Amid Iran and impeachment, Trump’s focus is reelection
NEW YORK — Impeachment, immigration and Iran have filled the White House agenda as the year begins.
But with the first votes of this year’s presidential campaign to be cast in just weeks, President Donald Trump is increasingly focused on his reelection bid. He has revved up his criticism of the Democrats vying to replace him, and his team looks at both foreign and domestic matters through the lens of the 2020 campaign.
Trump, who announced his reelection bid the same day he took the oath of office, has long been an unabashedly political president. The president’s focus on his reelection effort — the ultimate arbiter of his legacy, in his estimation — has not wavered in the midst of his biggest crises at home and abroad.
The White House has been exploring a number of policy proposals meant to shore up support in Trump’s conservative base, including an expansion of the president’s travel ban. The president’s decision to authorize a drone strike that killed Iran’s top general has become a staple in his stump speech. And his team has mobilized to paint the upcoming impeachment trial as a partisan witch hunt it hopes will energize his supporters.
It is impeachment itself that stands as the best example of Trump’s consuming focus on reelection: The House of Representatives charged him with pushing a foreign government to investigate a potential 2020 foe.
“All presidents think about reelection. The extent of this may vary, but every occupant of the Oval Office considers how to maintain power,” said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University. “But what we have seen from Trump is that he takes it much further than any other president. He was impeached for that very reason, and everything he says or tweets is political.”
Trump stepped out of a campaign meeting at Mar-aLago earlier this month to authorize the drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani. But he has largely invited politics into his decision-making process, frequently questioning aides about how policy decisions would play during the campaign and demanding polling data.
Not facing a substantial primary challenger, Trump has been able to carefully watch the winnowing process play out on the Democratic side.
For months, he and his advisers have gamed out who they hope to face in November, according to five campaign aides, White House officials and Republicans close to the West Wing interviewed for this story under the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Trump has stuck to mostly trying to sow chaos in the Democratic field, believing that the list of candidates is too long to fully influence and confident that the eventual nominee can be painted as a socialist for embracing liberal proposals.
He has reveled in the Democrats’ recent internal squabbling and has taken to Twitter to offer real-time commentary on the candidates’ debates, interviews and controversies.
“Bernie Sander’s volunteers are trashing Elizabeth “Pocahontus” Warren. Everybody knows her campaign is dead and want her potential voters. Mini Mike B is also trying, but getting tiny crowds which are all leaving fast. Elizabeth is very angry at Bernie. Do I see a feud brewing?” Trump tweeted Monday.
At a rally Tuesday night, Trump waded into a feud between the Warren and Sanders camps about a 2018 conversation in which Warren said Sanders told her a woman wouldn’t be able to win the presidency. “I don’t believe that Bernie said that. I really don’t,” Trump said. “It’s not the kind of thing he’d say.”