Did President Trump start the week by deciding to give Americans everything they don’t want for Christmas?
Trump is losing his secretary of defense, the most widely respected member of his cabinet. He’s bugging out of Syria (and possibly also Afghanistan) without even telling our allies. And his days of erratic demands seemed designed to provoke a long (if partial) government shutdown.
Indeed, it was hard to tell which was more volatile: the president or the stock markets.
Trump’s core base may support him no matter what, but he’s putting his larger support from mainstream Republicans at risk. If he keeps this up, he’ll face rising resistance not just from Capitol Hill Democrats, but much of the congressional GOP.
As Friday dragged on, some 25 percent of government workers were set to be furloughed or forced to work without pay in a totally unnecessary shutdown — one Trump sometimes said he’d be proud to own, and other times tried to blame on the Democrats.
At issue was his demand for $5 billion for his border wall: Democrats won’t go for it and not even all Republicans are convinced.
This, when he walked away months ago from a deal that would’ve delivered the funding in exchange for granting legal status to the “Dreamers” — which Trump also claims to support.
Now, with Democrats set to take control of the House come January, he has even less leverage. How could he possibly expect to get a better deal?
It didn’t help that the president tossed out useless last-minute suggestions such as a demand that Senate Republicans invoke the “nuclear option” to pass the funding.
Does Trump realize just what that writing on the wall means for him? Because the shutdown drama follows Defense Secretary James Mattis’ resignation — and his unvarnished insinuation that this president doesn’t care about respecting America’s allies or standing up to the nation’s enemies.
And Mattis’ exit was prompted by Trump’s out-of-nowhere order for hasty and massive troop withdrawals — over the objections of his entire security team and, reportedly, in response to an empty threat from Turkish tyrant Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
That all has many Republicans furious — and others plain nervous.
They voted for Trump because they believed his claims to be a strong leader and dealmaker. But in flailing about, sounding retreat and ignoring all sound advice, he’s acting like anything but.