Case in point: this week’s National Prayer Breakfast, White House political rally, and ‘Friday Night Massacre’
Has there ever been an American president—or any elected official for that matter—with a greater propensity to shoot himself in the foot than Donald J. Trump? He seems as eager to squander his political fortune as he did his father’s big-money inheritance.
The president this week survived impeachment and gave a masterfully written State of the Union Address. His most formidable potential general election opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, is imploding after finishing a distant fourth in the Iowa Caucuses and trailing badly in the New Hampshire primary, which takes place Tues., Feb. 11.
Any semi-functioning adult with half a brain would recognize that lady luck is shining down upon him, thank his lucky stars, and look forward, not backward.
But of course, Trump, as we all know, is not normal. He is dim-witted and seemingly hellbent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Thus he spent the latter part of the week venting his spleen and trying to exact revenge on his enemies, real and imagined.
And if Trump loses reelection, it won’t be because of the growing economy, booming stock market, historically low unemployment rate, and relative peace and prosperity that we Americans now enjoy.
Instead, it will be because of days like Thursday and Friday, when the electorate saw an angry and vindictive man who seems to care more about creating drama and settling personal scores than he does about exercising calm and steady leadership that will benefit us all.
First, there was the National Prayer Breakfast, which Trump bastardized. Then there was his rank display of anger, self-pity and resentment on display for all the world to see at a pathetic and melancholy White House rally with Republican lawmakers.
And finally, Trump had nonpartisan public servants and military officers whom he deemed responsible for his impeachment publicly fired, dismissed, and humiliated. It was, to say the least, a shameful and disgraceful exhibition of selfishness, self-absorption, and small-mindedness.
The National Prayer Breakfast, of course, is a 68-year-old national tradition in the nation’s capital. It is, obviously, supposed to be an apolitical, nonpartisan event that brings lawmakers and the country together. The intent is to call a ceasefire in our nation’s political wars and temporarily suspend partisan hostilities.
For most normal politicians, this is an easy-lift and something they look forward to doing. It gives them the chance to rise above the political fray and appear judicious and broad-minded, while appealing to apolitical, independent voters turned off by constant political warfare.
Amazingly, though, Trump managed to fumble this opportunity and turn it into an easy score for his enemies.
How? By stupidly politicizing the event and completely disregarding its purpose and intent. As Cal Thomas explains, Trump arrived late and held up two newspapers that included “acquitted” in their headline. This was an obvious reference to his impeachment acquittal by the Senate.
He conspicuously avoided shaking hands with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California); and, after Arthur Brooks, the former head of the American Enterprise Institute, gave a wonderful speech expounding upon the theme of his 2019 book, Love Your Enemies, Trump responded: “Arthur, I don’t know if I agree with you… I don’t know if Arthur’s going to like what I’m going to say.”
Well, Trump is surely right about that, because, as Michael Gerson observes in the Washington Post:
The purpose of Trump’s sermon at the Hilton was, in fact, to put his enemies on notice. Those who pursued impeachment were “very dishonest and corrupt people.” “They know what they are doing is wrong,” he continued, “but they put themselves far ahead of our great country.”
Congressional Republicans, in contrast, had the wisdom and strength “to do what everyone knows was right.”
Trump proceeded to make a thinly veiled attack against Mitt Romney of Utah, the only Republican senator to vote for the president’s removal: “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong.”
And then a shot at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): “Nor do I like people who say, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ when I know that is not so.”
The rest of the speech alternated between pedestrian civil religion and Trump campaign riffs. The stock market is up. Do I hear an “amen”? Gallup personal satisfaction numbers are rising. Preach it, brother!
What makes Trump’s remarks all the more stunning is that, as Gerson points out, Brooks’ argument for political forgiveness and reconciliation isn’t based on some odd or esoteric ideal.
Instead, it is based on Biblical commands and the words of Jesus Christ himself: “Love your enemies; bless those that curse you; do good to them that hate you.” It’s all there in the Sermon on the Mount.
