Politico has a new piece up on low morale in the White House. It’s based on interviews with “nearly two dozen people who’ve spent time with Trump in the three weeks since his inauguration.” It’s kind of amazing to realize that it’s only been three weeks because, to me, it seems more like a millennium. And I guess the administration’s staff feels about the same way.
Really hard to overstate level of misery radiating from several members of White House staff over last few days.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 10, 2017
It’s only been three weeks, but that’s been long enough for Trump to create “a climate where people are ‘very careful who they talk to.’” It’s been long enough to create a “powder-keg of a workplace where job duties are unclear, morale among some is low, factionalism is rampant and exhaustion is running high.”
Hell, considering that “two visitors to the White House last week said they were struck by how tired the staff looks,” things were already so bad after only two weeks that people were wearing down.
Stamina. How does it work?
Yesterday, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway violated obvious ethics rules and probably the law by pimping Ivanka Trump’s product lines, which forced the administration to counsel her and drew an instant rebuke from Congress.
Conway’s remarks drew a sharp and unusual rebuke from a top Republican lawmaker, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who said that Conway’s comments were “absolutely wrong, wrong, wrong” and “clearly over the line.”
Chaffetz, who has resisted calls by Democrats to investigate potential conflicts related to President Trump’s businesses, joined with the Oversight Committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), in sending a letter to the Office of Government Ethics calling Conway’s comments “unacceptable.” The letter asked the agency to recommend discipline given that Trump, who is Conway’s “agency head,” holds an “inherent conflict of interest” due to the involvement of his daughter’s business.
I can see how something like that might sap your energy and enthusiasm for Making America Great Again.
Today, we’re watching National Security Adviser Michael Flynn circle the drain as it becomes clear that prior to the inauguration he inappropriately and possibly illegally discussed sanctions against Russia with the Russian ambassador and then lied to pretty much everyone about it, including Vice-President Pence.
That can’t add to the overall joy of being three weeks into the new job of helping to run the free world.
Of course, if the boss isn’t happy, that can trickle down like a Laffer Curve, and the boss seems a little out of his league and out of his element. This can be seen in a variety of ways, including just observing his interactions with foreign leaders like Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Oh my. Trump just went through almost that entire press conference w/o wearing a headset… while pretending to understand Japanese.
— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) February 10, 2017
Overall, Trump is shocked that the job is so hard.
Being president is harder than Donald Trump thought, according to aides and allies who say that he’s growing increasingly frustrated with the challenges of running the massive federal bureaucracy.
In interviews, nearly two dozen people who’ve spent time with Trump in the three weeks since his inauguration said that his mood has careened between surprise and anger as he’s faced the predictable realities of governing, from congressional delays over his cabinet nominations and legal fights holding up his aggressive initiatives to staff in-fighting and leaks.
Not to mention that he has to fake knowing what he’s talking about all the time, including on immigration reform or pretty much everything else:
Trump often asks simple questions about policies, proposals and personnel. And, when discussions get bogged down in details, the president has been known to quickly change the subject — to “seem in control at all times,” one senior government official said — or direct questions about details to his chief strategist Steve Bannon, his son-in-law Jared Kushner or House Speaker Paul Ryan.
He expresses “disbelief over the ability of judges, bureaucrats or lawmakers to delay — or even stop — him from filling positions and implementing policies.”
Government. How does it work?
We’re three weeks in and I keep asking what the shelf-life on this presidency can be, because it’s already curdling and stinking like sour milk.
But, if it’s any consolation to Trump and his staff, we’re exhausted, too.
It does seem like ages since Trump has been ruining, I mean running things. Into the ground.
We knew, we saw, and we understood what would happen if he took control. He told everyone he was going to run the country like a business and we recoiled in horror because democracy doesn’t work like that. And he’s proving it. Bigly.
We knew and understood that his choices in Cabinet and other significant posts were not only inappropriate but potentially damaging beyond repair. Devos went to a public school today and was rebuked harshly enough that she didn’t even get inside the building. No one will give these posers a chance because they don’t deserve to have a chance. They don’t know what they’re doing and it shows already.
The only comfort I find during these terrible days is in seeing people from all walks of life uniting in rebellion against Trump and his minions. I have made more contributions, calls, and sent emails than ever before. People are not giving up and will continue to push back against this travesty of leadership.
They think they’re tired now? Just wait.
Devos went to a public school today and was rebuked harshly enough that she didn’t even get inside the building.
Yet you have people like Chait whining “Leave Betsy alone!!!” The sooner Democrats realize he’s not an ally, the better.
But he is an ally on a whole host of issues.
He’s no ally on education policy, at all.
No writer or politician agrees with my views on everything.
How about you?
What issues? Chait delights in punching left. It’s what he does. He spent 15+ years licking Marty Peretz’s boots.
