Trump Absent as Congress Works Around the Clock

Playbook: “This presidency has been filled with hard-to-believe split screens, but we’re seeing perhaps the starkest display of dissonance yet. Congress has been working around the clock to cut a series of end-of-year deals, and President Trump is on an unending tear of falsehoods, suggesting that he is the rightful winner of the election, which, of course, he’s not. He’s losing support — Republicans are sick of the gripes, the Supreme Court is summarily dismissing his arguments, and the nation’s governing apparatus is preparing for Joe Biden’s presidency.”

“Congress, meanwhile, has spent this week and will spend next week trying to put in place a series of policies to help America bounce back from the coronavirus. It avoided a government shutdown, with the intent of giving itself more time to cut a bipartisan deal. Yet Trump has been absent — a bit player in a government he’s meant to be steering and a country he’s meant to be leading.”