President Trump is executing a broad purge in his presidency that creates grave dangers of another Korean War and a trade war with our allies, and raises the prospect that House Republicans could lose a historic number of seats in the midterm elections.
The words “March Madness” are usually associated with NCAA basketball, but this year, they should also be associated with a Trump presidency that is in a virtual state of perpetual chaos and a Republican Party that learned this week that even GOP candidates in districts that Trump carried by 20 percent are no longer safe in November.
Republicans can delude themselves into believing that the stunning victory of Conor Lamb in the Pennsylvania election was a “blip,” as they deluded themselves believing that the historic election of Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) was a blip. Since Trump carried more than 100 House districts by 20 percent or less in his election race, and more than 20 Republicans are running in districts that Hillary Clinton carried, the stage is set for a lot more blips on Nov. 6!
In Trump’s March Madness, the commander in chief, acting on impulse without careful consideration involving his secretary of State or national security adviser, blurted out his agreement to meet with North Korean dictator and mass murderer Kim Jong Un.
{mosads}All previous presidents carefully consulted top diplomatic and national security advisers before announcing summits on urgent matters of war and peace, but Trump had a better idea. He humiliated and fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and humiliates and appears ready to fire his national security adviser, Gen. H.R. McMaster.
Trump now threatens our ally South Korea with a trade war, before meeting with our enemy North Korea in a summit that could lead to a shooting war if it is not managed with far more skill than the commander in chief has ever demonstrated on foreign policy matters.
Trump began his March Madness strategy by first having a television show-style meeting where he vowed to take strong action on gun control after the tragic school shootings in Florida, then reneging within days. Also this month, Betsy Devos, Trump’s Education secretary who is widely viewed as an enemy of public education, gave an embarrassingly incoherent interview on “60 Minutes,” leading many to question safety in our schools.
While Robert Mueller expands his investigation of the Russian attack against America, and Russia apparently escalates its cyber war in Britain into a war of assassination on British soil, discredited Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee joined Trump’s March Madness by drafting a “fake news” report claiming that American law enforcement and intelligence officials are all wrong and Russia did not seek to elect Trump in 2016.
And the word on the street, dutifully reported by prominent news organizations using unnamed sources, is that Trump may now plan to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who he has repeatedly humiliated in recent months. This is probably true, and would enable the Saturday Night Massacre that I have long warned would happen.
Congressional Republicans, who presumably are aware of the extreme constitutional crisis that is approaching if Trump were to fire Sessions in order to fire Mueller — which I believe he soon will — should immediately pass legislation to protect Mueller from Trump. They refuse to do this, which makes them complicit in the constitutional crisis surrounding the Russia scandal that Trump will provoke because of his fear of what Mueller has found in his brilliantly managed investigation.
In the March Madness that engulfs the Trump presidency, the president lies about our trade balance with Canada, chief economic adviser Gary Cohn resigns in protest over Trump’s policy of a trade war, and the president replaces him with Larry Kudlow, who strongly agrees with Cohn but appears more philosophically submissive to Trump’s bad judgment. Will Kudlow also resign in protest over the trade war, remain at his post while publicly denouncing it, or humiliate himself by publicly supporting the trade war that everyone knows he intensely opposes?
If major newspaper stories are true, Trump could further escalate his March Madness strategy by firing Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, and firing or reprimanding Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. And finally, for now, the president seems to be praising White House chief of staff John Kelly to some people, while ridiculing him to others.
As the March Madness continues, the world becomes ever more dangerous — and not just for those in the Republican Party.
Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the U.S. House of Representatives. He holds an LLM in international financial law from the London School of Economics.