The president turns on his own, and puts his agenda in turmoil
On a baking-hot evening in Phoenix on Tuesday, in another of the campaign-style rallies in red states that seem to give him strength when he runs into trouble in Washington, President Donald Trump trotted out the usual enemies, the malefactors in the “very dishonest media” and the “anarchists” of the left to whom that very same media had paid too little attention. But this time he gave equal billing to his fellow Republicans in Congress — the people he will surely need if he hopes to deliver on infrastructure or anything else of value to the working-class Americans who elected him.
Among these were Arizona’s two senators — John Mccain, who cast the decisive vote in the Senate to dash Trump’s effort to repeal Obamacare, and Jeff Flake, a conservative who has been a thorn in the presidential side. Neither was mentioned by name. Mccain was sarcastically referred to as “one vote.” As for Flake, “Nobody knows who the hell he is.”
All this, as well as a broader attack on congressional “obstructionists,” came on the same day that The Times published an article detailing the rapid disintegration of the relationship between Trump and the Senate majority leader, Mitch Mcconnell. Mcconnell has fought fiercely and loyally for the president at every turn, whether on health care or his judicial nominees, and his support will continue to be important on major issues. Other presidents have gotten crosswise with their own parties, but this president seems to have alienated everybody. And whether one hopes to see the president’s agenda enacted or stymied, his failure to perceive this essential political dynamic is evidence of how little he understands what it takes to convert campaign positions into reality.
Among Mcconnell’s sins, in Trump’s eyes, is that he has publicly questioned Trump’s understanding of the presidency and privately fumed at Trump’s threats against Republicans. Trump has not, in fact, been acting in a manner befitting his office, nor offering a coherent governing strategy. He has alternately abused and belittled his putative allies. During the health care struggle, he told Sen. Shelley Moore Capito that she couldn’t ride home to West Virginia on Air Force One unless she voted for repeal. Trump dispatched Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, to threaten Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska with loss of federal funding unless she voted the right way. (She did not.)
And Trump started calling out Mcconnell by name, in tweets and comments. “Mitch, get back to work and put Repeal & Replace, Tax Reform & Cuts and a great Infrastructure Bill on my desk for signing,” Trump tweeted. Over the phone, the two engaged in a profane shouting match, as Trump, fearful of the FBI’S investigation of his administration’s possible ties to Russia, accused Mcconnell of failing to protect him.
Mcconnell has lately been suggesting that Trump’s administration may not survive a summer of missteps; other Republicans are speaking openly about abandoning him. That could mean that soon after Congress reconvenes next month, Trump could find himself nearly powerless to shape a long-promised overhaul of the tax code, and deprived of funds for his long-promised border wall. Further ruptures risk a government shutdown, a blow to the country that would tar Republicans in the White House and Congress.
Trump’s larger problem — which is America’s problem — is, as is now clear, an absence of any plausible governing vision, which in turn has created a vacuum into which all sorts of ideas descend to do battle — railing against immigrants, as he did Tuesday, and threatening to kill trade deals to appeal to his base, then pushing for a tax code overhaul and tax cuts for the wealthy to appeal to his Wall Street-based advisers.
On Tuesday, buoyed by his crowd in Phoenix, Trump was back to raging against just about everyone who crossed his field of vision, 77 minutes worth of anger that began, as the evening wore on, to exhaust even his most fervid listeners, who began quietly to fade away.