We titled our May Month in Review thusly
for a very specific reason – the quoted words were uttered by Republicans. “Downward spiral” was used by Senator Bob
Corker to describe the Trump Administration’s dismal fortunes. He uttered this
phrase on May 16, just after the twin bombshells of Trump firing FBI Director James
Comey and the news that Trump had shared intelligence secrets with our sworn
enemy, the Russians. Imagine how he must
have felt later that week when he heard the startling revelation that Trump had
asked Comey to drop the investigation of former National Security Advisor for a
Couple of Weeks, Michael Flynn.
We quote Bob Corker because he is a Republican,
not a Democrat; he is a leader in the Senate, the chair of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, not an unknown; he is conservative, not a moderate like
Susan Collins; he is not a noted “maverick” like John McCain or a freewheeling
gadfly like Lindsay Graham; he is up for reelection in 2018, and cannot sit it
out. If the Republicans are going to go
down the road of impeachment at some point, it is Republicans like Bob Corker who
are going to have to abandon Trump. And
maybe his assessment is the beginning of that process – though, for now, the
GOP leadership, as exemplified by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, and many
others as well, have yet to utter anything other than mild disapprobation.
Republicans – and politicians of all
stripes – may lack courage, but they are not illogical. They are highly – highly, like trained dogs – attuned to take whatever actions are
necessary to secure their reelection and, in the case of the leadership,
maintain their positions. Boehner, for
all of the pummeling he took from the Dems, actually decided he would no longer
play the game of sacrificing all to maintain his position, and he paid for it
with his career. At peace with his
decision, he freely speaks his mind.
The month of May was truly
disastrous for Trump. It got off to what
passes for a great start (for him), with the passing of one albatross of a
bill, the American Health Care Act, a bill that is destined to end the careers
of perhaps dozens of members of the House in 2018 whether it becomes law or
not. The bill, as is, will not receive
any consideration in the Senate, who will attempt to draft their own bill (a
process that is not going well so far at all and may very well end soon).
But after that “success,” the wheels
came off very quickly, with a tsunami of actions and revelations that thrust
the already roiling White House into a state of siege. To recap – we all just lived through this as
a seemingly endless run of 5 PM “breaking news” alerts, but to see it all at
once is truly mindboggling – here is the chronology:
·
May 8: Sally Yates testifies – brilliantly – that she
warned the White House Counsel on January 26, less than a week after the
Inaugural, that NSA Michael Flynn had been compromised by the Russians, that
is, our highest foreign security official was susceptible to blackmail. This undermined the White House version of
events, which rendered Yates’ warning as far more benign (a “heads up”) and
called into question the ensuing long delay (18 days) before Trump finally
fired Flynn. What was he waiting for?
·
May 9: Trump fires Comey, allegedly on the advice of
Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, over the mishandling of the Hillary
Clinton investigation. Trump later
admits that he misread the likely reaction to the firing, which he (on the
advice of Kushner) thought would receive bi-partisan support, ignoring the very
obvious reality that the firing would draw an instant parallel to Nixon’s
firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, as both Comey and Cox were tasked
with investigating potential Administration wrongdoing.
·
May 11: Trump, in an interview with Lester Holt of
NBC, completely undermines his Administration’s official explanation for the
Comey firing by admitting he had decided to fire Comey regardless of Rosenstein’s
recommendation, which re-focused the conversation around obstruction of
justice, since Trump referenced the handling of the Russian investigation as
the real reason for his decision.
·
May 11: On this same day, it was revealed that Trump
had asked Comey for his “loyalty” in a private dinner conversation just one
week after Trump took office.
·
May 15: It is revealed that Trump gave the Russian
Ambassador and Foreign Minister highly classified intelligence that could
expose key sources; it was later revealed the information had come from an
ally, later identified as Israel, which made the disclosure even more
problematic. Trump had the legal right
to declassify anything he wished, but the judgment involved in doing so was
widely reviled.
