Summary: Here is the best status report I’ve seen about Trump’s problems, and the dynamics that will either keep him in play — or put VP Pence in the Oval Office. By now it is obvious that Trump is lost in the job, with his administration fracturing around him. Here presidential biographer Elizabeth Drew reviews his problems and the basis of his support.
Excerpt from “Trump: The Presidency in Peril“
By Elizabeth Drew in The New York Review of Books, 22 June 2017.
“If Donald Trump leaves office before four years are up, history will likely show the middle weeks of May 2017 as the turning point.”
Problem #1: investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia.
Chief among his mounting problems are new revelations surrounding the question of whether Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia in its effort to tip the 2016 election. If Trump has nothing to hide, he is certainly jumpy whenever the subject comes up and his evident worry about it has caused him to make some big mistakes. The president’s troubles will continue to grow as the investigators keep on investigating and the increasingly appalled leakers keep on leaking.
Two especially damaging disclosures occurred on Friday, May 19, the day Trump departed on his first foreign trip. That afternoon, while Air Force One was in the air, the Washington Post broke an ominous story that law enforcement investigators had under scrutiny a “person of interest” on the White House staff, described as “close to the president.” No longer was the focus on a small number of people at some distance from Trump … The indications are that the “person of interest” is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law. …
Problem #2: leaks from Trump’s team about his behavior.
Where are all the leaks coming from? Many Republicans want to make this the issue rather than what the leaks reveal, but the fact that they keep coming is a sign of the state of near collapse of the White House staff. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Trump has the most unhappy staff ever, with some feeling a higher duty to warn the public about what they see as a danger to the country.
From the stories that emanate from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the impression one gets is that Trump is a nearly impossible person to work for: he screams at his staff when they tell him something he doesn’t want to hear; he screams at them as he watches television news for hours on end and sees stories about himself that he doesn’t like, which is most of them. Some White House staff are polishing their résumés. Leaks are also being made by the intelligence community, many of whom see Trump as a national menace.
People who have been to the Oval Office have come away stunned by Trump’s minimal attention span, his appalling lack of information, his tendency to say more than he knows. (Intelligence officials have been instructed to put as much of his daily briefing as possible in the form of pictures.) Aides have been subjected to public embarrassment by his propensity for changing his story. …
Will this be the surprise of 2017? Of 2018?
Problem #3: other investigations.
That same day, The Washington Post disclosed that Trump had asked the heads of two major intelligence agencies to announce that there had been no collusion between his campaign and Russia. Both declined. Some Trump defenders will argue that he didn’t know enough to understand that he shouldn’t have made those calls, or to try to get Comey to back off investigating Flynn — what might be called the ignorance defense. But while ignorance of the facts might be an acceptable defense in criminal or impeachment proceedings, ignorance of the law isn’t. …
Trump’s survival depends on his key supporters.
The survival of Trump’s presidency may depend most of all on congressional Republicans. Unless the Democrats take both chambers in the midterms, the Republicans will decide his fate. At what point might their patience with Trump be exhausted? How will they respond if high presidential associates or even the president himself are indicted and he chooses to fight it out rather than resign? Is it possible that a Congress in which the Republicans control both or even one chamber would consider impeaching Trump?
The impeachment proceedings against Nixon were accepted by the country because they were bipartisan and considered fair. Too many different unknowns are in play to predict the outcome of the midterms, though the respected Cook Report anticipates substantial Republican losses in the House. Republicans are starting to panic. …
The Republicans are in a bit of a spot: they don’t particularly like Trump and to them he’s an interloper. One reason many of them, especially Ryan, allied themselves with Trump was that they thought he would get their programs, especially tax cuts, through Congress, but prospects for major legislation are receding. And there’s no reason to think that a President Mike Pence wouldn’t back the same programs.
