Trump signed the omnibus/relief bill and then released a statement calling for changes to the bill. Please, somebody send him that Schoolhouse Rock video.
According to Mike Allen at Axios, SecTres Mnuchin and House Republican Leader McCarthy got Trump to cave with a combination of flattery and empty promises. I take it that when Trump signed the bill, he believed Senate Republicans would go ahead and pass the $2,000 benefit and eliminate the tech liability protection I wrote about a couple of days ago. I will be very surprised if Senate Republicans even bother to go through the motions. At this point, they’re probably about as ready to get rid of Trump as are the rest of us.
Today House Democrats are planning to vote to override Trump’s veto of the annual defense bill and pass a stand-alone $2,000 benefit bill. The latter probably will be blocked again. I expect the override to pass and the Senate to support it also, but we’ll see.
Paul Waldman offers a recap of Trump’s latest episode:
Cementing his status as quite possibly the worst deal-maker ever to sit in the Oval Office, President Trump once again created a crisis, made some impulsive demands, then backed down at the last minute without actually obtaining anything other than some increased suffering for millions of Americans.
If there is a silver lining to any of this, Waldman continues, it’s that it shows us how weak Trump has become and how easy it will be for Congress, and the rest of us, to ignore him. I don’t believe there’s any critical legislation left for him to sign, which means not even Senate Republicans need him for anything any more. They might even prefer that he stay away from Georgia, although today Rupert Murcoch’s New York Post is telling Trump to give up on overturning the election to focus on Georgia.
Back to Waldman:
According to various reports, Trump’s aides and members of Congress finally persuaded him to sign the bill by managing him like an angry toddler, letting his tantrum run its course. One of the ways they seem to have done so is by fooling him into thinking that he possesses something like a line-item veto. They unearthed a process known as “rescission,” which hasn’t been used in decades but gives the president the ability to request that individual spending items be rescinded.
So in Trump’s statement, he proclaimed that the bill included “wasteful” spending, and “I will send back to Congress a redlined version, item by item, accompanied by the formal rescission request to Congress insisting that those funds be removed from the bill.” It was an attempted assertion of strength — but a completely hollow one, since even if the White House gets around to making the request (and I’m betting it won’t), Congress can ignore it. Which it will.
Through all those weeks of negotiation, I take it that everyone in Congress, of both parties, assumed that Steve Mnuchin was speaking for Trump and keeping Trump apprised of developments. Mnuchin may very well have attempted to keep Trump informed and may very well have believed Trump would sign whatever was passed. It’s clear Trump has been so obsessed with overturning the election he wasn’t paying much attention to the omnibus bill until it was plopped in front of him to sign.
At The Week, Joel Mathis writes that Trump has learned nothing. “It is remarkable that he spent four years in the White House without showing any real growth in his ability to get stuff done,” Mathis says. A big part of Trump’s problem is that he has no patience or appreciation of process. All along he has treated the details of policy making as irrelevant. He wants to rule by edict, like a king — declare what he wants done and let the little people figure out how to do it — but Washington doesn’t work that way.
Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer at Politico:
THAT’S IT? President DONALD TRUMP made all this noise about the Covid relief and government funding bill only to sign it and get nothing in return?
TRUMP got taken to the cleaners.
WHAT A BIZARRE, embarrassing episode for the president. He opposed a bill his administration negotiated. He had no discernible strategy and no hand to play — and it showed. He folded, and got nothing besides a few days of attention and chaos. People waiting for aid got a few days of frightening uncertainty.
ZIP. ZERO. ZILCH. If he was going to give up this easy, he should’ve just kept quiet and signed the bill. It would’ve been less embarrassing.
Trump’s last hurrah will be on January 6, when we will hopefully see his last attempt to overturn the election fizzle out.
David Horsey, Seattle Times
This is classic Trump. In 1985 I set up a trade show in the Grand Hyatt that had no attendees because all of the city hotels were on strike. Then Donald Trump settled and the show went on. This infuriated the other hotel owners who had not settled. This sort of behavior would have come out if Trump had held some other office before running for president. He also reneged on a promise to install an escalator from the hotel down to Grand Central Station saying that the agreement was "only worth the paper it was printed on." The agreement had not been written down.
So, what new deed will the magical power of the Mahablog create next?
Fintan O’Toole: Trump has unfinished business. A republic he wants to destroy still stands
Instead of waving him off, those who want to rebuild American democracy will have to put a stake through his heart.
The only problem with that is Trump doesn't have a heart, at least in the spiritual sense. He probably has a colostomy bag in place of a heart that serves a similar purpose by pumping shit through his veins.
On a serious note… I agree with that sentiment above. It's imperative that Trump's image has to be destroyed if we are to have any hope of restoring the image of America and it's values that many of us hold dear. You know, things like truth, decency, honor, respect, compassion, equality, honesty, empathy, justice and civility. Just to name a few. Trump has pissed all over the thing that make America great.
Actions taking place in the upcoming month, January, may well be determinative of our long-term future.
We will soon come to a fork in the road, and which path we take, will determine our future.
One path leads to our MSM continuing to cover Covid-Donnie's every word, move, and fart, as "BREAKING NEWS!!!!!"
Needless to say, that path would be tRUMP's dream!!! But a potentially lethal nightmare for representative democracy.
The other path isn't a tRUMP-free MSM, but one in which our MSM only mentions him/family as related to the law and justice. Or breaking financial tRUMP news: The fat orange SOB not only ain't rich, but he's bankrupt!!!
The second path, imo, is the way to go.
But how do we wean our MSM off of tRUMP?!?
He's a walking/talking headline and/or chyron!
And he's cheap to cover! Just stick a mic in his fat orange puss, and he'll yap until you gotta pee so bad, you're about to EXPLODE!!!! And even then,after your bladder's exploded, if you pissed but missed him and his shoes he'll just keep right on talking.
January, and whether our MSM can stop Jonesin' for tRUMP bullshit after Noon on the 20th, will tell us what February might bring. And maybe even March, April, May, etc…
January 6th is a ritual, and as such a non-event. We can only hope it will prompt the die hard Trumpanistas to take their flags and signs down, and accept at least a little reality. I think that they have held out so long that no event or time will ever be time to remove these soon to be eye sores. I suppose they will just rot and fade over time. We are lucky that red is readily faded by UV light.
There is no way the Republican Party will allow Trump to continue to hold the limelight. His one and only veto override by congress got little Republican support in the House. It was the sacred Defense bill he dared to veto, of course. Defense spending is one of the few planks of the Republican platform that Trump has not destroyed.
The party platform has otherwise just has just been the Trump rant of the day or hour. Now who is going to grab and carry the banner against low flush toilets? What will happen to future elections? Will I have to stand in line with cadavers because no one is going to check to see if the guy next to me is breathing or not? So the question becomes, without Trump what does the party really stand for?
Not since the less than grand old days of Ross Perot must we fear the threat of the giant sucking sound, as the power vacuum in the Republican party implodes. I hope it sucks up some of that Trump signage and paraphernalia when it does. The stuff is becoming a real eye sore.
Justice is sweet. Dominion Attorneys Send Brutal Letter to Trump Campaign’s ‘So-Called Star Witness’ Mellissa Carone. The letter asserts that Carone was a temp worker, hired for a day to clean equipment.
They had to get their fix: Inside Trump and Barr’s Last-Minute Killing Spree.