·
May 16: It is revealed that Comey took detailed,
contemporaneous notes of his meetings with Trump, including one in February in
which Trump had pressured Comey to drop the Flynn investigation – a smoking gun,
if proven, that appears to be as damning as the famed June 23, 1972 (six days after
Watergate) Nixon command to H.R. Haldeman to “call the FBI in and say that we
wish for the country, don’t go any further into this {Watergate} case, period!”
·
May 17: Rosenstein names James Mueller Special Counsel,
tasking the former FBI Director with conducting an independent investigation
into potential Russian collusion with the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 election,
as well as other matters that “may arise in the investigation,” which certainly
would cover the potential obstruction of justice issues (e.g., the Comey
Notes).
·
May 19: A “senior White House official” is named a “person
of interest” in the FBI investigation, signaling that the probe is not merely
focused on former Trump officials like Flynn and Paul Manafort but now reaches
into the current White House.
·
May 22: It is revealed that Trump asked Dan Coats,
Director of National Intelligence, and Mike Rogers, Director of the National
Security Agency, to publicly deny the existence of any Russian collusion
evidence.
·
May 25: Jared Kushner is identified as the “senior
White House official” was is the “person of interest” in the investigation,
indicating that not only has the probe reached into the current White House,
but to the person widely seen as closest to Donald Trump.
·
May 26: It is revealed that Kushner and Flynn sought
to establish a “backchannel” to the Russians in a meeting with them last December,
apparently in the hope of avoiding U.S. intelligence scrutiny.
Not surprisingly, the national
conversation in this period turned to Nixon comparisons and talk of impeachment
proceedings. The Mueller appointment was
widely praised on both sides of the aisle, putting teeth (in the form of
independence and resources) into the investigation and even giving the GOP some
cover in the steady onslaught, knowing that they could now defer to the Mueller
probe with the knowledge that it will take time.
It is worth reminding everyone that
Mueller’s brief concerns potential criminal
wrongdoing, and thus his task differs from that of Congress, particularly with
respect to the finding of impeachable offenses.
In general, that is still the House’s business, and their conclusion can
be based on a different standard than merely breaking the law. Theoretically, Mueller could exonerate Trump
from criminal charges and the House could still rightly find him guilty of
impeachable offenses, if a pattern of behavior is deemed as detrimental to the
nation, such as creating an environment where obstruction of justice (or
conflicts of interest) can fester. Said
more simply, the impeachment process is a political
one, not a criminal one.
After this slew of actions and
disclosures, Trump embarked on a foreign policy tour notable mostly for highly
stage-managed moments in Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican; his
unwillingness to face the press directly; the mutual distance and cold
relationship he has with fellow G7 world leaders; the public dressing down of
NATO allies for underspending on defense; the oafish shoving aside of the Prime
Minister of Montenegro; the distancing of U.S. policy from “Article 5” NATO
commitments (“one for all….”); an unwillingness to affirm the Paris Accords as
did the other members of the G7; and the complete absence of Twitter rants. He also got the grisliest kind of news
deflection with the Manchester, UK terrorist bombing of an Ariande Grande
concert, which took the headlines away from Trump and allowed him to make the
kind of anti-terrorist statements that play well with his base.
As Trump returns, he faces the
Kushner debacle; the ongoing media frenzy – a media stoked by their crucial
role in the May revelations, fueled by an unending stream of leaks that seem to
be essentially a form of whistle-blowing by fed-up White House staffers; a
Trump budget that is dead on arrival; and the apparent stalling of his three
largest domestic initiatives – health care, tax reform, and immigration (the
latter stymied yet again by a circuit court that upheld the current suspension
of the revised travel ban, virtually assuring Supreme Court review). It is difficult to see what could possibly be
a near-term catalyst that could improve Trump’s fortunes. I don’t think the anticipated White House shake-up
will do much, unless he manages to find a Jim Baker-type willing to come in and
run the joint with Trump’s full authority.
It certainly is not the laughable notion of a team of lawyers vetting
his tweets (what, at 5 AM?) or replacing punching bag Sean Spicer with another
non-credible, undermined communications lackey.
