Politico compares Trump’s thinking he’s up after the Mueller/Barr throw down …..
To his Obamacare repeal political headache for his party members and Education Sec DeVos’s misstep on funding the Special Olympic’s….(And TWO court rulings against his efforts to throw people off their healthcare coverage)
My favorite view on this stuff?
‘Most things Donald Trump touches turns to shit.’…
Donald Trump’s week started Sunday afternoon with one of the biggest personal victories of his presidency. His attorney general’s four-page synopsis of the special counsel’s completed report said the intensive investigation “did not establish” that the Trump campaign “conspired or coordinated with the Russian government,” granting actual credence to what long had been a White House battle chant: “No collusion!” The good news continued with the sensational arrest of nemesis Michael Avenatti and a court case win concerning tariffs. Understandably, it was cause for a victory lap—giddy and combative proclamations on Twitter, a celebratory burst of White House hosting, a jaunty, chest-out trip over to Capitol Hill.
Then … he careened off track.
Barely more than a day after triumphantly (and incorrectly) blazoning his “Total EXONERATION,” Trump abruptly seized upon a Justice Department filing to pledge his intention to obliterate Obamacare. Bent on delivering on a campaign promise, Trump couldn’t resist the urge to try to parlay one win into an even larger one, no matter how improbable the odds. He ignored the advice of top staff and important allies, who pointed out that neither he nor his party had anything to offer as a replacement and that this almost certainly would work to the advantage of Democrats.
While this looked to pundits and even fellow Republicans like a baffling, self-defeating stroke, it was consistent, actually, with Trump’s lifelong patterns. As often as he has proven his talent for turning losses into wins, or at least spinning them that way, there are weeks like this that recall his record for doing exactly the opposite—he also turns wins into losses.
When Trump is riding highest, he is simultaneously at his most manic and self-destructive. He overreaches and oversells. He doubles down. In the arc of Trump’s life, from his fevered buying spree in 1988 in the wake of the fame-spiking sales of The Art of the Deal to his wild couple years in the aftermath of the image-laundering launch of “The Apprentice” to his rowdy and improbable political ascent, the craters of his most marked failures follow closely on his most consequential successes. He is this way, say people who know him well, because of his unshakable self-assurance and nerve but also his insatiable appetite for attention and conflict.
“The discomfort he feels in the moment of peace that follows a victory is so intense that he will do whatever it takes to find new fights,” biographer Michael D’Antonio told me.
For Trump, there is no stopping to savor. “If he gets a win, he wants a bigger victory,” added former Trump casino executive Jack O’Donnell.
And this can come at a cost.
“He starts to believe he is invincible,” said former Trump Organization executive Barbara Res…..
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