Hurricane Harvey Meet Tsunami Trump

Storm Clouds:  As Harvey dumped unprecedented amounts of rain on Texas, Trump tweeted out a plug for a book written by Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, another one of those notoriously abusive law enforcement officers.  He then went on to live tweet the storm, congratulating himself for his storm management skills and noting that “most people say that this is the worst storm/hurricane we’ve ever seen, good news is that we have great talent on the ground.”  In Trump’s eyes that talent is about to become even greater, he plans to head to Texas on Tuesday to assess the situation, take credit for emergency management successes and divert blame for any problems to state officials. To his credit he is taking the storm seriously though it’s not yet clear that he appreciates that it’s not a public relations moment for him, people are suffering and that recovery from Harvey storm damage will take years, cost billions and require more manpower and funding.  Harvey plans to stick around until Wednesday, so Trump will have a chance to personally thank the complicit “guy” who usefully diverted attention from his Friday night pardon and transgender tsunami. If he’s really lucky, he may also run into some of the people that Mexico’s President Pena Nieto sent across the still wall-less border to help Texas cope with the flood. Trump will probably be wearing his usual oversized business suit and extra-long tie so it’s unlikely that he will don waders and spend a day working alongside those “bad hombres.” Hopefully, if he meets them he will resist the urge to ask for Mexican “wall pesos.”   After surveying Texas, Trump plans to head to Springfield, Missouri to launch his tax reform pitch.  He isn’t expected to present any details, because he doesn’t know any details, but will instead seek to drum up support for tax simplification and lower middle class tax rates, by middle class he means the top 1%.  Missouri’s Democratic Senator, Claire McCaskill, faces an uphill reelection campaign in 2018 so no doubt he will also use the visit to brag about his state victory and throw some shade her way.      

The Practice Pardon:  The Washington Post reports that Trump’s affection for former Maricopa County Sheriff Arpaio goes way back to the beginning of the Obama birther movement and that Trump tried to intercede on behalf of Arpaio even before his case went to court by asking Attorney General Sessions if he could get the charges against Arpaio dropped.  Sessions had the good sense to say it would be inappropriate, which may be one more reason that Sessions has fallen out of favor with Trump.  When Trump issued the Arpaio pardon, he did it without the help of anyone from the Justice Department.  His pardon was unusual in other respects as well.  Typically, people aren’t pardoned until after they’ve been sentenced and Arpaio, who was facing at most six months in jail and probably would have served little if any time, hadn’t even been sentenced yet. Arpaio is also an unusually despicable character, whose horrific actions, some of which resulted in wrongful deaths, have cost Maricopa County more than $80 million in civil settlements and fines, an amount that is expected to grow to around $170 million by next summer.  Emboldened by the pardon, Arpaio, who still faces a number of civil suits, has upped his fundraising efforts to help defray legal costs and, to the extent the 84 year old decides to leverage the pardon and run for another office, future campaign expenditures.  A few of Trump’s surrogates hit the Sunday morning talk shows to defend the pardon decision, depicting Sheriff Joe as an elderly veteran and patriot who had just been doing his job when he profiled Latinos, denied pregnant women medical care, and left prisoners in sweltering tents to die.  Tom Bossert, Trump’s Homeland Security advisor, tried to downplay the pardon by saying that it “was not something that is going to threaten our constitutional order.”  His comments were positively benign in comparison to those of erstwhile Trump friend, Roger Stone, who reacted to ailing Senator John McCain’s criticism of the pardon by tweeting “karma is about to get you @johnmccain and you will burn for all eternity.”  Trump really knows how to pick his friends.         

The Squeaky Cabinet:  Last week, Economic Advisor Cohn shared his gut reaction to Trump’s Charlottesville statements and now a few other senior officials are piling on.  When asked by  Chris Wallace of Fox News whether UN condemnation of Trump’s response to violence in Charlottesville caused him any concern, Secretary of State Tillerson distanced himself from Trump by saying ”he speaks for himself” implying that Trump’s statements are not indicative of US policy  and values.  Speaking to US soldiers from what appeared to be Jordan, Secretary of Defense Mattis was caught on video saying “Our country right now it’s got problems….you just hold the line until the country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.”  Those remarkable comments were made even before Mattis received the directive that he will have to decide whether to kick some of those troops out of the military for being transgender, just one more Trump caused problem he’d rather not have to deal with right now.  House Speaker Ryan also expressed his disapproval of the Arpaio pardon, but in classic Ryan form, he ducked direct confrontation by having his spokesman release a statement.  At a meeting of Kentucky’s GOP,  Senator Majority Leader McConnell just said that governing is frustrating and messy and refrained from making any comments about Arpaio or the transgender ban.  Republican Ohio Governor Kasich, a frequent Trump critic was more outspoken, he discounted rumors that he and Colorado’s Democratic Governor Hickenlooper were considering a 2020 unity ticket but did say that they were working together to solve problems like health care because that’s what two guys who understand the importance of rational policy making and legislation do.  His comment came after he criticized Trump for using the Arpaio pardon as an “out of bounds” “political wedge.”  Despite their denials, Kasich and Hickenlooper probably are running for president, but not together.  

Russia, Russia, Russia:  While running for the Republican nomination for president Trump’s company was pursuing plans to develop a bigly Trump Tower in Moscow.  The project was ultimately abandoned in January 2016 but details about the extent of the arrangement are now being turned over to Congressional investigators.  Remember when Trump said that neither he nor anyone in his family or campaign knew or did business with any Russians, well forget that, it was just another one of those Trump alternative facts.