Does President Trump still want to win? Where’s the mojo?
For example, in an interview last week with his longtime pal and Fox News host Sean Hannity, he was asked for “one of your top priority items for a second term?” A softball, right? But the president responded with an indecipherable word salad about the value of experience, how many people he’s met in Washington and “idiot” John Bolton, former national security adviser and author of a new Trump tell-all. “All he wanted to do,” Trump recalled, “is drop bombs on everybody.”
My mind raced back to the interview that killed another rising political star, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, who during a 1979 interview failed to give a straightforward answer to CBS’ Roger Mudd’s question, “Why do you want to be president?”
Four years ago Trump probably would have answered with an obvious talking point. “Drain the swamp,” he might have said, or “Repeal Obamacare.” Or “Build a wall and have Mexico pay for it.”
But what does he have now? Most of the wall along the Mexico-U.S. border remains unbuilt. His administration is hardly swamp-free. He has an impeachment on his resume. And a pandemic is a terrible time in which to repeal a plan that provides health insurance to 25 million people, especially when congressional Republicans have yet to come together around an alternative.
Who can blame the president if he fails to see his presidency as fun anymore?
And need I mention that major polls find his approval ratings slipping behind his Democratic rival Joe Biden, who appears to be succeeding quite well with his counter-strategy: Clam up and let Trump destroy himself.
A Fox News poll, which I respect for reliability even when I’m not pleased with the results, finds Biden widening his lead.
Of course, there is still plenty of time for that gap to close before November, if Trump makes a big course correction and Biden makes enough mistakes. Undecided and late-deciding voters and independents can make all the difference.
But independent voters are new ground for Trump to plow. Both of his campaigns and his presidency have focused primarily on his base and whipping up their fears and loathings about “American carnage.” But even his base is beginning to show signs of erosion, a reflection perhaps of Trump’s own inner carnage.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
(c) 2020 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
