Friday, August 4, 2017

Trump update: Bad week, then getting better

I was very worried last week. There were lots of reports that Trump was trying to work out how to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel assigned to investigate Russian interference in the election and possible ties to the Trump campaign. Trump was also bad-mouthing his Attorney General essentially for not being corrupt enough to shut down the Russia investigation.

This week, it's much calmer, most likely due to John Kelly becoming White House chief of staff on 7/28/17. This whole week as been such a contrast... and such a relief.

Last week, Trump was floating the idea of replacing Session using his power to make recess appointments. A bunch of senators were telling him not to do that--telling him through the public media so we could all listen to the warnings.

Trump also added a kink to the week with a tweet declaring transgender people couldn't serve in the military 'in any capacity.' Where did that come from? Probably a mish-mash of things Trump heard, and he decided that particular day was a good day to pretend he could act by fiat. Fiat hasn't actually worked. So far, the military has ignored him. His declaration may die just like his declaration that Obama wiretapped him died. "It's just another Trump eruption. Pay no attention." Really, it's pretty stupid to announce an important new policy via twitter, and not to have any plans for implementing the policy. But Trump is that stupid.

But back to Kelly. I have a guess that Kelly saw the craziness of July 24-27, and concluded he had to do something about it. That 'something' was calling Trump and volunteering to be chief of staff and clean up the whole mess. Plenty of credit to Kelly for stepping up. A bit of credit to Trump for saying yes. I hope this works. Reminder--this is my speculation on what happened.

Image: michaelpramirez.com

Extra. The small worries about Kelly taking this job. Kelly got Trump to stop bashing Sessions. Idiotic opinion piece on how Trump should resist firing Mueller, but should fire Sessions and Rosenstein.

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