Trump, in the final days of his presidency, goes full King Lear
Editor’s note: Richard Bammer’s column can be found at our web site, and in Wednesday’s print edition.
As President Donald Trump behaves ever more erratically in the waning weeks of his term, Republicans and Democrats alike wonder: What’s he thinking?
To all those who would divine in the president’s floundering a grand strategy, or even a small one, let me offer some caution: If you go rummaging around in Trump’s brain right now, you’re going to emerge empty-handed.
He labeled it a “disgrace” — the covid-relief package his treasury secretary negotiated, in part because it was paired with spending items that Trump himself had proposed. After threatening the nation with a government shutdown, he signed the bill anyway.
He vetoed a crucial $741 billion defense bill that provides funding for military programs and gives the troops a pay raise — because of a personal beef he’s having with Twitter and Facebook and because he wants to keep the names of Confederate generals on military bases. Late last month, Congress overrode the veto by an overwhelming 322 to 87.
He pardoned lawbreaking cronies and, according to President- elect Joe Biden, the “political leadership” of Trump’s team has blocked the incoming administration from learning about foreign threats, a vulnerability “our adversaries may try to exploit.”
Trump continues his quixotic and lonely bid to overturn the results of the election he lost. He’s now lashing out at Republican leaders who have finally opted to follow the constitutional order rather than continuing to indulge his clownish attempt at a coup.
Even the Murdoch-owned New York Post, which endorsed Trump and ran with Hunter Biden allegations that other outlets could not substantiate, questioned the madness. An editorial in Monday’s edition urged Trump to stop “cheering for an undemocratic coup” and avoid being the “King Lear of Mar-aLago, ranting about the corruption of the world.”
The widely read morning tip sheet, Politico Playbook, marveled over the “bizarre, embarrassing episode for the president” in which he unsuccessfully threatened the covid-relief bill with “no discernible strategy” to make good on his bellicose statements. “He folded, and got nothing besides a few days of attention and chaos,” it concluded.
Ah, but that is exactly what he wanted. Attention is his lifeblood, and chaos its delivery vehicle. There is no strategy or policy.
Arguably, there never was. But in these final days, we see a defeated president abandoning all things — national security, democratic elections and any pretense of handling the duties of the presidency — as he does anything and everything to keep the spotlight on himself.
In tribute to this late-stage Trumpian lunacy, I’m writing these words wearing my backordered T-shirt that just arrived from Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, with the slogan “Make America Rake Again.” (My wife has the other version: “Lawn & Order.”) After the Trump campaign chose this location (near a porn shop and crematorium) for an election-challenge news conference, millions have posed the same question: Why?
New York magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi last week gave us the definitive 5,000-word account. And Nuzzi concludes, more or less, that there was no good explanation. “As one Philadelphia Republican official told me: ‘Duuuuuude! ... It’s the height of idiocy!’” she writes. “It was probably always that simple.”