The two headlines don’t seem to go together: North Korea Says It Tested a Hydrogen Bomb Meant for Missiles and Trump Preparing Withdrawal from South Korea Trade Deal, a Move Opposed by Top Aides.
But there’s a fairly simple explanation:
[President Trump has] become increasingly focused on the prospect of losing support among his core supporters — the voters he once said would stick with him even if he shot someone on New York’s Fifth Avenue.
“I don’t think it’s a worry or a concern as much as it’s a reality,” Roger Stone, a longtime informal adviser to the president, said of Trump’s preoccupation with his base. “It’s a reality that he understands politically.”
Polls show Trump losing a bit of ground with some of his core constituencies. A Fox News survey released last week put Trump’s overall approval rating at 41 percent, and notably cited a 7 percentage point drop among conservatives and a 9 point drop among whites without a college degree, one of Trump’s strongest voting groups.
He thinks he needs to attack the trade deal with South Korea to maintain the support of his base. But an actual sane person would be putting that idea on indefinite hold or actually shelving it permanently considering the much more important things we need to be working on with the South Koreans.
