New York Times: “Far from a strongman, Mr. Trump has lately become a heckler in his own government, promoting medical conspiracy theories on social media, playing no constructive role in either the management of the coronavirus pandemic or the negotiation of an economic rescue plan in Congress — and complaining endlessly about the unfairness of it all.”
An Extraordinarily Weak President
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Democrats Are the Governing Party
Ezra Klein: “Democrats are acting as the governing party even though they’re in the minority. They’re fighting for the baseline policies that any normal administration, Republican or Democrat, would be begging for right now.”
“This is an inversion of the traditional relationship between the White House and the opposition party. Typically, in a crisis, the administration would be pushing to do more, do it faster, and the minority party would be deciding whether to block those efforts or attach their own ideological priorities onto them. That’s because the administration knows it will be blamed for failure. But the Trump administration has refused responsibility for this crisis, and it has repeatedly wanted both less funding and less authority than congressional Democrats want to give it.”
Trump Is Terrible at Governing
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Trump Struggles to Fill Top Jobs
“Pushing nominees through the Senate confirmation process takes twice as long under President Trump as it did during President Ronald Reagan’s time in office — a record that appears to have limited Trump’s influence during his three years as president,” Politico reports.
“On average, it takes 115 days to confirm a presidential appointee for Trump, compared with 56.4 days under Reagan, according to new data from the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. In 2019, the process took even longer: an average of 136 days for the Senate to confirm appointees, particularly for sub-Cabinet positions.”
Kentucky GOP May Strip New Governor of Power
Kentucky state Senate leaders “are backing a bill that would limit the governor’s power to name a Kentucky Transportation Cabinet secretary, essentially shifting that role to a citizen board nominated by influential business and government groups,” WDRB reports.
Trump Has No Understanding of Governing
Dan Balz: “After a week in which the threat of recession rocked global financial markets, his trade war with China showed no signs of progress and the government of Israel got into a nasty dispute with two members of Congress, President Trump went to bed Thursday night with other weighty issues on his mind.”
He tweeted: “Great news. Tonight we broke the all-time attendance record previously held by Elton John at #SNHUArena in Manchester!”
“This is the frivolous mindset of the president of the United States. His flurry of statements over the past few days have brought into focus once again something fundamental about the president: He has little understanding of what it means to govern. He would rather tweet from the bleachers.”
Governing to the Brink
A senior government official who was involved in the spending negotiations over the past few weeks told Jonathan Swan the experience taught them something disturbing.
Said the official: “We’re going to go to the edge on everything.”
“The White House has just gotten through a spending fight that pushed Congress — and the federal workforce affected by the shutdown — to the brink. But even uglier skirmishes are imminent, including whether to raise the federal government’s debt limit and break Congress’ self-imposed budget caps.”
Republicans Increasingly Satisfied with the Government
Gallup: “While U.S. adults remain largely dissatisfied with the way the nation is being governed, their satisfaction is up 10 percentage points since last year, to 38%. This increase is exclusively attributable to further heightened positivity among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, whose satisfaction rose from 47% last year to 72% now. At the same time, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents’ satisfaction is static at 10%.”
Trump’s Easy Campaign Promises Hit Hard Realities
“An emboldened President Trump is discovering that the policies he once described as easy fixes for the nation are a lot more complicated in reality — creating backlash among allies, frustrating supporters and threatening the pocketbooks of many farming communities that helped get him elected,” the Washington Post reports.
“Freed from the caution of former advisers, Trump has spent recent weeks returning to the gut-level basics that got him elected: tough talk on China, a promise of an immigration crackdown and an isolationist approach to national security.”
“Several people who have spoken to the president say he is telling advisers that he is finally expediting the policies that got him elected and is more comfortable without a number of aides around him who were tempering his instincts. And he often cites rising poll numbers in recent weeks as a reason he should do it his own way.”
Clinton the Pragmatist
Ezra Klein: “What Happened has been sold as Clinton’s apologia for her 2016 campaign, and it is that. But it’s more remarkable for Clinton’s extended defense of a political style that has become unfashionable in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Clinton is not a radical or a revolutionary, a disruptor or a socialist, and she’s proud of that fact. She’s a pragmatist who believes in working within the system, in promising roughly what you believe you can deliver, in saying how you’ll pay for your plans. She is frustrated by a polity that doesn’t share her ‘thrill’ over incremental policies that help real people or her skepticism of sweeping plans that will never come to fruition. She believes in politics the way it is actually practiced, and she holds to that belief at a moment when it’s never been less popular.”
