Presidential power appears to be slipping through Donald Trump’s fingers like grains of sand from a bunker at one of his golf courses.
Tuesday’s Politico Playbook puts the same thought another way, with a pointed question: “Does President Donald Trump have any sway left?”
It’s a strange thing to be asking about a president who has wreaked such havoc in America and the world, one who is just 3½ months away from facing the verdict of the voters.
One thing for those voters to consider is this: many constitutional scholars say Trump grossly misused his power when he handed his friend, convicted felon Roger Stone, a get-out-of-jail-free card by commuting his prison sentence. That could have a lasting impact on the presidency and the nation.
Trump also caused havoc in his deferential party by abruptly moving the bulk of next month’s Republican National Convention to Jacksonville, FL — at a time when Florida has turned into one of the world’s most intense coronavirus hotspots.
As a result, he won’t be getting the raucous, jam-packed celebration of himself he so obviously desires.
Growing numbers of notable GOP leaders are begging off, the most recent being Sens. Roy Blunt of Missouri and Pat Roberts of Kansas.
Even Florida Reps. Mario Diaz Balart and Francis Rooney are sticking with their plan to stay away from the convention in their own state — and Sen. Marco Rubio refuses to commit himself.
“Everybody just assumes no one is going,” Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL) told the New York Times. LaHood is an honorary state co-chairman for the Trump campaign and one of eight Republican House members who’ve said they’ll skip the convention.
In less than a week, notes he Washington Post, the U.S. “has suffered a worsening resurgence of coronavirus cases indicating that — after six months — the most powerful country in the world has made little progress in controlling the virus,” and that no one knows when, or even if, it will end.
“President Trump, meanwhile, has been largely MIA on a question most citizens expect their president to address: What does he plan to do now to better protect the public health and return the country to normalcy?” the Post says, adding:
“From Thursday to [Tuesday], Trump apparently preferred to spend his time on other things.”
Then there’s education, and the huge question American parents must answer for themselves: should I send my kid back to school?
Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos insist they should. And even though DeVos has long advocated for strict local control of public schools, she now insists that school districts nationwide follow orders from Washington to reopen for the fall term.
“You want to talk about a moment for parent choice — we’re literally in this alone,” Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, told the Times.
“It’s as if the Trump administration gave [DeVos] one sentence that she was supposed to stick to: Open the economy by any means necessary. Our lives are not valuable to them at all. We are a means to an end,” Rodrigues said.
In any event, more and more states and school districts are simply saying no.
This kind of outright resistance to a weakened president underscores how Trump’s bullying use of the Bully Pulpit is failing him.
And there’s no sign that the pattern will change.
“Whenever you are asked to name the lowest moment of the Trump presidency, one answer is almost always correct: Tomorrow,” writes Dana Milbank in the Post. “As the nation ricochets between chaos and calamity, the one reliable constant is the near certainty that things will get worse.”
One pundit, Bill Press, even envisions Trump preemptively pardoning himself before leaving office to head off prosecution and potential prison time. Though his opinion piece in The Hill seems at least slightly tongue-in-cheek, Press insists he’s serious.
“Donald Trump pardons himself? Don’t laugh. Admit it. You know as well as I, that’s exactly where this whole clown show is headed,” Press writes, adding:
“I’m not a betting man, but I’d bet the ranch on this one: that somewhere in White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s office is a file on presidential self-pardons.”
Trump “knows he has to do it,” Press writes. “He will do it. It’s not a question of if, but of when.”
