This was published 4 years ago
Opinion
Donald Trump’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week
Trump has often paid no political price for his most offensive behaviour. But this week, he's had a real shocker. Will he pay for it?
Bill Wyman
ContributorDonald Trump’s presidency defies the laws of political gravity in every way, just as the campaign before it did. We heard him say, “Grab ’em by the pussy”; we heard him say, “I like people who don’t get captured” in reference to John McCain, who was tortured for more than five years as a prisoner of war; we heard him say “very good people on both sides” about a racist and anti-Semitic rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
President Donald Trump talks to reporters at Andrews Air Force Base after attending a campaign rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.Credit: Evan Vucci, AP
And yet he paid no political price.
So we should not be surprised that the spectacle has continued during his presidency. But this past week, even by Trump standards, was a political debacle of some proportion. The Atlantic magazine published a story detailing the President’s contempt for those serving in the US military; it was so shocking that other news outlets rushed to investigate – and most of its particulars were confirmed, even at the President’s own favoured outlet, Fox News. Such attitudes must have been dismaying even to the most loyal MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporter of the President.
And now there is a new book by Bob Woodward, Rage, excerpts of which were released on Thursday. Woodward interviewed the President extensively, on tape. The initial big scoop: Trump confided in Woodward back in February about the coronavirus, displaying specific understanding of how severe the coming outbreak was going to be and how it might be spread in the air – and yet he spent weeks and months in public downplaying its risks to the public and refusing to advise his constituents to wear masks.
This revelation packs a double whammy: engendering a sneaking suspicion among his base of support that he was killing even them, and nudging those who have not yet decided not to support his re-election into an unhelpful direction.
There was also one other development much noted by political insiders: A New York Times story delving into how the Trump campaign burned through $800 million in contributions – and has little to show for it. (Among other things, the romantic interests of the elder Trump sons were found to be lavishly compensated on the political payroll.)
Such revelations are not helpful, to say the least, to a campaign that now has to go back to Republican donors to get across the finish line.
Was there any good news for the President? Just one bit: new polls from Florida showed the race there had tightened, with Biden holding something like a three-point lead. That’s not nothing, but it shows that Biden has not yet conclusively shut a very big door to Trump’s re-election.
Will the President get away with these scandals? No one would summarily bet against someone with his improbable record – not to mention the support of Vladimir Putin.
But there is a difference or two between now and 2016. For one, Trump is an incumbent; a re-election campaign is a much different thing. He’s not an upstart spitting at the castle walls. Now he’s inside – and just about everyone can see that he let in the COVID-19 dragon.
And two, the campaign is in its final stages. The President started the race in January with much of the country tired of him. Then came the pandemic. His convention was supposed to be a reset. But chaos behind the scenes, profligate spending, and now this raft of candidate-induced pratfalls have made that a distant memory.
On to the debates. (The first is on September 29.)
Bill Wyman is a former assistant managing editor of NPR in Washington. He lives in Sydney.