Trump’s Nixon Reboot
President Donald Trump hasn’t pulled a Saturday Night Massacre yet, but give him time — it’s only Thursday.
Trump yesterday finally put his longtime target of florid abuse, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, out of his misery. Sessions’s original sin was recusing himself from oversight of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. And Trump has temporarily replaced him with Matthew Whitaker, who has made a side career out of criticizing Mueller. You can see where this is going. It all has a Nixon-on-Saturday-night feel to it, writes Jonathan Bernstein. He warns Trump to heed the warning of Tricky Dick, whose standing among Republicans crumbled quickly after he fired a bunch of AGs until he found one who would fire his own special prosecutor.
But Trump has long shown he will choose survival over doing what most of the rest of us would consider the “right thing,” writes Tim O’Brien. That almost certainly will include doing away with the Mueller probe. As Jonathan Bernstein put it in a separate column about Trump’s unhinged post-election news conference, the president doesn’t seem to realize that “threatening to damage the nation in order to protect himself and his administration from oversight is inexcusable.” It’s yet more evidence, Jonathan writes, that Trump is not fit to hold his office.
Advice for Dems
The Democrats are in charge of the House of Representatives now — or, as Stephen Colbert put it on Tuesday night, one-half of one of the three branches of government. Still, the Dems can do some constructive things with this toehold of power (beyond the House’s important oversight role; more on that below). At the very least, they can push for their economic priorities, which could even attract some Republican support. Four of Bloomberg Opinion’s top economic minds — Stephanie Kelton, Karl W. Smith, Noah Smith and Michael R. Strain — lay out their ideas for what the Dems should prioritize. Spoiler alert: There’s not much consensus, though only one of the four thinks Dems should make the deficit their top priority.
In a separate column, Noah Smith writes Dems should not be shy about the policies they propose. These could include universal health care, immigration reform and a carbon tax, for starters. Would most Republicans or Trump go along? Almost certainly not! But trying could “help inspire the country with the promise of real solutions and a better tomorrow,” Noah writes.
President Donald Trump hasn’t pulled a Saturday Night Massacre yet, but give him time — it’s only Thursday.
Trump yesterday finally put his longtime target of florid abuse, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, out of his misery. Sessions’s original sin was recusing himself from oversight of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. And Trump has temporarily replaced him with Matthew Whitaker, who has made a side career out of criticizing Mueller. You can see where this is going. It all has a Nixon-on-Saturday-night feel to it, writes Jonathan Bernstein. He warns Trump to heed the warning of Tricky Dick, whose standing among Republicans crumbled quickly after he fired a bunch of AGs until he found one who would fire his own special prosecutor.
But Trump has long shown he will choose survival over doing what most of the rest of us would consider the “right thing,” writes Tim O’Brien. That almost certainly will include doing away with the Mueller probe. As Jonathan Bernstein put it in a separate column about Trump’s unhinged post-election news conference, the president doesn’t seem to realize that “threatening to damage the nation in order to protect himself and his administration from oversight is inexcusable.” It’s yet more evidence, Jonathan writes, that Trump is not fit to hold his office.
Advice for Dems
The Democrats are in charge of the House of Representatives now — or, as Stephen Colbert put it on Tuesday night, one-half of one of the three branches of government. Still, the Dems can do some constructive things with this toehold of power (beyond the House’s important oversight role; more on that below). At the very least, they can push for their economic priorities, which could even attract some Republican support. Four of Bloomberg Opinion’s top economic minds — Stephanie Kelton, Karl W. Smith, Noah Smith and Michael R. Strain — lay out their ideas for what the Dems should prioritize. Spoiler alert: There’s not much consensus, though only one of the four thinks Dems should make the deficit their top priority.
In a separate column, Noah Smith writes Dems should not be shy about the policies they propose. These could include universal health care, immigration reform and a carbon tax, for starters. Would most Republicans or Trump go along? Almost certainly not! But trying could “help inspire the country with the promise of real solutions and a better tomorrow,” Noah writes.