THE NUMBERS
It’s not that the Republican office
holders lack the ability to see the obvious, that Trump is overmatched,
underprepared, simplistic, narcissistic, unfocused, advised by political naifs and
quite possibly unbalanced. They see all that
as well as the rest of us. But, as
stated, they are watching Trump’s approval rating which, while sagging, is
still well above the danger zone. As you
can see in the chart below, Trump’s rating has trended down to the 40% mark in
the latter part of May, and his net score has gone from 0 to -15.
TRUMP APPROVAL RATING
|
||||||
Jan
|
Feb
|
Mar
|
Apr
|
May 1-11
|
May 12-31
|
|
Approve
|
46
|
46
|
43
|
43
|
43
|
40
|
Disapprove
|
46
|
50
|
52
|
52
|
52
|
55
|
Margin
|
0
|
-4
|
-8
|
-9
|
-9
|
-15
|
For those of you who believe that
there is a floor on Trump’s support -- those 40% who still support him, despite the obvious madness -- it is worth
noting that his “strongly approve”
score (a subset of the overall score) has swung from a high of 44% (just after
the Inaugural, per Rasmussen) to a low of 26% on May 16. So there is a part of the Trump base who are indeed
tempering their views – and could theoretically jump ship if the barrage of
revelations continue, or are definitely proven, or both. Trump’s true core (those who think he can no
wrong and will never abandon him) is probably only around 20% (Rasmussen tends
to GOP bias).
How low does Trump’s overall approval
rate have to go to threaten Trump’s support by the GOP leadership? Here is some historical perspective, a look at
the highs and lows of approval ratings for every President since FDR.
GALLUP APPROVAL RATING (WEEKLY)
|
||
President
|
High
|
Low
|
Trump
|
45%
|
38%
|
Obama
|
66%
|
40%
|
Bush
43
|
90%
|
25%
|
Clinton
|
73%
|
37%
|
Bush
41
|
89%
|
29%
|
Reagan
|
68%
|
35%
|
Carter
|
75%
|
28%
|
Ford
|
71%
|
37%
|
Nixon
|
67%
|
24%
|
Johnson
|
79%
|
35%
|
Kennedy
|
83%
|
56%
|
Eisenhower
|
77%
|
48%
|
Truman
|
87%
|
22%
|
Trump is the only President who has
(as yet) failed to crack the 50% mark in approval, which is noteworthy because
each one of these Presidents started out over 50%, most of them well over that
marker in their honeymoon period. Trump
has made history with his terrible start.
But on the flip side, Trump has a
long way to go hit bottom. Five of his
predecessors managed to get below 30%, and Nixon and Truman got below 25%. Trump is far from that.
My feeling is that an approval
rating in the low 30% range would cause defections, particularly the closer it
came to primaries and elections in contested states. For now, Trump is still 5+ points above that
zone.
Trumpometer
The Trumpometer improved from -11 in
April to -6 in May, largely on the strength of a revised Q1 GDP from 0.7% to a
still anemic 1.2%. It is not an exaggeration
to say that Trump’s presidency is staked on economic renewal, and his Budget is
forecasting robust economic growth of 3% per annum. He has much work to do to get there.
"Clinton-ometer" 1/20/2001
|
"Bush- ometer" 1/20/2009
|
"Obameter" 1/20/2017
|
"Trump-ometer" 4/30/2017
|
"Trump-ometer" 5/31/2017
|
|
25
|
-53
|
0
|
-11
|
-6
|
|
Unemployment Rate
|
4.2
|
7.8
|
4.7
|
4.5
|
4.4
|
Consumer Confidence
|
129
|
38
|
114
|
120
|
118
|
Price of Gas
|
1.27
|
1.84
|
2.44
|
2.56
|
2.52
|
Dow Jones
|
10,588
|
8,281
|
19,732
|
20,941
|
21,009
|
GDP
|
4.5
|
-6.2
|
2.1
|
0.7
|
1.2
|
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