Trump walkout marks point of no return



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The President does what he always does when he finds himself in a dark political corner: to fight more than any living man, by adopting an implacable strategy of total political warfare and by unleashing a way that may ultimately prove to be doomed to failure.

He complained of being a victim of the courts, the Democrats, the press, the old and the new enemies. He lamented that his son, Don Jr., was treated as a "good young man who lived a hell".

"We conducted an investigation in the House, we have investigations in the Senate, we have investigations like never before," he said, speaking behind banners stuck on the presidential podium, reading "No Collusion "and" No Obstruction ".

Wednesday's release of Trump marked a clear strategic shift. He decided that as long as he would be the subject of an investigation, his hopes of finding a ground of understanding with the Democrats on issues that could help both sides in 2020 are an exploded color.

"You can follow the lead of the investigation, and you can do it … the track to get things done for the American people," he said.

"We will follow one track at a time, let them finish," said Trump, adopting an absolutist stance that could deprive him of his many national achievements.

The mess of his own making?

Of course, Democrats and Trump's critics would argue that he did everything for him – with the dark meetings between his campaign collaborators and the Russians, with apparent efforts to shadow the ## 147 ## Robert Mueller's investigation and his strategy of total non-cooperation with oversight efforts of the Democrats-led House.

But the Rose Garden favorite came with Trump under extreme pressure.

For the second time in as many days, a judge repudiated his strategy of ignoring Congressional summonses. Trump will fight until the Supreme Court if necessary. But the ruling was further evidence that the scandal and the alternative state of constitutional reality created by the president were struggling to stand in court.

The hits have continued to arrive.

A new volley of subpoenas has shaken Trump's inner circle a day after his refusal to let his former White House lawyer, Don McGahn, testify, including an attack on the former confidante of trust, Hope Hicks. The former director of communications at the White House may be a weaker data point than McGahn if Trump asserts that his testimony should be protected by the privilege of the executive.

Outside of the political pressure also reinforces on the president. According to CNN reports this week, his position in the Rust Belt indicates that his position at the White House is waning and that he must share the time spent on television with Democratic Leader Joe Biden – which poses a threat to the Trump voters at the heart of blue-collar workers. .

On Wednesday, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said Trump was a Nixon-style conspirator just before going to the White House to discuss a $ 2 trillion infrastructure project. dollars.

"Instead of walking into a meeting with pleasure, I'm heading to the people who just said I was hiding," Trump said. Instead of discussing the plan, he reprimanded the California Democrat and went in search of the pre-positioned and expected press of the White House to release his anger.

Staying away may not work

Trump's strategy of setting fire to a meeting, turning on his heels and raising the stakes is known in his life as a real estate mogul. But there is more and more evidence that moving away from the table does not work as well for a president as it is for a business person.

He tried with North Korea and the Stalinist state still has its nuclear weapons. He has done it with China and the trade war is intensifying. A previous failure had also killed a nascent immigration deal with Democrats who could have financed his border wall, the centerpiece of his 2016 campaign.

"Watching what happened at the White House would make the jaw drop," said another old Trump foe, the leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, twisting the knife.

It is possible that Trump's counterattack against Pelosi is designed to increase the pressure on the speaker by the left-wing members of his restive Democratic caucus.

She had already asked if Trump was trying to incite him to start impeachment hearings – in the belief that he might portray her as captive to extremist "socialist" elements and urge voters to reject any attempt excessive on the part of the Democrats.

But Pelosi appeared to stabilize his position on Wednesday after a meeting with members of the Democratic House.

And a decision by a federal judge that Trump could not block the House's subpoenas seeking his financial records from Deutsche Bank and Capital One seemed to validate his strategy of using investigative tools other than the impeachment.

"Very excited, no surprise," Pelosi told reporters. "Two in a week."

Trump is not Bill Clinton

In theory, it is possible that a president placed under the control of a hostile Congress continues to move things forward. Bill Clinton proved it in the 1990s even though he was dismissed.

"Frankly, the president takes a position that no other president of history has ever taken, that is, if Congress conducts an investigation, you can not do anything. to do anything else, "said former Clinton Chief of Staff, Leon Panetta.

"Bill Clinton was not always in agreement with what President Gingrich's Republicans were doing in the House, but at the same time he was working with President Gingrich to pass a law," Panetta said. Jake Tapper, CNN.

But Trump lacks Clinton's supernatural ability to compartmentalize the bad news. The current president showed on Wednesday that he was animated with emotion and grievances. And he just stays true to himself by responding to perceived insults by taking severe measures.

The result of Wednesday's angry exchange is a Washington facing the prospect of a long period of complete break between Congress and the White House.

Infrastructure reform may have always been a dream. This is a consistent course of action after several unsuccessful attempts during the Trump administration. But the Democrats and the President need to do something crucial. If they do not, there could be serious economic and even global repercussions.

On Tuesday, Washington hoped for a budget deal that would avoid automatic cuts of $ 120 billion, avoid a fiscal imbalance related to raising the debt ceiling, and set spending levels for two years.

But it's not clear if such an agreement between Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate and the White House would survive Trump's refusal to stop working with Democrats until then. that they stop investigating him.

And the President's aspirations to finally complete his replacement agreement with Canada and Mexico for the North American Free Trade Agreement – part of his platform for re-election in 2020 – could also be the subject of a prolonged disagreement between the White House and the Capitol Hill Democrats.

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