Don’t let Syria fool you: Donald Trump is having his worst week ever
Hey cable news, I’m going to stop you right here, because I’ve heard this one before. Donald Trump finally did something that wasn’t immediately recognizable as being a catastrophically embarrassing failure, therefore he’s “presidential” now and he’s probably going to be fine. That’s the narrative around his Syria attack. It was also the narrative around his State of the Union address, which in hindsight did nothing to stop his ongoing collapse. And once you look past Syria, this week was a disaster for Trump.
It got lost in the Syria headlines, but Donald Trump lost one and maybe two of the key pillars this week in a strategy that he’d been putting in place since November to protect himself against his Russia scandal. As I wrote awhile back, he had a four point plan in that regard (link). One of those pillars was Devin Nunes. He’d been in freefall for awhile. But he collapsed entirely the other day when he removed himself from his own House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Trump and Russia. He was there to run interference for Trump, and now he’s gone.
In fact the only pillar in his Russia defense strategy that was still fully intact coming into this week was his seeming ally Dana Boente at the Department of Justice. But something has shifted with that as well, and suddenly Trump is changing the DOJ order of succession yet again, under the presumption that he’ll need to work around Boente (link). It’s not clear there’s anyone left in place who’s willing and able to actively protect him on Russia.
Then there’s the Steve Bannon debacle. There are endless theories floating around that Bannon had himself removed from the National Security Council as part of some master plan to confuse people, and that’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t put past him. But as the week has gone on, it’s become more apparent that Bannon is simply losing the power struggle with Jared Kushner. And that’s a threefold problem for Trump. First, his own base is rebelling against him over Kushner (link) at the worst possible time. Second, he can’t get rid of Ivanka’s husband even if he later decides he wants or needs to. Third, Bannon is a vicious anarchist who will have no problem damaging everyone in the Trump administration (including Trump) on his way out. So the Game of Thrones stakes just went up.
But the worst news for Donald Trump this week may be the one victory he did score. Conservative extremist Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Filling that one empty seat was the only thing the Senate Republicans ever seemed to care about getting out of Trump. And now it’s over. They don’t need to prop him up anymore. Don’t get me wrong; Gorsush is a disaster for mainstream America, and his confirmation is by far the most damaging thing Trump has done since taking office. But watch the GOP Senate start distancing itself from Trump now that it got the one thing it came for.
Trump’s big “presidential moment” in Syria is already gradually being exposed as a stunt which didn’t even target the airstrips at the air force base it pretended to be disabling (link). But even if some moderates do temporarily fall for it, that’ll fade. In three days Trump will be back to tweeting the juvenile nonsense that caused moderates to sour on him to begin with, and a week from now some devastating new detail will leak about the Trump-Russia scandal (recommended reading), putting the focus right back on it. Even if his approval rating ticks up this week, it’ll trend back down and then fall even lower than before. The State of the Union taught us that.
So to recap: this week Donald Trump finished losing his Devin Nunes firewall, he may have lost his Dana Boente firewall, he began losing Steve Bannon, he lost the portion of his base that identifies with Bannon, and he probably lost the support of the Republican Senate. It may not feel like it to those who oppose him, but this is Trump’s worst week yet.Contribute to Palmer Report
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/dont-let-syria-fool-you-donald-trump-just-had-his-worst-week-on-the-job-yet/2237/
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