It is understandable, of course, that, in the immediate aftermath of impeachment, Trump would be angry and disinclined to forgive and forget, let alone love his political enemies. We all understand that and Brooks understands that. Which is why, as Cal Thomas notes:
In his remarks, Brooks said that if people can’t sincerely practice forgiveness and reconciliation, they should “fake it.” His point was that reconciliation has a power all its own, even if one initially is not sincere about it. Trump clearly missed a grand opportunity. It would have cost him nothing to shake Pelosi’s hand.
Trump’s Angry Rant. But Trump rarely misses an opportunity to fumble the ball politically; and he did so again later that day in what the Washington Post’s David Nakamura describes as an “angry, raw and vindictive 62-minute White House rant:
He spoke without a teleprompter. He cursed in the East Room. He called the House speaker a “horrible person.” He lorded his power over a room full of deferential Republicans. He mocked a former GOP presidential nominee and his 2016 Democratic rival. He played the victim again and again.
Two days after President Trump delivered what aides called an “optimistic” State of the Union address that made no mention of his historic impeachment, he ranted for more than an hour at the White House on Thursday in a “celebration” of his Senate acquittal a day earlier. But the mood—at least his mood—was not particularly celebratory.
Trump was angry, raw, vindictive, aggrieved—reflecting the id of a president who has seethed for months with rage against his enemies. This was the State of Trump.
In short, it was not an attractive or winning performance. It was, as I say, an exercise in selfishness, self-absorption, and small-mindedness—and it will not win Trump any votes beyond his hardcore base in November.
‘Friday Night Massacre.’ The president concluded the week by removing Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council (NSC) and firing Gordon Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union.
Their crime: they testified truthfully before Congress about Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the pressure campaign mounted by Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani and others to force Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and Burisma.
LTC Yevgeny Vindman also was removed from the NSC, apparently because he is the twin brother of LTC Alexander Vindman. Politico, moreover, reports that others who testified truthfully before Congress—former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and former top U.S. envoy to Ukraine William Taylor—left their posts in recent days.
National Security staff, ambassadors and envoys, of course, serve at the pleasure of the president. Trump has every right to dismiss those he deems untrustworthy, unsupportive, and unhelpful. But these dismissals were clearly rooted in Trump’s desire to exact revenge and retribution on mostly apolitical and nonpartisan public servants whose only crime was to tell the truth to Congress and the American people.
Indeed, as Sen. Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) explains, “by firing Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and Ambassador Sondland like this, the Trump administration signaled it won’t tolerate people who tell tell the truth.” Max Boot notes that federal law (18 U.S. Code § 1513) protects witnesses from retaliation—“not that the president will ever be prosecuted,” he writes.
But while Trump may be technically within his rights, he is clearly violating the spirit of the law, and, as a political matter, is hurting himself and the country. No American—and certainly, no independent-minded swing voter—wants as president a man with a disdain for the truth and an intolerance for staff who tell Congress and the American people the truth.
The smart move, politically, would have been to demonstrate some magnanimity and high-mindedness, leave these officials and staff in place, and move on to matters of greater political and public policy consequence.
Trump also viciously defamed LTC Vindman in two tweets filled with lies and falsehoods about Vindman’s service on the National Security Council.
We’ll have more to say about that in a subsequent piece; but what matters here is Trump’s stupid and boneheaded political judgment. How does viciously attacking a decorated Army officer and Iraq War veteran help Trump’s political prospects and chances for reelection?
It obviously doesn’t.
Political Self-Immolation. If (when?) trump loses reelection, political analysts and historians may see the days after his acquittal as critical harbingers of his defeat. This was when Trump decided to forego any attempt to rise above the fray and try and unite the country.
Instead, he opted to indulge himself by trying to exact revenge and retribution against anyone he thinks did him wrong. Trump should learn from another president, Richard Nixon, who, although nearly impeached, actually won reelection in a landslide (albeit before he was impeached).
“Always remember,” Nixon said, “others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”
Unfortunately, at a time when everything politically is working in Trump’s favor, he has embarked upon a path that likely will destroy himself and the Republican Party, and it may be too late to stop him.
Feature Photo Credit: Market Watch.