As far as President Trump is concerned, T.S. Eliot got it all wrong.
As far as President Trump is concerned, T.S. Eliot got it all wrong.
April is not the cruelest month, November is.
As he barrels toward the end of his first year back in the White House, the president is beset by slumping poll numbers and a pileup of problems, some of which are self-inflicted.
Even a gaggle of normally obedient Republicans in Congress are growing restless, and his call for gerrymandering House district lines in red states to pad the GOP advantage in the midterms is in danger of producing the opposite outcome.
The sheer volume of mounting trouble reflects Trump’s supreme self-confidence, grand vision and his “let’s do it now” management style.
On any given day, the combination results in too many balls in the air competing for his attention. Tighten the focus
The big picture suggests he needs a reset, and maybe a rest.
In any event, it’s time to tighten the focus and follow a more methodical approach so the most important things get sufficient presidential attention.
It’s hard not to conclude that Trump’s scattered focus is the root cause of what ought to be triggering White House alarms: The president is underwater with voters on every major poll taken this month.
According to Real Clear Politics, his average approval is a mere 43%, while his average disapproval is 54.8%, a spread of minus 11.8 points.
Most troubling, the numbers are far worse on his handling of the economy, which was the issue at the heart of his resounding 2024 victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in all the swing states.
Yet now Trump’s average approval on the economy is a mere 39.5%, against an average disapproval of 57.8%, creating a huge spread of minus 18.3.
His recent talk of handing out tariff rebate checks of $2,000 smacks of desperation and echoes the deservedly maligned “Obama Phone.”
Three situations that erupted into public view in recent days illustrate the scope of Trump’s morass.
Although he touted a proposal his aides crafted to settle the Ukraine-Russia war as a sign that “something good may just be happening,” leaders in Europe and elsewhere blasted it as a shocking capitulation to Russian demands.
That was soon followed by another bombshell that revealed the helter-skelter nature of the process, namely that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was caught off guard by the proposed terms.