“This makes Clinton a more unusual figure than she gets credit for being: Not only does she refuse to paint an inspiring vision of a political process rid of corruption, partisanship, and rancor, but she’s also actively dismissive of those promises and the politicians who make them.”
Hurricane Cleanup Poses Governing Test for Republicans
“The catastrophic floods brought by Hurricane Harvey to southeastern Texas will pose an immediate test for the White House and Congress, pressing policymakers to approve billions of dollars in recovery funds even though they haven’t agreed on much else this year,” the Washington Post reports.
“White House officials and GOP leaders were already taking stock of the challenge on Sunday, even as the floodwaters in Texas — and the eventual cost of recovery — were still rising. One senior White House official and GOP aides on Capitol Hill said late Sunday they expected to begin discussing an ’emergency’ package of funding soon to help with relief and rebuilding efforts, even if agreement as to the size of such a package remained premature.”
Kushner Will Lead SWAT Team to Fix Government
Washington Post: “The White House Office of American Innovation, to be led by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, will operate as its own nimble power center within the West Wing and will report directly to Trump. Viewed internally as a SWAT team of strategic consultants, the office will be staffed by former business executives and is designed to infuse fresh thinking into Washington, float above the daily political grind and create a lasting legacy for a president still searching for signature achievements.”
What Kushner needs to read: Chapter 4 of You Won, Now What? titled “It’s Not a Business.”
Nobody Knew Governing Could Be So Complicated
McKay Coppins: “The GOP’s inability to maneuver a health-care bill through the House this week—after seven years of promising to repeal and replace Obamacare—is, indeed, emblematic of a deeper dysfunction that grips his party. But that dysfunction may not be as easy to cure as Ryan and other GOP leaders believe.”
“That’s because it has been nearly a decade since Washington Republicans were in the business of actual governance. Whether you view their actions as a dystopian descent into cynical obstructionism or a heroic crusade against a left-wing menace, the GOP spent the Obama years defining itself—deliberately, and thoroughly—in opposition to the last president. Rather than engage the Obama White House in a more traditional legislative process—trading favors, making deals, seeking out areas where their interests align—conservatives in Congress opted to boycott the bargaining table altogether. Meanwhile, they busied themselves with a high-minded (and largely theoretical) intra-party debate about what 21st-century conservatism should stand for. They spent their time dealing in abstract ideas, articulating lofty principles, reciting memorized quotes from the Founding Fathers.”
“In many ways, the strategy paid off: Republicans took back Congress, slowed the progress of an agenda they genuinely opposed, and ultimately seized control of the White House. But it also came at a cost for the GOP—their lawmakers forgot how to make laws. Indeed, without any real expectation of their bills actually being enacted, the legislative process mutated into a platform for point-scoring, attention-getting, and brand-building.”
Quote of the Day
“Welcome to the real world of responsibility. The fact is that, right now, the heat is on the Republicans. It’s on us… We now have two-thirds of the statehouses in America. We have the House. We have the Senate. We have the White House. It’s now on us to produce results.”
— Gov. Chris Christie (R), quoted by the Washington Post.
Quote of the Day
“They had their shot in the election… But in this country when you win the election you get to make policy. I always remind people, winners make policy and losers go home.”
— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by The Hill, in response to nearly 1,000 protesters who showed up for his speech.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“In campaign world, rapid response is vital. In governance, it can be lethal if it’s in reaction to things small and unimportant. It just strikes me as crazy that the soon-to-be leader of the free world would be waking up each morning this weekend and tweeting comments about what someone said at a play in New York.”
— Rep. Mark Sanford (R-SC), on Facebook.
Trump Will Soon Learn That Governing Is Different
Playbook: “Trump has spent the last year controlling the narrative. He’s lost it. Oh, and by the way, Trump is about to face a new normal. He spent the year worrying about crowd sizes and rallies. That delivered him the presidency. But now a single senator could stymie his plans. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said yesterday that he would do anything in his power to stop John Bolton from being secretary of state. All he has to do is place a hold on his nomination, and Trump has to grovel to his former rival. And this isn’t even coming from Democrats yet!”