Trump, Loser
He's building a reputation, and it's not a good one.
Most presidents and their administrations try to avoid nonstop embarrassing defeats. Not this one.
In the week or so since people produced 100 Days stories about Donald Trump, he’s lost a National Security advisor, a Surgeon General nominee, and probably his highest-profile US attorney.
That’s not a good week.
Nor do the next steps on these three look all that certain, either.
Trump – presumably to save face and pretend he wasn’t already firing a National Security advisor so soon – has named Michael Waltz as his next nominee for UN ambassador. That’s replacing the nomination of Elise Stefanik, who was withdrawn because (apparently) Trump and House Republicans were worried that they might lose the special election to replace her.
The problem with Waltz as UN ambassador is that he has to be confirmed by the Senate, which means that the best-case scenario for the administration would be dredging up and rehashing the Signal scandal, with Republican Senators forced to explain why it’s no big deal (or at least not disqualifying) for Waltz to have compromised secrecy. And for Pete Hegseth to remain Secretary of Defense despite his record. And for the others on various group chats to not lose their jobs. That’s the best case outcome; it’s also possible that Senate Republicans will want no part of that job, and the Waltz nomination won’t go forward. Or, even worse, the sustained attention to the scandal from Democrats and the media, thanks to the Waltz confirmation, will uncover even more revelations, perhaps taking down Hegseth or others.
The stakes are a lot lower on the second position here, Surgeon General. On this one, Trump withdrew a nominee who was in trouble for, among other things, an embellished resume and the opposition of fabulist Trump supporter Laura Loomer. His new nominee, Casey Means, was involved in now-HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign; she’s a “wellness influencer” without a current medical license, which seems odd for the position. As with Waltz, this seems to be a nomination that Democrats will feel comfortable opposing, while mainstream Republican Senators may feel less than thrilled about supporting. In particular, any GOP Senators who have a bit of buyer’s remorse about confirming Kennedy, who seems to be ignoring any commitments he made to Senators to tone down his fringe health beliefs, may be tempted to take it out on Means. Especially if the public vetting she’ll now undergo turns up things that administration vetting missed or ignored. If there was any vetting at all.
The third case here isn’t over yet. Acting US attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin’s nomination has been in trouble for a while, but may actually have hit Bernie-dead (that is, fully dead but still being propped up) when North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis announced his opposition on Tuesday. Something that Trump seemed to realize with his comments on Wednesday. Still, Trump is for now at least just leaving Martin out there, drawing opposition.
Want a fourth story? How about the Libya saga. Soon after news broke that the administration was planning to disappear some migrants to Libya, lawyers returned to court and a judge said that an ongoing injunction against such actions would apply to Libya as well. Then later we got reports that Libya had not agreed to accept the people that the administration wanted to dump there, anyway. In other words, Trump flirted with defying a court, and took another loss, for something that appears to have been half-baked to begin with.
Richard Neustadt introduced the concept of a president’s “professional reputation” this way:
A President’s persuasiveness with others in the government depends on something more than his advantages for bargaining. The men he would persuade must be convinced in their own minds that he has skill and will enough to use his advantages. Their judgement of him is a factor in his influence with them (Presidential Power, 50; emphasis his).
There’s a lot there, but a big part of it is actually pretty simple: If people think that a president is a winner, they’ll go along; if they think a president is a loser, they’ll think twice (or more) before agreeing to do what the president wants. And here Trump managed to have four visible defeats within a week (and perhaps others; among other things, he loses in court all the time), and set himself up for two more possible defeats in the near future. That’s some pretty inept presidenting.
Obviously, it doesn’t mean that Trump will never get his way again. There are plenty of reasons that people in and out of government agree to do what a president wants. Nor does it mean he’s not dangerous to the republic. He is. But don’t sell this kind of thing short. The more people realize that this president is regularly defeated, the more they’re apt to refuse his demands. That’s what happened in this first Trump presidency, and it appears that if anything he’s even worse at the job this time around.