Trump Unbound
He’s hard to control now. Imagine if he wins in 2020 and never has to worry about elections again.
The New York Times reported an extraordinary showdown in the Oval Office last week. Defying objections from the vice president, attorney general, secretary of health and human services, and White House counsel, President Trump decided to ask the courts to invalidate Obamacare entirely.
Republican congressional leaders, still smarting from their failure to replace the health care law despite majorities in both chambers, were aghast. According to the Times, the decision could endanger the confirmation of a key deputy to Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to head the Office of Management and Budget.
This is hardly the first time Trump shocked his own party with a risky policy detour. Last December, the president announced on Twitter that the U.S. would withdraw completely from Syria, going against advice from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned the next day. When the policy was reversed several weeks later, the country was left to wonder at the point of it all.
And on Saturday, the president cut off foreign assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, accusing them of “set[ting] up these caravans” — just two days after Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen visited the region and congratulated the three countries on their “commitment to more orderly migration flows.”
But, the failure of Trump’s closest aides to moderate the president’s more radical impulses is a new development. Here’s a sampling of the president’s bad ideas that have been blocked over the last two years: a U.S. withdrawal from NATO, removing U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula, ending the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller (on multiple occasions), printing money to lower the national debt, and fulfilling a campaign promise to stop all Muslims entering the country. Those are just some of the ones we know about.
Before the 2018 midterm shellacking, an anonymous senior Trump official declared him or herself “part of the resistance inside the Trump administration,” citing “unsung heroes in and around the White House [who] have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing.”
If such a “resistance” ever existed, it’s in shambles. And the president’s sense of liberation following the conclusion of the Mueller investigation will probably only encourage his capricious instincts. We should ask ourselves: if this is how he behaves now, how might he govern in a second term when he is no longer constrained by electoral politics? What leverage will Republicans have against a billionaire president who no longer needs them?
Congressional Republicans, except for the Steve King and Louie Gohmert fringe, never cared much about a border wall. Former Speaker Paul Ryan might have been too complacent about Trump’s takeover of the party, but he stayed focused on the agenda items his conference cared about: enacting tax cuts (successfully) and repealing Obamacare (at least they tried).
After the midterms, the dynamic changed considerably. Bowing to criticism from Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, Trump rejected a GOP negotiated budget package and launched a pointless (but record-breaking!) government shutdown in hopes of funding his wall.
He’s hard to control now. Imagine if he wins in 2020 and never has to worry about elections again.
The New York Times reported an extraordinary showdown in the Oval Office last week. Defying objections from the vice president, attorney general, secretary of health and human services, and White House counsel, President Trump decided to ask the courts to invalidate Obamacare entirely.
Republican congressional leaders, still smarting from their failure to replace the health care law despite majorities in both chambers, were aghast. According to the Times, the decision could endanger the confirmation of a key deputy to Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to head the Office of Management and Budget.
This is hardly the first time Trump shocked his own party with a risky policy detour. Last December, the president announced on Twitter that the U.S. would withdraw completely from Syria, going against advice from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned the next day. When the policy was reversed several weeks later, the country was left to wonder at the point of it all.
And on Saturday, the president cut off foreign assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, accusing them of “set[ting] up these caravans” — just two days after Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen visited the region and congratulated the three countries on their “commitment to more orderly migration flows.”
But, the failure of Trump’s closest aides to moderate the president’s more radical impulses is a new development. Here’s a sampling of the president’s bad ideas that have been blocked over the last two years: a U.S. withdrawal from NATO, removing U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula, ending the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller (on multiple occasions), printing money to lower the national debt, and fulfilling a campaign promise to stop all Muslims entering the country. Those are just some of the ones we know about.
Before the 2018 midterm shellacking, an anonymous senior Trump official declared him or herself “part of the resistance inside the Trump administration,” citing “unsung heroes in and around the White House [who] have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing.”
If such a “resistance” ever existed, it’s in shambles. And the president’s sense of liberation following the conclusion of the Mueller investigation will probably only encourage his capricious instincts. We should ask ourselves: if this is how he behaves now, how might he govern in a second term when he is no longer constrained by electoral politics? What leverage will Republicans have against a billionaire president who no longer needs them?
Congressional Republicans, except for the Steve King and Louie Gohmert fringe, never cared much about a border wall. Former Speaker Paul Ryan might have been too complacent about Trump’s takeover of the party, but he stayed focused on the agenda items his conference cared about: enacting tax cuts (successfully) and repealing Obamacare (at least they tried).
After the midterms, the dynamic changed considerably. Bowing to criticism from Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, Trump rejected a GOP negotiated budget package and launched a pointless (but record-breaking!) government shutdown in hopes of funding his wall.
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