Trump stuffs political grenades in Washington’s Christmas stocking

The president’s moves on a border wall and military operations stun the political establishment, cost him a defense secretary — and trigger ‘one of the most chaotic weeks that we’ve ever seen in American government.’

At least by the standards of President Donald Trump’s Washington, things were calm when the city awoke Wednesday morning.

A budget showdown with Congress appeared headed for an anticlimactic deal. With a new White House chief of staff installed, Trump’s Cabinet and staff shuffling seemed done for now. The outside world was relatively quiet.

But Trump officials say the president is simply making good on his longtime promises. And Trump’s conservative base — which fell in love with a 2016 candidate who vowed to avoid “stupid” Middle Eastern conflicts and “build the wall” — were elated. Trump, after all, was simply delivering on longtime promises.

“I thought the Trump presidency might be mortally wounded 48 hours ago, but his base may have saved him from himself — and Congressional Republicans,” said conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace.

It’s unclear how long that goodwill can last, however.

Even some stalwart Trump allies are privately expressing new levels of concern about the president’s erratic behavior. Many Trump defenders in Congress, for instance, are foreign policy hawks who see Trump’s planned Syria exit as a dangerous capitulation to Iran and Russia. (Some noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom Trump has long shown a curious admiration, expressed personal approval for the decision.)

Meanwhile, a Congress in which Senate Democrats have the effective veto power of the filibuster is highly unlikely to give him $5 billion for border security. That suggests an inevitable abandonment of his demands for wall funding.

“He’s listening to his political instincts and putting his campaign promises above everything else,” said Republican strategist Alex Castellanos “Trump’s political instincts are reliably on-target, but only if that target is his base. They don’t reach beyond that.”

Yet Trump seems more confident than ever in his own gut instinct. He is now surrounded by advisers who applaud his impulses, instead of fighting against them. The departures of Mattis and chief of staff John Kelly, a former Marine General who sought to rein in the president’s behavior, leave almost no one at senior levels of his government perceived as a trying to check his behavior. Trump’s incoming acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, has already signaled that he will not try to constrain Trump.

“This is a sad day for America because Secretary Mattis was giving advice the President needs to hear,” Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska said in a statement on Thursday night.

 

Source:Politico.com