I’ve been hearing a particular phrase often, as of late: “Give Trump a chance.” So, I thought I would take some time to reflect on that. In a very real sense, I have no choice but to give him a chance. He is my President and the only one our nation has right now. I also must give him a chance because the alternatives are not all that enticing. If he fails miserably, the nation and its people whom I care for deeply will all suffer the consequences. I would much rather Trump succeed with the chances he is given. And, when accomplishments of true merit can be attributed to his policies and his actions, I will be happy to give him credit for those accomplishments.

Yet, when I look at the normal, everyday circumstances of giving someone a chance, I cannot help but wonder how many chances does a person deserve? We often give chances for people to succeed on their own. We do it for children, young adults, the inexperienced, for our friends and for our family members. But, I think it safe to say, we all also have limits to the number of chances we are willing to give freely to those people before we limit or cut off those chances.

How many chances does President Trump deserve from the American people whom he represents? He has had two years now, to act presidential, to act like a leader, to present himself in a mature and respectable fashion. Yet, time and time again, Trump has failed to meet the mark. This is demonstrated by his loss in the popular vote, his historically low favorability ratings, and the fact that far more people across the nation showed up in protest of him than attended his inauguration.

The day after the inauguration, Trump had yet another chance to convince America that he can indeed act like an adult and conduct presidential business. This chance came with a speech he gave to the CIA. Surrounded by the best of America’s intelligence community and in front of a wall commemorating the CIA’s fallen agents, Trump failed us all once again. His speech was an embarrassment to our nation and in particular to those agents who were memorialized on the wall behind him.

Rather than give an informed, researched, intelligent speech on the importance of the work of the CIA in combating terrorism or reaching out to an intelligence community he previously compared to Nazis, Trump used his speech to promote himself, talk about how great he was, and complaining about how unfair the media was being to him. The CIA agents listening must have had a hard time not walking out. It has since been revealed that Trump packed a portion of the room with staff members in order to create the sound of loud applause and approval. But, the applause and approval came from his hand-picked audience and not CIA staff members.

Trump began, after an early dig at the media in the first paragraph, by reassuring the CIA that he was behind them, despite many of his own statements to the contrary. From there, he quickly began to brag about himself, suggesting that he knew many of the CIA agents had voted for him in the election, which must have been awkward given the CIA’s tradition of staying politically neutral, knowing full well they must serve the nation ahead of any political party or candidate. He continued at length bragging about his great choices for “Secretary of This” and “Secretary of That,” how his transition had been so smooth, and how he had had such tremendous success. He talked generically about “winning” and being “great” with little of it making any coherent sense, point, or argument. Much of the speech was a Palinesque word salad.

Trump continued by mixing, in turn, his dubious praise of the CIA, his self-aggrandizement, and complaints about the “dishonest media.” It seems as though he had completely forgotten that the election was over, that he had actually won, and that the CIA was not an appropriate audience for a campaign style stump speech. He sprinkled in some flat out lies about the size of the audience at his inauguration and suggested once again, that we claim Iraqi oil as our own. At this point, one can only guess how befuddled the CIA agents in attendance felt. Statements like that put our troops abroad at risk for retaliation.

Instead of giving a serious speech attempting to mend fences with a key part of our ability to combat terrorism, Trump took the low road once again. He lied. He bragged. He staged the audience. He put our soldiers and the intelligence community at risk. He embarrassed himself and our nation. At some point, you have to stop giving people unlimited chances and realize they are not deserving of them.