This is a summary look at hot news issues surrounding Trump during the past week.
To summarize the past week of Trump, we’ll call it ‘The Education of Donald’. He is slowly finding out that Washington will do him no favors nor reward him for his abrasive business style. At face value, this is good and necessary, but some of the under-currents against Trump are not business as usual.
Where Trump’s initiatives should succeed:
Republicans | By Republicans, I mean Congress as both houses hold Republican majorities. With friends like that, who needs enemies? While Congress has a duty to oppose Trump when they’re called upon to express the will of the electorate or that, which is in the best interest of the country, Congress is hardly advancing their own declared priorities, even the ones that align with Trump such as tax reform and health care reform. It’s the same ol-same ol Congress that failed in the Obama era. I would hope that Trump would inject some leadership to at least get the things done that Congress and he agree on.
Where we should take a wait and see approach to Trump’s initiatives before we get the pitchforks:
The press conference | As I reported earlier this week, there were elements within the now infamous press conference that I agreed with. Go figger… Trump does really have to clean up or professionalize his distain for the media though. While some media outlets deserve scorn, may I suggest that simply ignoring those organizations would be more becoming of the office of the President than angry rants.
Flynn | The stink worsens. In the aftermath of Flynn, the role of the FBI in recording Flynn and possibly others is now greatly in question. While bad players need to be caught, law applies to law enforcement as well.
Illegal Immigrants | To the extent that new executive orders are focused on enforcing valid existing laws, there is nothing to complain about. As I’ve said before: if you don’t like the existing laws, start working on new ones. Who makes laws? Congress. Enforcing immigration laws are a needed correction to the Obama era. We must have a much better functioning legal-immigration and guest-worker process. Imagine that! That used to be the goal of immigration policy before lawlessness became a liberal shibboleth. Lets hope that Trump can provide both sides of the coin.
Where Trump’s initiatives should fail:
Since Trump’s wheels are stuck in the mud this week, nothing major to report here
And in other news:
Milo | Guess what? Milo isn’t Trump’s problem! I doubt it’s even on his radar. For the crowd that thinks Trump = Bannon = Breitbart = Milo = Hitler, those people need to get a grip and start living in reality.