Well, check it out:
http://nymag.com/tags/the-national-interest/
The link will change as new columns are added but what I see right now is:
Good, good, bad, good, good, good, good, mixed, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good.
There’s one single column punching left. Everything else is going after the right, with one column I disagree with based on tactics. That’s an ally.
Spend all your time hunting down heretics and you’re left with a church of one.
She managed to sneak in through a back door and can now claim that she has actually stepped inside a public school.
Arne Duncan
Will Menaker response
Not pure enough for you? Figures. I’ve seen your leftists drivel in other places. Stick it up your a**.
Personal attack
Trump is a deeply flawed human.
But leaving his humanity aside, look at his real record in business. Multiple bankruptcies, billions in assets vaporized, vendors and employees stiffed. And that’s with all of his dad’s assets and connections to work from.
It’s more than bad politics and narcissism. Step back – he’s not very intelligent.
Reading this and your previous post one after the other, I have a vision of political matter and anti-matter about to collide.
more like riots..
I fear that you are right. Over the past six years, law enforcement has taken peaceful protest away as a viable option for political change. The politicians figure they can ride it out without changing.
And the police and county governments think they can act with impunity and heavy handed punishment. When it blows it will be worse that the eruption in response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. It will not be reasoned but irrationally reactive. The leaders that the powers that be have been depending on to co-opt the anger into movements will be helpless to contain it, and the authorities will be punitive of those who’ve saved their bacon for so long.
And with Bannon and Trump, it will be signal to unleash the authoritarian state and possibly suspend the Constitution. And there will be Greg Abbott with his Constitutional Convention just waiting to overthrow 240 years of plantation-weighted history and malfunction in favor of the new feudalism.
Or the resistance will turn out to deter this step through its pervasiveness and growing fear among the GOP about what they have created.
As I posted elsewhere on the topic:
While he’s ordered his legal staff to appeal to the SC, he’s already pivoted to Trump plans new security policy after travel ban blocked: ‘You’ll see next week’ which has others on his staff scrambling to come up with this promised new security policy.
Is it two-China or one-China next week?
It’s whatever the current person on the phone wants to hear. The mystique of being unpredictable covers a profound lack of a core.
It the President of Taiwan calls, its a two-China policy dontcha know.
#breaking CNN just said Trump won’t be pursuing travel ban appeal at the Supreme Court.
Too shorthanded to multi-task?
“short-handed”? hahaha!
What was that that Booman was saying a couple of weeks ago about the role of the Mormons in fighting Trump?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/raucous-utah-town-hall-blasts-gop-representative-chaffetz_us_589
d2d80e4b094a129e9ac7c?
Unfortunately,
The population of SLC is now 25% non-white (down from 99% a few decades ago) and fewer than 50% are Mormons.
Still plenty of Mormons among ’em, I reckon. Liberal Mormons.
An oxymoron.
Not at all. While greatly outnumbered by Republican Mormons, Democrats and lefty Mormons have been around for a long time.
“Not to mention that he has to fake knowing what he’s talking about all the time . . . “
No, that’s the easy part, he’s been doing it his whole life.
But there eventually comes a point at which people stop covering for you and you stand exposed.
It’s not so much that people stop covering for those in power, but that those doing the covering become too discredited to function as cover-uppers.
Yeah, from Bannon on down.
I guess you’re right. It’s a little different when you’re the president. Not just the president (I’m thinking of Reagan here, Mr. Teflon), but a president that has the unique knack of making everybody hate you.
At the hundred day marker, his staff will be lucky not to be ready for a real loony bin. There is simply no way to maintain a degree of sanity working for a boss that is not only unpredictable but can do fact-free multiple one-eighties within twenty-four hours and pack all of them lies.
Dan Froomkin
And he lacks any awareness that he’s doing so.
but can do fact-free multiple one-eighties within twenty-four hours and pack all of them lies..
Another example
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-ayotte-voter-fraud-claims
Politico first reported on Trump’s comments Friday, citing unnamed participants in a meeting between Trump and 10 senators originally meant discuss Trump’s nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Present at the meeting was former New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who has handled Gorsuch’s confirmation process for the White House.
Ayotte narrowly lost a re-election bid in the Granite State in November. According to Politico, she lost her race against now-Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) by 743 votes, while Hillary Clinton won the state by nearly 3,000 votes.
Both outcomes, Trump reportedly said, were due to “thousands” of people who were “brought in on buses” from Massachusetts to vote “illegally” in the state.
He does love that illegal Democratic voters bone. Should we tell him that the buses arrived from Canada and Vermont as well as Massachusetts?
Or is he projecting and it was buses of GOP voters from MA and VT?
He still doesn’t know the voices in Alex Jones’ head are not reliable sources.
