David Graham: “The way the two summits have been received feels like a case study in the differences between the first and second Trump presidencies.”
“In 2019, neither the press nor the public was yet so fatigued by news and numb to outrage, as New York magazine observed this week, nor were they yet accustomed to a president using his position to openly enrich himself… The Republican Party also had more leaders who were willing to criticize the president, either publicly or privately.”
“Finally, although Trump has never seemed especially vulnerable to shame, the president and his aides could still be swayed by sufficient embarrassment back then. The phrase shameless corruption gets used a lot, but Trump’s second term embodies it.”
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