As Washington sneers that President Trump is not defending himself from impeachment with proper decorum, senior Trump operatives believe the Establishment is wrong yet again and Trump’s combative, solo-flying strategy is political pay dirt.
As another whistleblower emerged and the drumbeat for impeachment grew louder, Trump punched back in signature style over the weekend, using Twitter to accuse his principal Democratic foes of treason.
“Nancy Pelosi knew of all of the many Shifty Adam Schiff lies and massive frauds perpetrated upon Congress and the American people,” he wrote.
When Bill Clinton was impeached, his White House set up a war room to insulate the president against the day-to-day mudslinging. In contrast — and in character — Trump has come out swinging.
A senior administration official admitted the strategy was a gamble but said it was already resonating with supporters.
“There are plenty of Republicans who still don’t like Trump’s style — the tweets, the off-the-cuff remarks — but they do like what he is getting done on jobs, China, trade,” the official said.
While some warn that he risks becoming bogged down in a battle that could destroy his legacy, supporters see a repeat of the 2016 campaign, when Trump rode to power embracing controversies that would have floored other opponents, deploying an us-versus-them strategy to mobilize his base.
….This makes Nervous Nancy every bit as guilty as Liddle’ Adam Schiff for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and even Treason. I guess that means that they, along with all of those that evilly “Colluded” with them, must all be immediately Impeached!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2019
Campaign staff are already reporting a fundraising surge. The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign said they collected $13 million within 36 hours of Pelosi announcing her “impeachment inquiry.”
Senior figures say they now see a “pivot point,” allowing the president to take on a Congress intent on halting his agenda.
White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney leads insiders who argue that letting Trump be Trump proved to be a winning strategy during the 2016 campaign and can be again as he fights impeachment.
A top campaign adviser said the controversy was already mobilizing Trump’s base, as shown by early voting figures for this weekend’s gubernatorial election in Louisiana. JMC Analytics reported that Republican turnout was up from the previous cycle in 2015 by more than twice as much as it was for Democrats.
An impeachment process centered on Ukraine has provided Trump with the perfect platform to highlight the charges against Biden — that his family had tried to cash in on his position — and remind voters of his achievements on unemployment and trade, in the view of campaign aides.
“It’s giving a pivot point for the president to launch his reelection campaign based on fighting against Congress,” the campaign adviser said. “What Mulvaney is talking about is the way in which the president now is able to remind people that he is the agent of change, compared with Congress which has achieved nothing and compared with Pelosi who is very unpopular in the country.”
Jeanne Zaino, professor of political science at Iona College, cautioned that it was a huge risk to act as press secretary, chief strategist, and president at the same time.
“When you do this, you make mistakes. I think you are seeing that now. When he starts talking about China, that’s a big problem in this impeachment process. Hire a team,” she said.
Last Thursday, Trump added fuel to the impeachment fire by apparently urging another foreign power to investigate a political opponent — the same issue that sparked a whistleblower complaint.
“China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” he told reporters.
Trump has long believed he is his own best spokesman, and the White House press operation has frequently been sidelined while he delivers his own statements on the South Lawn in front of an idling Marine One.
That puts him front and center of the impeachment debate, in contrast to Bill Clinton’s White House.
As Joe Lockhart, who served as Clinton’s press secretary, explained recently, the strategy was to insulate the president from the nonstop questions and isolate him from charges he was unable to govern effectively.
“We survived the process because we were disciplined about keeping the president out of the impeachment debate,” he wrote in the Washington Post. “We had an aggressive and experienced legal, communications, and political team. Most important, we never turned on one another.”
Trump aides have said publicly they see no need for a war room. Installing a crisis team, they say, risks creating the impression of crisis when the charges have no merit.
Besides, Trump has arguably survived equal crises, they believe. His 2016 run featured insults directed at John McCain, a war hero and Republican figurehead, the condemnation of a Gold Star family, and a tape of him boasting about grabbing women by intimate parts of their anatomy — and he still won.
