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President Trump addresses reporters in November. (Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post)
For two years they tried to educate and confine him. They taught him the story, explained the nuances and played the reverberations. They urged prudent deliberation, advised withholding and prepared discussion topics to try to sell the common shares to a restless conservative base, eager for disruption. But eventually they failed.
For President Trump, the era of containment is over.
One by one, seasoned advisers, perceived as a bulwark against Trump's most reckless impulses, were dismissed or, as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis made his resignation Thursday due to an act extraordinary protest. What the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) Once dubbed "an adult daycare," has ceased operations.
Trump will enter his third year in the presidency without being bound – in war with his supposed enemies, determined to follow up on the insane promises of his campaign of insurgents and fearing a cleavage within his political coalition.
Up to now, the result has been disastrous. The federal government is closed. Stock markets are in free fall. Foreign allies are worried. Hostile powers such as Russia cheer. And Republican legislators who are afraid to cross this president are now openly critical.
"I want him to succeed, but I find myself in a position where the best way to help the president is to tell him the truth as I see it. Said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (RS.C.), Trump's confidante and frequent golf partner, denouncing the president's brutal decision to withdraw US troops from Syria against the advice of his military advisers.
"A trickle: Trump, under siege, propels the government and markets into a crisis"
Trump surrounds with "yes" men and women – at less compared to Mattis and other former military generals who tried to hold him back. desperate – who see their work as executing his vision, even when they disagree He has appointed some officials, including the new White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, as "acting", which means they must work to please the president so that he is finally empowered permanently. And he opposes Jerome H. Powell, his hand-picked chairman of the Federal Reserve, whom he blames for the sluggish market and says he should never have chosen.
Meanwhile, Trump's family members are ascending. Jared Kushner, son-in-law, is an increasingly influential interlocutor with foreign governments, such as Saudi Arabia. He was sent with Vice President Pence and Mulvaney to the Capitol on the eve of the government's closure to try to negotiate an expenditure agreement. With the President of Congress
The increasingly isolated president explained his state of mind in an interview with the Washington Post on November 27: "I have an instinct, and my instincts are all the same. says more sometimes than someone else 's brain can ever tell me ".
Earlier this year, Trump began to reject the advice of economic advisers such as Gary Cohn, who resigned in March, and instead followed his nationalistic instinct to enforce the rates.
But Mattis' departure and the ensuing implications for national security At the same time, Washington and the world capitals were excited by the anxiety Trump's earlier commercial movements aroused.
General retired army, four stars.
"We have Mr. Trump who looks to be incompetent and impulsive to the eyes of our allies and professionals as key elements of our national security power. making bad decisions and exchanging the historical allies of the United States, then embracing people who pose a threat to the national security of the United States, "he said.
The Leader of the Minority in the Senate, Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.) called this week "a chaotic week. the most chaotic presidency in the history of the United States.
In a speech on Friday, he added, "The institutions of our government lack stable and experienced leadership. With all these departures, he is about to become even more unstable. The president makes decisions without advice, without preparation and even without communication between the departments and agencies concerned. "
Consider recent departures. Mattis, a former revered general of the Marine Corps who had shown respect around the world, especially among NATO nations, resigned after Trump challenged him when Syria pulled out. His resignation letter was a startling reprimand for Trump's worldview, which he posed as a threat to the global order that the United States had helped to establish over the past seven decades.
John F. Kelly, another Marine Corps general widely respected for his battlefield experience. , was sacked this month as White House Chief of Staff after clashing with Trump, who was offended by Kelly's restrictive management style. After being rejected by several other candidates, Trump asked Mulvaney to replace Kelly – at least temporarily. Mulvaney vowed to Trump that he would try to manage only the staff, not the president.
Nikki Haley, ambassador to the United Nations, showed signs of independence and was much more aggressive with Russia and other traditional American adversaries. President, leave this month on his own. Trump proposed her replacement, Heather Nauert, a former Fox News Channel presenter who was conveying the message of the administration as a spokeswoman for the state department.
Earlier this year, Trump replaced HR McMaster as a National Security Advisor, replacing the Army's Lieutenant General and the military. intellectual with John Bolton, a veteran neoconservative of the administration of George W. Bush who, according to the authorities, proved more accommodating than the impulses of McMaster of Trump.
