> Trump retreats from duties,
Administration officials scurry for cover in wake of U.S. midterm results
WASHINGTON — For weeks this fall, an ebullient U.S. President Donald Trump travelled relentlessly to hold raise-the-rafters campaign rallies — sometimes three a day — in states where his presence was likely to help Republicans on the ballot.
But his mood apparently has changed as he has taken measure of the electoral backlash that voters delivered Nov. 6. With the certainty that the incoming Democratic House majority will go after his tax returns and investigate his actions, and the likelihood of additional indictments by special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump has retreated into a cocoon of bitterness and resentment, according to multiple administration sources.
Behind the scenes, they say, the president has lashed out at several aides, from junior press assistants to senior officials. “He’s furious,” said one administration official. “Most staffers are trying to avoid him.”
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of a brooding president “trying to decide who to blame” for Republicans’ election losses, even as he publicly and implausibly continues to claim victory.
White House chief of staff John Kelly and Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who are close allies, “seem to be on their way out,” the official said, noting recent leaks on the subject. The official cautioned, however, that personnel decisions are never final until Trump himself tweets out the news — often just after the former reality-TV star who’s famous for saying “You’re fired!” has directed Kelly to so inform the individual.
And, according to a source outside the White House who has spoken recently with the president, last week’s Wall Street Journal report confirming Trump’s central role during the 2016 campaign in quietly arranging payoffs for two women alleging affairs with him seemed to put him in an even worse mood.
Publicly, Trump has been increasingly absent in recent days — except on Twitter. He has cancelled travel plans and dispatched cabinet officials and aides to events in his place — including sending Vice-President Mike Pence to Asia for the annual summits there in November that past presidents nearly always attended.
Jordan’s King Abdullah was in Washington on Tuesday and met with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, but not the president.
Also Tuesday, Defence Secretary James Mattis announced plans to travel today near the U.S.-Mexico border to visit with troops Trump ordered there last month in what is ostensibly a mission to defend against a caravan of Central American migrants moving through Mexico and still hundreds of kilometres from the United States.
Trump had reportedly considered making that trip himself, but has decided against it. Nor has he spoken of the caravan since the midterm elections, after making it a central issue in his last weeks of campaigning.
Unusually early on Monday, the White House called a “lid” at 10:03 a.m. EST, informing reporters that the president would not have any scheduled activities or public appearances for the rest of the day. Although it was Veterans Day, Trump bucked tradition and opted not to make the short trip to Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as presidents since at least John F. Kennedy have done to mark the solemn holiday.
Trump’s only public appearance Tuesday was at a short White House ceremony marking the start of the Hindu holiday Diwali at which he made brief comments and left without responding to questions.
He had just returned Sunday night from a two-day trip to France to attend ceremonies marking the centennial of the armistice that ended the First World War. That trip was overshadowed, in part, by Trump’s decision not to attend a wreathlaying at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, the burial place for 2,289 soldiers northeast of Paris, due to rain.
Kelly, a former Marine Corps general, and Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did attend to honour the American service members interred there. Trump stayed in the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Paris, making no public appearances.
Other heads of state also managed to make it to First World War cemeteries in the area for tributes to their nations’ war dead on Saturday.
Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin were the only world leaders to skip another commemoration, on Sunday, at the Arc de Triomphe, where about 80 heads of state walked in unison — under umbrellas in the pouring rain — down Paris’ grand Champs-Élysées boulevard. Trump arrived later by motorcade, a decision aides claimed was made for security reasons.
Nicholas Burns, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO under George W. Bush, said the moment, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of a war in which 120,000 Americans were killed, was ripe for soaring words, which Trump failed to provide.
“Not only did he barely show up, he didn’t say anything that would help Americans understand the scale of the loss, or the importance of avoiding another great war,” Burns said.
Trump took heavy flak on social media for his no-show at the military cemetery.
“President @realDonaldTrump a noshow because of raindrops?” tweeted former Secretary of State John Kerry, a navy veteran. “Those veterans the president didn’t bother to honour fought in the rain, in the mud, in the snow — & many died in trenches for the cause of freedom. Rain didn’t stop them & it shouldn’t have stopped an American president.”
Trump tried to explain himself on Tuesday, in a tweet: “By the way, when the helicopter couldn’t fly to the first cemetery in France because of almost zero visibility, I suggested driving. Secret Service said NO, too far from airport & big Paris shutdown. Speech next day at American Cemetary [sic] in pouring rain! Little reported — Fake News!”
In that tweet, Trump falsely described the weather at the Sunday visit to another U.S. cemetery. Rather than “pouring rain,” photos showed him standing without a hat or an umbrella under overcast skies.