Trump gets down to work amid impeachment probe
Photo ops, events a strategy out of Clinton playbook
PALM BEACH, Fla. — As Democrats in Congress push to impeach him, President Donald Trump has toured a manufacturing plant in Texas, boasted about economic gains and signed numerous bills. He served turkey to U.S. troops in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving and grieved with the families of fallen service members at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
And this week, Trump is scheduled to jet to London to meet with European allies and be received at Buckingham Palace by Queen Elizabeth II.
Sure, Trump has been consumed by the impeachment proceedings, frequently taking to social media to denounce what he dubs a “hoax.” But he and his aides also have staged photo opportunities and public events designed to showcase the president on the job — a strategy one year out from the election to convince the American people that he is hard at work for them at the same time that Democrats are trying to remove him from office.
“I’m working my ass off,” Trump told a thunderous rally crowd of roughly 20,000 on Tuesday night in Sunrise, Florida. He added: “The failed Washington establishment is trying to stop me because I’m fighting for you and because we’re winning. It’s very simple.”
Trump is taking a page out of the Clinton playbook. Then-President Bill Clinton survived his 1998 impeachment in part because the economy was roaring and because he appeared to many voters to be relentlessly focused on doing the business of the American people. When Clinton left office in 2001, Gallup measured his job approval rating at 66%.
Clinton had a built-in advantage that Trump does not enjoy: popularity. Throughout his second term, Clinton’s approval rating hovered in the high 50s and 60s, whereas Trump’s has been mired below 50%.
Still, Clinton’s experience has been instructive to Trump, who recently met in the Oval Office with former Clinton strategist Mark Penn, who counseled the president to focus on governing and travel frequently.
David Axelrod, who served as senior adviser in the Obama White House, said Trump’s strategy has been “smart politics,” though he noted that it remains to be seen whether the famously undisciplined president will sustain it through a likely Senate impeachment trial.
“The images of the president with cheering troops and performing other magisterial and ministerial functions of the office are a way of signifying that he is still in command, doing the job, rather than on the run,” Axelrod said.
Trump interrupted his Thanksgiving vacation in Florida with a 36-hour trip to Afghanistan, where he made a surprise visit to Bagram Air Base and announced that he intended to draw down forces in America’s longest war and had resumed peace negotiations with the Taliban after he had scuttled them in September.
Trump rallied about 1,500 uniformed military personnel packed into a hangar at Bagram, many of them cheering at the presence of the commander in chief, and was joined onstage by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who did not hold back in his praise.
“President Trump, people talked a lot about bin Laden, but what you did to eliminate al-Baghdadi — who was an organizer and not a talker — is a much greater accomplishment. Congratulations,” Ghani said, referring to the killings of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 and of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last month.
Trump has succeeded in drawing plaudits from other validators as well. Last Wednesday, during a day of blockbuster hearings in Congress — including U.S. Ambassador to the European
Union Gordon Sondland’s testimony implicating Trump in a quid pro quo with Ukraine — the president was in Austin, Texas, visiting a factory where Apple’s Mac Pro desktop computers are manufactured.
Apple CEO Tim Cook led Trump on the tour and credited the president with helping revive American manufacturing. When Trump asked, “What would you say about our economy compared to everybody else?” Cook replied, “I think we have the strongest economy in the world right now.”
Trump drew some criticism for the visit: He took credit for opening the factory when in fact Apple computers have been assembled there since 2013, three years before Trump’s election.
Regardless, the images of Trump outside of Washington, walking a factory floor and showcasing a tech product, delivered the intended message, in the estimation of Republican public relations professionals.
“This is the right strategy for the president: Show the American people that he is focused on doing his job while Washington Democrats chase the great white whale of impeachment,” said Michael Steel, a former senior aide to former House speaker John Boehner, ROhio.