The problem with much of the predicting about what will or might happen in Washington is that it proceeds from an assumption of stasis—as if things won’t happen that could change the politicians’ calculations. When it comes to how long Trump will remain in office, one possibility often discussed is that things might get so bad for him that he decides to return to his much easier life in New York. But he insists that he’s not “a quitter.” (There’s also a question about the corpulent Trump’s health, but that’s not considered a proper topic of conversation.)
Politicians are pragmatists. Republican leaders urged Nixon to leave office rather than have to vote on his impeachment. Similarly, it’s possible that when Trump becomes too politically expensive for them, the current Republicans might be ready to dump him by one means or another. But the Republicans of today are quite different from those in the early 1970s: there are few moderates now and the party is the prisoner of conservative forces that didn’t exist in Nixon’s day. …
The critical question is: When, or will, Trump’s voters realize that he isn’t delivering on his promises, that his health care and tax proposals will help the wealthy at their expense, that he isn’t producing the jobs he claims? His proposed budget would slash numerous domestic programs, such as food stamps, that his supporters have relied on heavily. (One wonders if he’s aware of this part of his constituency.) People can have a hard time recognizing that they’ve been conned. And Trump is skilled at flimflam, creating illusions.
——————— Read the full article! ———————
About the author
Elizabeth Drew is a political journalist and author. See her Wikipedia entry and follow her on Twitter.
See her articles in The New York Review and at Project Syndicate. She has written fifteen books, including Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon’s Downfall
Subscribe to the New York Review Of Books
It deserves to be at the top of your reading pile.
Measuring Trump’s support
Polls show Trump losing support, a key requirement for successful impeachment.
- Impeachment — A Pew Poll taken on May 12 – 14 found that 48% were in favor of impeachment and 41% opposed. Public Policy Polling got the exact same results in a May 12-14 survey.
- Trump’s job approval rating — A Quinnnipiac University poll on May 17-23 found 37% approve vs. 55% disapprove Gallup’s May 24 poll found 39% approve vs. 55% disapprove.
For More Information
See “Will Trump be impeached – or is it just a liberal fantasy?” in The Guardian — “Only two presidents in history have been impeached {and none removed; Nixon resigned}. Here’s how the process would work – if it would at all.” They do not say why liberals fantasize about having the competent and far-right Pence as President.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about the Constitution, about ways to reform America, about Trump and the new populism, and especially these…
- Trump’s win revealed the hollowness of US politics. Stronger leaders will exploit this.
- The GOP might impeach Trump, changing our politics forever – for the better.
- What Trump told Russia, why it matters, and why journalists ignore the smartest man in Washington.
Books about impeachment in America – and the case against Trump.
One of the best introductions to impeachment in modern American politics is The Age of Impeachment: American Constitutional Culture since 1960
The latest and most provocative book on this subject is Allan Lichtman’s The Case for Impeachment
“In the fall of 2016, Lichtman made headlines when he predicted that Trump would defeat the heavily favored Democrat, Hillary Clinton. Now, in clear, nonpartisan terms, Lichtman lays out the reasons Congress could remove Trump from the Oval Office: his ties to Russia before and after the election, the complicated financial conflicts of interest at home and abroad, and his abuse of executive authority.
“The Case for Impeachment also offers a fascinating look at presidential impeachments throughout American history, including the often-overlooked story of Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, details about Richard Nixon’s resignation, and Bill Clinton’s hearings. Lichtman shows how Trump exhibits many of the flaws (and more) that have doomed past presidents. As the Nixon Administration dismissed the reporting of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as “character assassination” and “a vicious abuse of the journalistic process,” Trump has attacked the “dishonest media,” claiming, “the press should be ashamed of themselves.”
“Historians, legal scholars, and politicians alike agree: we are in politically uncharted waters—the durability of our institutions is being undermined and the public’s confidence in them is eroding, threatening American democracy itself. Most citizens—politics aside—want to know where the country is headed. Lichtman argues, with clarity and power, that for Donald Trump’s presidency, smoke has become fire.”
