Our Weekly White House Report Card finds President Trump facing certain impeachment next week but still standing tall and holding a long list of policy wins made over just five days.
On a party line vote, the House Judiciary Committee voted out articles of impeachment, and the full House will take them up next week. Then it’s on to a Senate vote next year where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised acquittal.
In any other presidency, any grader of presidential performance would give an “F.” But this week, Trump also scored these wins:
- An agreement on a new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
- A new budget including more than $1.3 billion for a border wall and blocks a government shutdown.
- House approval of the U.S. Space Force.
- Government family leave that will be a model for a proposal for the public.
- Tentative agreement on trade with China.
- Approval of Trump’s 50th federal appeals judge.
- Confirmation of a new Food and Drug Administration chief.
- The signing of a pro-Israel anti-Semitism executive order.
The result is that our Weekly Trump Report Card graders are split, a common situation during the president’s term.
Conservative foreign and defense policy expert Jed Babbin said Trump had a good week, though he had a few issues with the cost of the new Space Force and details of the China trade agreement.
Democratic pollster John Zogby focused on impeachment in giving an F. He called it an “indelible mark on this presidency.” He added, “My head is about to explode.”
Jed Babbin
Grade A-
President Trump had a very good week, maybe one of his best, which wasn’t even blemished by the impeachment articles voted out of the House Judiciary Committee on Friday.
A lot of progress was made in two major trade deals. Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally agreed to pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement to replace NAFTA that she had been sitting on for almost a year. Better news came late in the week when a preliminary agreement on a U.S.-China trade deal was announced. The preliminary agreement results in cancellation of further U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods and progress on the toughest issue: Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property which amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars in trade and government secrets each year. It remains to be seen whether China can be trusted, but it’s major progress at this point.
How do you get Impeached when you have done NOTHING wrong (a perfect call), have created the best economy in the history of our Country, rebuilt our Military, fixed the V.A. (Choice!), cut Taxes & Regs, protected your 2nd A, created Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, and soooo much more? Crazy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2019
Trump’s new “U.S. Space Force” was created within the Air Force (not as a sixth military service) in Defense Department legislation, but it cost taxpayers a massively expensive new 12-week “parental leave” program for government civilian employees. That amounts to a new entitlement program. Trump’s a big spender and probably doesn’t even realize that he had his lunch eaten on that one.
The president’s support for American Jews was demonstrated yet again by his strong executive order against campus anti-Semitism. The plague of anti-Semitism is spreading wildly on college campuses, and Trump’s order will slow, if not stop, the spread.
The House Judiciary Committee’s vote — all Democrats in favor, all Republicans against — sent the articles of impeachment to the House floor for a vote before Christmas. Pelosi’s been pretending all year that impeachment wasn’t her goal, piously announcing her opposition to the idea. In an accidental moment of honesty, when asked why she was rushing the impeachment now, she finally admitted that it’s been going on for 22 months. Which means that for all her deceitful statements — and those of Reps. Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and the rest of the impeachment cabal — it’s been their plan since March 2018 (and, truthfully, from Jan. 20, 2017). Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is reportedly going to move to acquit Trump before a full trial in the Senate. The House impeachment of Trump doesn’t deserve serious consideration. As I wrote months ago, it’s the “Seinfeld impeachment.” It’s about nothing.
John Zogby
Grade F
The House Judiciary Committee voted for two articles of impeachment against President Trump on Friday. It was not only a straight party vote but two competing sets of values, two separate nations engaged in a cold war.
This is good vs. evil, regardless of which side you’re on. The president has done nothing to heal these wounds.
At the same time, Trump has announced a major trade deal with China but we will have to see what the details include and if it is for real —whatever “real” means these days. What is real is that his approval rating is at 44% and that the testimonies and revelations of the past two weeks has tipped the voting public against impeachment. My head is about to explode.
But this was the week that the committee in charge of matters of law voted to impeach the president. That in itself will be an indelible mark on this presidency.
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
