusing on what Trump’s specific words and deeds have actually been telling us — so the folks who elected him can decide if he really is giving you and your family what you thought you’d be getting.

It's not going to be easy. But we can get it done. If everyone stops the negativity and name-calling. And mainly, if we replace today’s mistrust with a new era of mutual trust. Perhaps all sides really do want to make America great again. Just as The Greatest Generation did when they chose to band together, go out and win World War II.

Now it’s our time. We can all start banding together by trying (just this once!) to take our leader at his word.

Let’s start by rewinding a bizarre series of recent Q&A exchanges between our president and the news media folks who cover him about Trump’s war on what he says are Venezuela boat drug runners.

On December 3, in an Oval Office press event, it all seemed simple enough – at first. ABC News correspondent Selina Wang asked: “Mr. President, you released video of that first boat strike on September 2nd, but not the second video. Will you release a video of that strike so that the American people can see for themselves what happened?”

And Trump replied: “I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have we’d certainly release, no problem.”

On September 2 a U.S. airstrike had targeted a small boat Trump officials said was carrying drugs to a not-yet disclosed location. The first attack broke the boat apart. Trump officials had promptly and proudly released the video of that airstrike. Later we learned two of the crew survived and were clinging to an overturned piece of wreckage. So a second strike killed both survivors. That became controversial because U.S. military law specifically states attacking boat wreck survivors is a war crime.

On Monday, December 8, at another White House news event, another ABC News correspondent, Rachel Scott, asked Trump: “Mr. President, you said you would have no problem with releasing the full video of that strike on September 2nd off the coast of Venezuela. Secretary Hegseth now says –”

But Trump – suddenly agitated – interrupted: “I didn’t say that. That’s – you said that. I didn’t say that. This is ABC fake news.”

But no, those were Trump’s words, not hers. Still today we’re all about taking Trump at his word. ABC’s reporter Scott calmly and quite accurately reminded Trump: “You said that you would have no problem releasing the full vi(deo).” She added that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth now says he’ll review whether to release it.

“Whatever he decides is OK with me,” Trump said, now taking himself out of the decision process. Trump insisted each drug boat sunk saved “25,000 American lives.” (But that’s a fictional stat that can’t survive a fact-check.)

Then, ABC’s Scott tried to follow up to clarify, and Trump launched into what has become his familiar personally vindictive name-calling insults: “You are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. … actually a terrible reporter, and it’s always the same thing with you.”

Trump’s insults have been especially targeted at female reporters who ask him questions he can’t comfortably answer – including his assessments of their physical appearance. Trump recently silenced one female questioner by calling her “piggy.” And he posted on Truth Social about a New York Times White House correspondent: “Katie Rogers, who is assigned to write only bad things about me, is a third rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out.”

But remember, today we are all about taking our president at his word. So we accepted Trump’s word that he had “no problem” with releasing that second September 2 attack video. And we also accept Trump’s word on December 8 when he claimed he had no memory of having said what we all heard him say. (Even after his team released 22 videos, all marked “UNCLASSIFIED.”)

But now we have one follow-up question for our president: We covered your years of taunting Joe Biden for what you repeatedly called cognitive decline and being unfit to be president – and now we’ve seen you issue your presidential “no problem” approval – and then have no memory of having done that, just five days later. And after years of hearing you name-call “Sleepy” Joe, we just saw you get all snoozy throughout your Cabinet meeting.

Q: So, as the clever expert of taunt and tease, what would you be calling an opposition president you just witnessed doing and forgetting precisely what you did and forgot?

After all, on Election Day 2020, the Joe Biden who defeated you for president was a couple of weeks away from being 78 – a year younger than you are today, Mr. President.

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