48 Hours, Two Minutes, Many Numbers
"If you said a trillion-eight, if you said 2 trillion, if you said 2 trillion-two -- many numbers -- I’m willing to go higher than that," Donald Trump said over the weekend, during call-in remarks to a local Wisconsin TV station. "I will take care of that problem in two minutes."
"That problem" is GOP senators, in case it isn't obvious. Despite Mitch McConnell's plans to move forward with votes on piecemeal virus relief this week, Trump continued to insist (and I do mean insist) that he "coul
It’s one thing to get Senate Republicans to agree to a tax cut for their fat-cat donors; entirely another thing to get them to agree to spend a trillion or so to help out ordinary Americans in dire straits. As Grover Norquist would say, “Cry me a river.”
Giving the Senate Republicans the benefit of the doubt, they may be worried that spending trillions of dollars procured out of thin air will ultimately mean we go into another soup lines style 1929 depression (as if that would be any different to where we’re going to be if we don’t get this virus under control). I look upon the virus as a sort of ‘force majeure’ type of event where all the rules about the economy sort of go out the window. The optics for the republicans are horrible. They seem to be accepting that millions of their constituents are, through no fault of their own, ending up in abject poverty losing everything they have worked for for their whole lives. Their health care is either lost or under attack and the family’s next meal is questionable. The Republicans are not even trying to look like they care. Failure to act, to try to help the people who you represent, should be against the law. The least of the actions to take should be to take away their pensions.
I think it’s important to recognize that Trump doesn’t actually care about anything other than getting reelected and has no loyalties to anyone outside his family. He’s got two nuclear options if he thinks he’s going down and the Senate Republicans are to blame. The first one is to pull ACB’s nomination until they pass a stimulus. The second option is to encourage his voters to vote against any Senator who doesn’t support a deal. Might not cost everyone a seat, but it could tilt several competitive races against the Republicans. The real question is whether he actually recognizes that he is likely to lose and who he will blame for that. He’ll gladly throw anyone under the bus if he thinks they are working against his reelection.
Should’ve finished my thought with my previous comment, but Trump has the power to effectively burn down the Republican party. He could easily split the party in two if he doesn’t win reelection and prevent Republicans from gaining back power at a national level for a long time.
I’m guessing that one is more likely to work the other way around: after trump and the Republicans get thrashed in 15 days, the party will be blaming him for everything from Covid to endless crimes to tomorrow’s weather, and doing so very publicly and loudly.
Just for grins, I checked up on something: sure enough, trump actually made sure to build one of his hotels (the Palm Trump Intl, Dubai) in a country (the UAE) with which the US has no extradition treaty. I didn’t think he was that smart, but I guess he IS that evil.
… just so you know in advance where to send all your fan letters to him next year…
I mean he definitely has enough money to get a lawyer that smart if nothing else.
That hotel was cancelled in 2011 after the GFC, it never got built. He may have to move to Russia instead =). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_International_Hotel_and_Tower_(Dubai)