This week’s White House Report Card has our graders right in line with the public: Some think President Trump is doing just what they hope for, others want him impeached.
John Zogby
As the late Joan Rivers used to say, ‘Can we talk?’
The Trump presidency has not unraveled but it is indeed unraveling. It is one thing to thumb your nose at the Establishment and flout all the rules. Many Americans like rule breakers and outlaws, but we also expect some stability in our lives.
Let’s review: there are very serious allegations against the president and several top current and former aides about relationships with Russia and Turkey, a summarily fired FBI Director James Comey who was leading that investigation, conflicts of interest between the Trump empire/family and China, the passage of health care legislation that only 17 percent of Americans support, a lack of clarity on foreign policy, and an already broken relationship between the White House and the GOP in Congress.
Mr. Trump has made little effort to build any kind of governing majority on anything. On the surface, the firing of Comey may not matter to independents outside of the Beltway, but the fact that there is a different rationale every day and there are broken promises by someone who promised to be a fixer does matter.
Grade F
Jed Babbin
President Trump’s week was filled with high drama and no small number of substantive actions. Some of the biggest news of the week was buried beneath the high-profile firing of FBI Director James Comey at the suggestion of the Attorney General and Deputy AG.
The fully-frothing frenzied media went into orbit over the Comey firing which it combined with the FBI’s investigation of Russian hacking into the November election to conclude it constituted proof of Trump’s guilty collusion with the Russians. They started by comparing Trump to Richard Nixon and going down from there, insisting that the firing is a constitutional crisis.
They overlooked a couple of important facts. First, shortly before the Comey firing, former president Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, testified before Congress that there was no evidence of the Trump campaign’s collusion with the Russians. They also conveniently overlooked the fact that shortly before Comey was fired, he told Sens. Chuck Grassley and Diane Feinstein that Trump wasn’t under investigation by the FBI.
Some Democrats and many in the media were calling for the establishment of a new “independent counsel” to investigate Trump. Doing so caused them to look even more like idiots than usual because the independent counsel law lapsed a couple of decades ago so there’s no mechanism for one to be appointed and empowered.
The best news of the week was the announcement of Trump’s trade deal with China. American credit and credit card companies will now be able to do business in China and China will end its prohibition of importing American beef.
Grade B-
John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Poll and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book is and author of We are Many, We are One: Neo-Tribes and Tribal Analytics in 21st Century America. Follow him at @TheJohnZogby
Jed Babbin is an Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him @jedbabbin
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
