A former U.S. ambassador to Panama has opened up about his “first and only” meeting with Donald Trump, in June 2017, and why the president’s one-dimensional perspective ultimately led him to quit.
John Feeley — in a recent appearance on The Guardian’s “Stateside” podcast — told host Kai Wright that the first words out of the president’s mouth were, “So you’re my ambassador in Panama. What do we get from Panama?”
Feeley, who was nominated to the post by Barack Obama in 2015, said he was familiar with the “standard procedure” for such meetings.
“We got the world’s largest economy and the most powerful military. Panama is a country of 4.5 million people. It’s got no military. And he wants to know what we get?” he remarked to Wright.
Feeley said he was prepared going into his meeting with Trump and, upon hearing the president’s question, “immediately slipped into New York cab-ese thinking that he didn’t want to hear State Department palaver.”
He explained that the low cost to ship iPhones and widescreen TVs from Asia to the East Coast is “what we get” from the country.
Trump, he recalled, looked up at him and replied, “‘Huh, who knew?’”
Both Feeley and Wright burst into laughter.
“I kid you not, man. That’s what he said, ‘Who knew?’’ Feeley said.
The former diplomat went on to explain that the meeting, and Trump’s answer, contributed to his “unease about continuing to be his personal representative.”
“This is a man who is so fundamentally ignorant, who is surrounded by people who are not ignorant, but who in their presentation towards a region that I dedicated about 30 years of my life to, have such a fundamentally superficial view,” he said.
“And it boils down to, ‘What do we get from these guys?’”
Feeley announced his resignation in December 2017, just months after the meeting, and ultimately left the post in March 2018.
Watch more of Feeley’s appearance on the “Stateside” podcast below.