Our weekly White House Report Card finds President Trump in a uniquely Trumpian position. He faces a likely Christmastime vote on impeachment in the House but stands as the best job creation president in decades.
Our graders captured that this week. Conservative analyst Jed Babbin gave a B-, noting the president’s success in pushing NATO allies to cough up more dough and creating jobs but still facing a Democratic drive for impeachment.
Democratic pollster John Zogby, who is in Paris where protests are filling the street, said that while many think Trump is “crazy,” he’s on par to push the unemployment rate to the lowest since 1952. On impeachment, he suggests a move for censure instead.
Jed Babbin
Grade B-
President Trump had a pretty good week. The economy continues to hit new highs, the impeachment hearings are flailing for facts, and he continued to pressure our freeloading NATO allies to spend more on defense.
Non-farm payrolls surged by over 266,000 jobs last month, much higher than the expected 180,000 jobs increase. Unemployment is at a 50-year low. The recession prayed for by Democrats is not in sight.
At the NATO leaders’ meeting (not a summit because no one believed there would be a major policy change), Trump sometimes mocked our allies, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Macron’s Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau. He continued to press the NATO nations, the vast majority of which spend very little on defense, to do more. When Macron and a couple of others were captured in a video mocking Trump, Trump left in a huff.
The House Judiciary Committee held its first impeachment hearing which featured a panel of law school professors: three anti-Trump and one pro-Trump. All it demonstrated was, to paraphrase a tweet by Rep. Louie Gohmert, “mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to go to Harvard Law School.” More hearings will be held next week. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is intent on getting impeachment done, to the chagrin of many Democratic congressmen who represent districts Trump won in 2016. Pelosi & Co. are apparently rushing to impeach Trump before December 31.
John Zogby
Grade C-
Greetings from Paris, where the metros and railroads are shutdown due to a strike and gas costs about three times what it does back home.
But there is always time to laugh about the crazy President Trump. Impeachment is on track to nowhere, and the public is tied on support/opposition. Why not just censure the president, pass climate and immigration and infrastructure bills, then use them to mount a campaign for 2020?
Man at the top gets credit for a very positive jobs report and at least one credible projection that unemployment could hit 3.25% next year, a rate not seen since 1952.
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 is the founder of the Zogby Poll and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book is We Are Many, We Are One: Neo-Tribes and Tribal Analytics in 21st Century America. Follow him on Twitter @TheJohnZogby