Why Shinzo Abe Is Banking on a Bromance with Trump
And yet — 2015 — Sake and Soul: White House State Dinner Was Like a `Bromance’
With all the VSP clapping – Expected Attendees at Tonight’s Japan State Dinner
Will Abe miss not seeing them again? Probably not as he basks in the glow of his new bromance.
One could, at random, select a post from any number of liberal pundits (including this one, and indeed myself at times) over the last year and find it full of predictions of Trump’s imminent demise.
I have no inside information about the Trump White House obviously.
But let me offer an alternative recitation of the facts:
*One China
*The Iran Deal
*Backed off moving the capital of Israel to Jerusalem
3. The Supreme Court Appointee to date has for the most part been pretty well received.
It is pretty clear that the immigration order was fucked up – but then Trump has abiding by court orders – something authoritarians don’t do.
The polling shows some decline over the last week (PPP shows leakage: -2 to -10 in a week) and Gallup did as well though it has stabilized. But PPP had a disasterous cycle and Gallup’s record is so bad they stopped polling trial heats.
We will see if it gets worse. It is worth noting Clinton has his troubles very early in hist first term: By May 29th he was 37-49 in his approval rating according to CBS
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/CFIDE/psearch/webroot/question_view.cfm?qid=268548&pid=1&cci
d=1#top
I have long since stopped believing liberal pundits have a clue in their evaluation of Trump.
That’s because they keep forgetting that in the early going it’s nearly impossible for a GOP POTUS to get lower than a 45% approval rating. Even one like Trump that had a net negative rating all the way to election day is now in net positive territory; although a few points have been shaved from his net positive in the past couple of weeks.
If you made this point in the positive (rather than the infinite regression of negation–“they keep forgetting,” “it’s nearly impossible…”) what would it be? (Not just curious, but wondering if it could be put positively instead of so inscrutably.)
Okay. I’ll give it a shot.
Depends on the poll.
Several other pollsters have been getting a 45% approval and 50+% disapproval. For now, it would be prudent for those on the left side to give weight to the most favorable polls for Trump. Recall that Reagan and GHWB entered office with only a 51% approval rating.
GWB didn’t fall below 45% until the second half of 2005 and he never recovered from that.
Of the recent polls two pollsters didn’t poll late in the cycle: Rasmussen and Gallup. Gallup, of course, has been terrible for decades and finally decided NOT to poll trial heats. Rasmussen is well, Rasmussen.
PPP has had a good record, but was terrible:
CO +5 (Was +3)
MI +5 (was -.5)
VA +5 (was +5)
NH +5 (was +1)
NC +2 (was -3)
PA +4 (was -.5)
WI +7 (was -.1)
Awful – every miss was in the same direction, and 5 were outside the MOE.
Yougov – was bad in 2014 and OK in this cycle.
Emerson, who doesn’t poll cell phones, and yet whose record was in relative terms very good – only Trafalgar was better.
I could go on, but we have a ton of polling from pollsters who fucked up 2016 (some will hide behind their national number and pretend they didn’t poll in states).
The average looks like Trump is around 45 – which is close to what he got in the election.
You could argue the movement is in the same direction, but Quinnipiac has found none, while Gallup, PPP and Yougov did.
I am not convinced we are seeing anything but meaningless noise at this point in the polling. Certainly nothing suggesting a polling collapse.
I tend to put less stock in approval/disapproval polls on sitting Presidents than most Democrats. The trend over time and at key points is more telling than absolute numbers. They almost always go up in the eighth year in office and it means nothing.
What is possibly unique about Trump is that he won with a large net negative rating. Not surprising that the win gave him a slight bump. IMHO, no need to take a reading until he hits that three month mark.
In the meantime, better to keep a record of his vacations and travel costs. With this weekend, he’s already racked up four vacation days and somewhere around $6 million in vacation travel costs.
President Obama’s first twelve golf outings were local — no AF-1.
There’s nothing to “believe” one way or the other. It’s all just guessing. But don’t give the imbecile too much credit.
None of them know what they’re doing and the ones that think they do are thieves and thugs.
That’s what happens when a total neophyte starts in at the top. It’s the gripe I have with Brand New Congress and their insistence that the brand new congress have zero legislative experience. I’m all for turning out 90+% of Congress but the replacements MUST have legislative experience, in the states or in city councils, or as staffers, since it is a profession and the Founding Fathers were wrong to think it should be just a hobby.
The good news is that 1.4% of Trump’s first term is over. Only 98.6% to go. What day is it?……. Hump day!
Dead man walking. Failure expands exponentially.
He doesn’t last a year, that’s for sure. In the betting pool, take the “under,” whatever that is.
I just saw this headline on TPM: “White House Seeks To Regroup After Its Stinging Legal Defeat.”
And I thought, “Oh shit, what happened to Obama?”
And then I realized… Obama’s not the President. It was very sad.