In this week’s White House Report Card, there was some good news for President Trump as the unemployment ticked a bit lower as the economy awakened, and he indicated that he would take executive action to extend benefits to those slammed by the coronavirus.
What’s more, poll headlines started to suggest that his campaign was back from the dead and gaining on foe Joe Biden.
Still, this week’s grader, conservative analyst Jed Babbin, said the week was flat for Trump and gave him a D+.
Jed Babbin
Grade D+
The week was a bit strange for Trump, resulting mainly from his lackluster campaign and inconsistent positions on the acquisition of China’s TikTok short video phone app by Microsoft.
Trump is either unwilling or unable to lay out his second-term agenda for voters. The Republican Party platform for 2020 is literally the one they published four years ago. Yes, party platforms are quickly forgotten, and Trump likes to do things differently. But no candidate can win without being eager and able to articulate a reason for people to vote for him rather than his opponent. One pundit characterized Trump’s campaign as “sleepwalking,” which is precisely right at this stage.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2020
Microsoft’s attempt to buy TikTok’s business (in the U.S. and reportedly worldwide) got the president’s attention. Early in the week, he said that the Treasury Department should be paid a “substantial portion” of the purchase price. That mafia-like demand puzzled even Trump’s allies (and is probably illegal), so later in the week, he issued an executive order that apparently bans the transaction.
The economy generated nearly 2 million jobs in July, which means the recovery is continuing (albeit slowly). The pandemic is still spreading with no end in sight. Vaccines may come early next year, but no one is certain of any outcome right now.
Jed Babbin is a Washington Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on Twitter: @jedbabbin.
John Zogby, our liberal grader and Democratic pollster, was unavailable this week.
