Things ain’t going Donald’s Way these days…..
President Donald Trump’s second term started with the “days of thunder.”Now, he’s battling a different kind of storm.
A year and a half into his second term, Trump’s legislative agenda is stalled in a Congress he has undermined. He has yet to end the war he started in Iran, let alone the one he’s spent months trying to end between Russia and Ukraine. A series of court rulings has stopped the administration in its tracks on everything from an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that could have been used to compensate the president’s political allies to renaming the Kennedy Center.
Even the culture Trump has spent years trying to bend to his will is showing signs of resistance as artists bail on the Freedom 250 festival, the triumphalist celebration he envisioned as one of the capstones of his second term.
Trump allies describe a sense of burnout inside the White House driven by a nearly all-encompassing focus on ending the Iran war, which has already lasted twice as long as the president suggested it might. Privately, they wonder whether a staff shakeup would snap the administration out of its malaise.
“The administration is all-consumed by this conflict. They’re pretty much in a funk with it — or fatigue — in that there’s nothing happening,” said one person close to the White House, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “Even if there are wins, no one’s communicating them. There’s just no other play outside of — we are stuck in this quicksand of Iran.”
The White House has spent the last several weeks negotiating an extension of a ceasefire with Iran that would open the Strait of Hormuz to shipping traffic, easing pressure on global oil prices. But Trump has been unable so far to notch a deal despite promises of how short-lived the conflict would be, on top of social media threats and even renewed bombing. He left a two-hour Situation Room meeting on Friday with nothing to announce….
…
Trump’s defenders insist his administration is firing on all cylinders and setbacks are due to a weak Senate majority leader who won’t kill the filibuster or fire the Senate parliamentarian; liberal judges thwarting the will of the people; and ungrateful foreign leaders who refused to help the U.S. ensure Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon.
But with his second term nearly half over, the losses are piling up….
…
“This is the first time that I’m even questioning, maybe he doesn’t have as much political capital as I thought he did, or they’re just not using it right in the right way,” the first person close to the White House said…
…
“Members of Congress that have never been in the minority don’t know how shitty it is — and staff hasn’t been through this, which none of them have … not in the proctological exam kind of way. You can only defy a subpoena for so long,” the person said. “I think there’s a rude awakening that will come if that happens.”…
image…SuppyChainBrain/Bloomberg
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.