President Trump announced this month that the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, had been blanked out of House in June, replacing John F. Kelly as chief of staff. (Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post)
"Trump wants total freedom to do what he wants when he wants and he is much closer to getting it, which will terrify not only Congress but the rest of the world. Said Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution.
Rex Tillerson, Trump's first secretary of state and long-time business leader, recently described the futility of trying to contain Trump. He said Trump is "pretty unruly, does not like reading, does not read briefing reports, does not like going into the details of a lot of things, but rather simply says: & # 39; That's what I believe. "
In a live interview with Bob Schieffer of CBS News, this month, Tillerson explained," So often, the president would say, "Here's what I want to do and here's how I want to do it, "and I should tell him:" Mr. President, I understand what you want to do, but you can not do it that way. 39 "is a violation of the law."
Trump dismissed Tillerson in March after months of tension and replaced him with Mike Pompeo, who maintains better personal relations with the president.
"In the spirit of Trump and some of his supporters, he is getting rid of those personalities who have prevented him from following his instinct and fulfilling his campaign commitments," said David Axelrod, political strategist and President Barack Obama's advisor to the White House. "But his instincts are impulsive, almost always based on his own narrow politics and often motivated by vexation.An unbridled asset is a frightening proposition."
At the same time, Some institutional checks on Trump's impulses are under duress Trump's decision to dismiss Syrian troops has blinded General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, because he has not been able to do so. he was kept out of the final discussions.
[Trump breaks with predecessors and rallies conservatives for government shutdown]
Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) .), after having ob Given the White House what they believed to be a compromise on short-term spending, were unable to prevent a government shutdown when Trump reversed the trend in reaction to Rush Limbaugh, Ann's critics. Coulter and other conservative brandons.
"It's the tyranny of radio presenters, is not it?" Asked Corker reporters. The outgoing senator then asked aloud, "Will Republicans really trust the guy coming out of the White House in the future? I mean, it's a juvenile place in which we find ourselves.
Some former Trump advisers and outside allies share the same concern about the recent behavior of the president. A former senior administration official said that an "intervention" might be necessary. And a Republican strategist who works closely with the White House has called the situation "serious, serious, serious".
This strategist, who requested the anonymity to be frank, made comparisons with the presidencies of Richard M. Nixon and George W. Bush. "There are no adults like there were at the time of Nixon," said this strategist. "And the V.P. is perceived as nowhere. He's just a top. It's not like [former vice president Richard B.] Cheney. "
Since his failure in the mid-term elections last month, Trump is worried about his political survival. On January 3, Democrats take the reins of the House, promising a plethora of investigations into Trump's conduct, personal finances, and alleged corruption in his government. The investigation in Russia of the special advocate Robert S. Mueller III in Russia has entered a more dangerous phase. This investigation, along with a federal investigation into secret relief payments hidden to women who claimed to have sex with Trump, caught the attention of his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, of his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, and his former campaign president, Paul Manafort, among others. 19659035] In a separate case, Trump agreed to close the family charitable foundation last week after New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood declared that she was engaging in "a shocking pattern of illegality." ".
[Trump agrees to shut down his charity amid allegations that he used it for personal and political benefit]
Ian Bremmer, foreign affairs expert and chairman of the Eurasia group claimed that despite the global reaction to the release of Mattis, the most significant episode had been the ouster last year Stephen K. Bannon as Chief Strategist of the White House.
"The reduction in potential damage caused by the Trump administration could the world since the dismissal of Bannon is far greater than the additional chaos and danger that flow from Mattis' resignation," said Bremmer. "Bannon was actually a convincing, influential and powerful character in Trump's ear, who really wanted to upset the apple basket in US foreign policy."
Still, alarm bells went off last week throughout the body of foreign policy. The resignation of Mattis was considered a singular moment. Eliot A. Cohen, a senior State Department official under the Bush administration and a critic of Trump, wrote in the Atlantic: "From now on, senior government officials can only be provided with invertebrates and opportunists, conspiracies and careerists. "
" They can try to manipulate the president, or make little efforts to subvert him, "Cohen added," but they will follow him at the end. "
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