The Divisiveness Crisis

Race Baiting:  Only Trump could turn the tragic death of four soldiers into a nasty racially tainted political fight.  In an effort to distract from the still unexplained Niger ambush, an attack by fifty ISIS militants that doesn’t fit into his narrative that the war against ISIS is almost over, Trump claimed that he, unlike his predecessors, always called the families of fallen soldiers.  He then hastily called the family of Sgt. Johnson, one of the fallen Green Berets, with a bungled message that wasn’t well received. The wisdom of Congresswoman Wilson’s decision to go public with the text of the call is debatable, but Trump’s response to her is not.  He should have let it go, writing the family’s reaction off to their pain at losing a loved one but that’s not how Trump rolls so we’ve had to endure an increasingly virulent and racially charged attack against the Congresswoman.  First Chief of Staff/General Kelly called her out as an empty barrel, whatever that means, for words she never uttered.  His choice of words and tone was awful and at first blush seemed out of character, until you remember that as Homeland Secretary he had no problem with Trump’s ill-fated first attempt at a Muslim ban.  Kelly could still apologize, but he works for Trump so who knows what he’ll do.  And Trump, whose staff was left scrambling, express mailing  condolence letters to the families of the soldiers who have died in action since he took office, the families he never contacted despite his assertion that he had spoken to every one of them, is still attacking the Congresswoman.  Sunday morning, Trump, the man that his golf buddy, Senator Lindsey Graham, called a race baiting, xenophobic, bigot during the Republican primaries held true to form tweeting  “Wacky Congresswoman Wilson is the gift that keeps on giving for the Republican Party, a disaster for Dems. You watch her in action & vote R!”  In Trump speak wacky is a dog whistle for  “Black Woman,” another one of those not so subtle messages to the core of his base.  As to Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ assertion that Kelly can’t be questioned because he’s a four star marine general,  retired General Petraeus’ response is that generals are fair game, “we are fiercely protective of the rights of our Americans to express themselves, even if that involves criticizing us.”  And though he’s not a general, CNN’s Jake Tapper got it right by tweeting “I have tremendous respect for the military but the notion that no one can even question the statements of generals is un-American.”  For his part at one time or another, Trump has tweet bashed General Colin Powell “never a fan, we can do much better,” General John Allen “his record = BAD,” General Martin Dempsey “he is no Patton or MacArthur,” and all Generals “we don’t have the leadership.”  Stepping back to Niger, the issue that triggered Trump’s diversionary kerfuffle over which president did the best job contacting families, several senior members of House and Senate leadership who should have known, were surprised to find out that our presence there had grown to almost 1000 soldiers.  Senator McCain, in his role as Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, will now be spending some time with another one of the generals, Defense Secretary Mattis, exerting Congress’ oversight role, getting up to speed on the scope of the US presence in Niger and finding out what happened during the ill-fated mission.  

The Predecessors:  The five living former Presidents attended a fundraiser for hurricane relief.  Trump stayed home, phoning in his remarks, possibly because it would have been awkward hanging with the guys while his Mr. Outside, Steve Bannon, ripped into George W for the speech he made earlier in the week, attacking W for “not knowing what he was talking about” when he attacked Trump’s nativism and bigotry.  Ninety-four year old Jimmy Carter offered to go to North Korea to mediate the increasingly confrontational situation on the peninsula.  As preposterous as that sounds, someone needs to start acting diplomatic, Kim Jong Un is so convinced that a US attack is imminent that he sent a letter to Australia’s government warning that the Trump administration “is trying to drive the world into a horrible nuclear war.”  

Russia, Russia, Russia: In an effort to discredit the “salacious” Christopher Steele dossier, Trump tweeted “Officials behind the now discredited "Dossier" plead the Fifth. Justice Department and/or FBI should immediately release who paid for it.”  Trump’s tweet refers to the refusal of Glenn Simpson, the head of the Fusion GPS research firm that hired former MI 5 agent Steele to research links between Russia and Trump, to testify or reveal who paid for the dossier. Trump’s stooge, Congressman Devon Nunes, who is supposed to be recused from the Russia investigation, went behind the back of the other members of the House Intelligence Committee and subpoenaed several years of Fusion GPS’s bank records in an effort to find out who paid for the dossier, believed to have been commissioned on behalf of one or more of Trump’s primary opponents.  Once Trump won the primary, it’s thought that someone with Democratic ties picked up the dossier’s costs.  Simpson is cooperating with Special Counsel Mueller but doesn’t trust Nunes, doesn’t believe that he has subpoena authority, and believes that the subpoena, to the extent that it is lawful, is overly broad in that it goes after years of his financial records.  In any case, the value of the dossier is that it serves as a roadmap for sources and information, on its own it cannot be used as evidence. The Republican National Committee has covered more than $400,000 of Trump and Donny Jr’s Russia related legal costs.  Now Trump is offering to set up a fund to pay a like amount of his staff’s legal bills.  It’s not clear who would benefit from his largesse, but it’s easy to believe that he is trying to influence someone’s testimony.  Bill Clinton considered setting up a similar fund during his administration but didn’t after his lawyers advised him that it was ethically questionable.  Of course, to Trump nothing is ethically questionable so keep an eye on this one. My first guess is that Hope Hicks, the current communications director and former personal assistant who probably knows where the bodies are buried will be one of his beneficiaries.   

The Legislative Agenda: To the extent that he can focus on anything, Trump is going all in on tax legislation, so much so that he told a meeting of Republican legislators to start calling the legislation a “tax cut” plan because no one in his base cares about reform, they just want to think they are getting tax cuts.  Speaker Ryan insists that the House will sign off on the Senate budget outline by the end of the week so that the legislative focus can shift immediately to tax reform/cuts. It may be delusional but the plan is to push tax legislation through by year end, even though the components of the tax plan are still up in the air.  Over the weekend there were reports that the tax rate for those making over $1 million would remain at 39.6% in order to raise a few more dollars and more importantly improve optics.  Also on the table is a drastic reduction in the maximum 401K contribution from $18,000 ($24,000 for those over 50) to $2400.  Reducing the contribution, which is intended to offset the loss in tax revenues from cutting the corporate tax rate, is not going to be popular with middle and upper middle class taxpayers and is bad policy, unless of course you think that discouraging retirement savings is good policy or are desperate to push tax cuts through for your billionaire donors who have threatened to withhold campaign contributions unless they get a corporate tax cut and the inheritance tax is eliminated. Though tax cuts are Trump’s priority, a few other items remain in the legislative queue. Senator Schumer says that all of his 48 Democratic senators are ready to vote for the Alexander-Murray Obamacare “fix” and that together with the twelve Republican who’ve signed on as sponsors, the sixty votes needed for “regular way” passage are ready and waiting.  Majority Leader McConnell says that he will only bring the Obamacare “fix” to the floor if he gets sign off from Trump and so far he’s too busy with taxes, golf and tweeting to have provided his answer.  It’s not just health care that needs a “fix,” the dreamers are still waiting for DACA and the government will run out of money if another funding resolution isn’t passed by year end.  

What Opioid Emergency:  There is the real opioid crisis, the one that is may be killing 60,000 people a year, and then there is the other opioid crisis, the one that has Trump’s staff in a panic.  They had no idea that he would promise to formally declare the opioid epidemic an emergency this week.  They have no plan because the position of the headless Department of Health and Human Services is that the epidemic doesn’t warrant an emergency declaration.  If Trump sticks to his plan and formally signs an emergency declaration this week, expect to see lots of smoke and mirrors and pretty charts but no real plan or list of actions.