A president’s promises often outrun his actions in the White House
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump leaves little doubt about what he thinks of his predecessor’s top domestic and international legacies. The health care program enacted by President Barack Obama is “outrageous” and “absolutely destroying everything in its wake.” The nuclear deal with Iran is “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”
Yet as much as he has set his sights on them, Trump after nearly nine months in office has not actually gotten rid of either. Instead, in the past few days, he took partial steps to undercut both initiatives and then left it to Congress to figure out what to do next. Whether either will ultimately survive in some form has become a central suspense of Trump’s first year in office.
In the case of health care, Trump is making a virtue of necessity. Having failed to push through legislation replacing the Affordable Care Act, he is taking more limited measures on his own authority aimed at chipping away at the law. On the other hand, when it comes to the Iran deal, he has the authority to walk away without anyone else’s consent but has been talked out of going that far by his national security team. Instead, by refusing to recertify the deal, he rhetorically disavows the pact without directly pulling out.
These are not the only instances in which Trump’s expansive language has not been matched by his actions during this opening phase of his presidency. On immigration, diplomatic relations with Cuba and international accords like NAFTA and a separate trade pact with South Korea, he has denounced decisions made by Obama or other previous presidents without fully reversing them.
“Presidential campaigns are won with big, simple, directional promises that rarely align well with the complexity confronted in the Oval Office,” said Michael O. Leavitt, a Republican former governor of Utah and secretary of health and human services who advised Trump’s transition team. “So presidents do the best they can to stretch the fabric of incomplete outcomes to cover as much bare backside as possible and move on.”
Trump’s advisers characterize that as the more pragmatic side of a businessman who takes maximalist positions in part to set the stage for negotiations but does not necessarily intend to go as far as he might give the impression. His critics said that the partial steps were still destructive, and that the president was effectively leaving initiatives like health care and the Iran deal wounded on the battlefield without allowing ambulances onto the scene.
A question for the president is whether partial actions will satisfy supporters demanding a full repudiation of the Obama era. Trump promised to deal with such issues in some cases within his first days in office but has found that Washington resists quick action. Frustrated by Congress, he is increasingly turning to executive power and can point to the moves he has made as signs of his commitment to fulfilling his promises.
“The gap between President Trump’s ambitious promises and actual policies is large and growing,” said William C. Inboden, a White House aide under President George W. Bush and now executive director of the William P. Clements Jr. Center on History, Strategy and Statecraft at the University of Texas. “This is weakening the institution of the presidency itself, which becomes diminished when presidents over promise and under deliver, or when responsibilities normally handled by the president become habitually shirked to Congress or other nations.”
A cautionary tale is Obama himself, who made lofty and ambitious heal-the-planet, close-guantánamo promises only to fall short in some instances, to the disappointment of his liberal supporters. The difference is that Trump often gives the impression with his public comments that he has gone further than he actually has.
“It’s classic Trump: bluff and bombast substituting for actual deeds,” said Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, a foreign policy magazine. “He’s the political equivalent of the Washington Nationals — a choke artist at critical moments.”
Trump pronounced himself happy with the approach he is taking on health care, which has been the most consuming domestic issue of his presidency so far. “We’re going a little different route,” he told an audience of religious conservatives Friday. “But you know what? In the end, it’s going to be just as effective, and maybe it’ll even be better.”
Later in the day, he acknowledged that his new strategy on Iran would not actually scrap the nuclear deal but would allow Congress to come up with an alternative. Asked why he did not simply terminate the agreement, he said: “I may very well do that. But I like a two-step process much better.”
Clifford Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm, said the president seemed to be trying to translate business negotiations to the political world.
“Trump’s clearly got a theory of deal-making — demand the world, take the most you can, and then brag about it,” he said. “It’s actually a pretty good tack that’s often underestimated. But the bottom line, so far in his presidency, is that he’s been unable to deliver on overstated goals.”
In the end, he may wind up taking the more sweeping actions — he may yet pull the United States out of NAFTA or the Iran deal. He may yet let the program for younger immigrants expire early next year. He has repeatedly talked about “letting Obamacare fail,” which his latest steps may accelerate.
“There is now a new and scary spring in his step,” Kupchan said. “He could be entering a new phase involving fuller takedowns of agreements and institutions. The Iran deal and NAFTA are bellwether cases. What’s really interesting is that he fired his chief revolutionary, Steve Bannon, but seems on the verge of taking on that role himself.”