In a Hole, President Trump Keeps Digging
Does President Donald Trump really think it's a good idea to tweet bold threats at lawmakers whose votes he is trying to woo?
Or is picking Twitter fights just his sneaky way to avoid having to actually read the legislation that he wants them to vote for?
How else do we explain his erratic way of winning friends and alienating people as he pursues support for an Obamacare replacement?
You might think that a new president, burdened by disastrous approval ratings and facing multiple legislative battles, would try to avoid unnecessary spats, especially with members of his own party. But Trump? When he's in a hole, he keeps on digging.
The Trump train seemed to stop dead on its tracks when the conservative and libertarian hardliners who make up the House Freedom Caucus helped to scuttle Speaker Paul Ryan's bill to repeal and replace President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Trump, a master at the art of blame shifting, immediately blamed Democrats for the setback, even though their support had not been sought. He even singled out House and Senate Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer as "losers" because Obamacare was about to "explode," he said, and Democrats would get the blame.
History says different. When disaster strikes, people tend to blame whoever happens to be in power.
In that spirit, congressional Democrats seemed quite content to sit back and follow Napoleon's maxim: Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.
Yet by Monday, whether he was moved by a change of heart or a short attention span, President Trump was back to saying that he wanted to work with the Dems. On Wednesday he even singled out Schumer ("Chuck!") in a jolly shout-out from the stage at a bipartisan dinner with senators at the White House Wednesday.
But a Trumpian Twitter storm the next day signaled the return of Trump the grump. Beginning in the morning, Trump aimed bitter threats not only at Democrats but also at the 35 or so hardline conservatives who comprise the House Freedom Caucus.
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