Trump heads for golf club holiday — but storms loom
NEW YORK (AP) — Now is the summer (vacation) of the president’s discontent.
As Donald Trump prepares to leave today for his annual August holiday at his lush New Jersey golf club, he’s confronting a storm of crises, at home and abroad, that could set the course for his upcoming re-election bid.
With his poll numbers stalled and his ability to rally the country questioned, he’s being tested by an escalating trade war with China that may slow the economy, rising tensions with both Iran and North Korea and, in the aftermath of the latest mass shootings, pressure to act on guns and face accusations of his own role in fostering an environment of hate.
The dark clouds are converging as the president’s bid for a second term takes on new urgency. Trump exudes confidence but as the two dozen Democrats eager to take his job sharpen their attacks, the White House — or, for the next 10 days, the clubhouse in Bedminster, New Jersey — will have to mount a multifront effort rooted in maintaining his base rather than trying to expand it.
“There are often presidents facing reelection who face an onslaught,” said Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian at Rice University.
“Those are the times when you need to heal the nation’s wounds or make your case for a real change. But Trump long ago decided that he was going to try to be a president who divided and conquered to intimidate friend and foe alike.”
Unlike other embattled incumbents at this point in their terms, Trump does not face a serious primary challenge. His vise-like grip on the Republican Party has warded off insurgencies like Ronald Reagan’s challenge to Gerald Ford in 1976 or Pat Buchanan’s to George H.W. Bush in 1992, allowing him to focus solely on his foes across the aisle.
Trump has long bristled at the term “vacation” and is expected to hold a handful of official events and trips while settled in New Jersey’s horse country. But aides say his attention will be focused on golf, cable news and Twitter. They often worry about the scattershot outbursts — such as his “fire and fury” to North Korea in 2017 — that can emerge when Trump escapes Washington and has more access to his friends and less to his staff.
When Robert Mueller’s Russia probe wound down, culminating in the special counsel’s appearance before Congress last month, a sense of relief permeated the West Wing, which was finally free of the investigation that has shadowed the administration since its earliest days.
But Trump’s punitive trade tariffs, his racially inflammatory language and now a renewed national call for action on gun control have created internal pressure on the president and his staff.
His reelection strategy, which has placed white grievance and immigration at the forefront in an effort that his aides say is designed to activate his base of conservative voters, represents an approach not seen by an American president in the modern era. Already condemned by Democrats, Trump’s language has come under increased scrutiny this week after a warning similar to his about a “Hispanic invasion” was found in the rambling screed linked to the gunman who killed 22 people in El Paso, Texas.