Just a reminder of how trump’s presidency went, since many people have forgotten. This article is from exactly 7 years ago.
Trump’s job approval rating at the 6-month mark is lower than eight of the past nine presidents’. He’s tied with Gerald Ford, who had taken over from Richard Nixon, who had fled Washington in the wake of the Watergate scandal and whom Ford, very controversially, pardoned.
Despite his braggadocio, Trump has a pittance of legislative accomplishments to tout. Health care appears to be dead in the water – and even Trump can’t seem to decide what the right next step should be. There is currently zero new funding for Trump’s much-touted border wall. Tax reform still in its infant stage, with few details added to the first, basic proposal. Infrastructure proposals are in limbo. There is no announced strategy on the raising of the debt ceiling. And on and on and on.
A special counsel was appointed and is investigating Russia’s attempts to meddle in the 2016 election and the possibility that members of the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to aid his campaign. That investigation has triggered a major lawyering-up of all the major players – including several Trump family members – and a series of ever-changing stories about who said what and when.
Just 36% of people approve of the job Trump is doing, via a Washington Post-ABC News poll released over the weekend, while 58% disapprove. More troubling for Trump (and his party) is the fact that the intensity is all on the anti-Trump side; 48% strongly disapprove of how Trump is doing the job while just 25% strongly approve.
Fucking vote.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
All three of them – and all within the first six months of an administration – suggest an unprecedented (that word comes up a lot with Trump) level of political jeopardy not just for the President but for the Republican Party he ostensibly leads.
Congressional Republicans, to this point, have been willing to ride the Trump roller coaster because they have convinced themselves that despite all of the surprising climbs and gut-wrenching drops, they ultimately can get what they want from him.
And, it is undeniably true, that had Hillary Clinton been elected president, she would have appointed someone far less conservative than Antonin Scalia or Gorsuch to the nation’s highest court.
It is also true that the easiest way for Trump to leave a positive conservative legacy behind him is to hope that another justice retires, with Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg most rumored to head for the exits.
Tax reform, which was rolled out to much ballyhoo by the Trump administration, remains nothing more than a broad outline of proposals – none of which have begun to make their way through the legislative process.
Despite a notable crackdown on illegal immigration, Trump’s long-promised border wall looks more and more like a pipe dream as it’s hard to see wavering Republicans in Congress cowed by a President with the approval of just over 1 in 3 Americans.
The original article contains 1,176 words, the summary contains 229 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!