Trump rants while ‘all alone’ in White House on Christmas Eve
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 5:34 PM EST, Mon December 24, 2018
article video
(CNN) It’s Christmas in America: The President is home alone in the White House, ranting at his foes inside and outside; an administration lurching deeper into crisis; stock markets are in free fall and the government is paralyzed by a partial shutdown.
Donald Trump is spending the festive season as he did much of the year, sparking chaos and raising concerns in the capital and around the world about his impulsive behavior and boiling with frustration as he barges right up to the limits on his power.
Mnuchin's attempts to calm the markets have opposite effect, leave bank CEOs 'totally baffled'
Mnuchin’s attempts to calm the markets have opposite effect, leave bank CEOs ‘totally baffled’
One reason for his fury: A favorite barometer of his own success has been stripped away by days of savage losses on the markets. In a shortened Christmas Eve session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 600 points after a bizarre attempt by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday to calm investors by consulting with the CEOs of top banks backfired. Losses were compounded by another of Trump’s Twitter attacks on the Federal Reserve – following revelations that he has asked if he can legally fire the independent central bank’s chairman, Jerome Powell.
The Dow fell 2.91% and the S&P 500 dipped 2.71% in the biggest Christmas Eve declines in the two indices’ history. The slump came after the stocks last week had their worst week since the Great Recession a decade ago, and the last time the market fell so far in December was in 1931, during the Great Depression.
Trump turns to Twitter while “all alone” in the White House
While many Americans gathered with their families and with his vacation to the “Winter White House” at Mar-a-Lago iced by the shutdown, the President spent the day at the White House blasting critics – including Democrats who have refused his demands for $5 billion in funding for his border wall in a standoff that shuttered the government at midnight on Friday.
“I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security,” Trump wrote in what may have been a tongue in cheek tone in his 10th tweet of the day.
Melania Trump closes 2018 with fewer personal woes, but a difficult public perception
Trump was due to be rejoined for Christmas Day by first lady Melania Trump, who had already decamped to Florida before the shutdown took hold.
The President also lashed out Brett McGurk, his special envoy for eradicating ISIS, who followed Defense Secretary James Mattis by resigning in protest at Trump’s hurriedly announced Syria withdrawal. He hit out at “Little Bob Corker,” the outgoing Tennessee senator who has criticized him over Syria and the shutdown. He also insisted he did like allies – but said many took advantage of the US "both in ‘Military Protection and Trade…’ "
A senior administration official told CNN’s Jim Sciutto that national security decision-making has “basically stopped working” and decisions are “made on a whim on phone calls.” The official added the Syria withdrawal was “a complete reversal” and it was done “without deliberation, no consideration of risks.”
American allies and partners are “shocked and totally bewildered” and the Syrian Democratic Forces “don’t believe this is happening,” the official said.
It all added up to a feeling of a White House that is hurtling out of control and a President who is becoming increasingly emotional and vexed at a time when he faces mounting legal and political pressure from special counsel Robert Mueller. He is also days away from a new era of punishing Democratic oversight when the new Congress convenes in early January.
The loss of Mattis – who was seen around the world as a check on Trump’s erratic national security decision-making – has raised anxiety about his presidency to previously unmatched levels.
Of course, many Trump supporters voted for disruption and to rattle the Washington establishment when they sent him to the White House so are likely to be less concerned than Washington insiders about the febrile Christmas mood.
After the shock of Mattis’ resignation, some see a different narrative
But the President’s irascible temper is also detracting from his top achievements at the end of the year, including low unemployment and a strong economy despite market turmoil. The passage of a groundbreaking criminal justice bill has also been overshadowed and there is little talk about his most enduring legacy win – the new majority he and the Senate GOP engineered on the Supreme Court.
The President seemed to have his loyal base in mind by engineering a shutdown drama that appears to have no easy exits, but allows him to make a political stand cheered on by the conservative media.
“AMERICA IS RESPECTED AGAIN!” he tweeted at one point on Monday, likely with those voters in mind.
“Hunker down like a jackass in a hailstorm”
But the frenetic Christmas Eve spectacle was stunning even by the President’s standards, and prompted the two top Democratic leaders, the likely House speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, to issue a joint statement.
“It’s Christmas Eve and President Trump is plunging the country into chaos. The stock market is tanking and the president is waging a personal war on the Federal Reserve – after he just fired the Secretary of Defense,” the statement said.
As the shutdown lumbered through its third day, with no end in sight, Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas arrived to gavel in the chamber for a pro-forma session that only exemplified the lack of action between the White House and Democrats towards a resolution. He resorted to quoting the earthy wisdom of a former Senate majority leader and President to capture the sense of futility and political dislocation.
“LBJ said sometimes you just have to hunker down like a jackass in a hailstorm and just take it. That’s about where we are,” he said.
But in one sign that the festive spirit can triumph over Washington’s humbug, the National Parks Service announced the reopening of the National Christmas Tree, thanks to support from the National Park Foundation – a group of philanthropic organizations and donors.
National Christmas Tree site reopens during shutdown
The popular Yuletide tourist spot had been closed after a man tried to climb the tree and damaged it. The government shutdown then prevented the National Park Service from reopening it.
The shutdown is the third this year and has sent hundreds of thousands of federal employees home for Christmas unsure about their upcoming paychecks.
At the same time, the stock market is careening south with much of the blame being put on the confusion coming from Washington.
Mnunchin has had to reassure investors Trump won’t fire Powell and left major bank CEOs “totally baffled” with a weekend call asking them about the state of their businesses. More criticism from Trump toward the Fed sent markets reeling Monday, as the Dow closed down 653 points before shutting up shop early for Christmas Eve.
Mnuchin’s intervention was just the latest development that sparked uncertainty in the days running up to the holiday.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has cancerous nodules removed from lung
A surprise announcement that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery for cancerous growths on her lung added to the frenetic mood in Washington, as the Supreme Court dealt a blow to Trump by knocking back his new restrictions on asylum seekers who cross the southern border.
And more mystery is brewing in the highest court in the land after Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily paused an order holding an unnamed, foreign-government owned company in contempt over a court case related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
It all adds up to a Christmas that is feeling less and less merry and bright on Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street.
© 2018 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
UPFRONT ABOUT BEING A GRINCH
THE SLATEST
Trump Is Reportedly Considering Firing Mnuchin Over Stock Market Woes
By DANIEL POLITI
DEC 25, 201810:17 AM
President Donald Trump speaks after a bilateral meeting as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin looks on in New York on September 24, 2018.
President Donald Trump speaks after a bilateral meeting as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin looks on in New York on September 24, 2018.
NICHOLAS KAMM/Getty Images
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin could become the latest White House official to get the boot. President Donald Trump has been souring on Mnuchin for some time now and the continued decline in the stock markets could be the final straw, reports Bloomberg. One source told Bloomberg that the president has considered firing Mnuchin while another said that whether he stays on or not will depend in large part on what happens to the markets.
ADVERTISEMENT
If Trump was already not so happy with his Treasury secretary, what he did before Christmas Eve surely didn’t help things. Mnuchin rattled nervous markets over the weekend when he put out a statement saying the heads of the country’s six largest banks had told him they had “ample liquidity” to keep lending. Considering that was never seen as a serious concern many saw it either as a huge blunder or a sign that the government knows something the rest of the world doesn’t. He then held a call Monday with members of the President’s Working Group on financial markets, which also raised concern that the problems in the economy could be deeper than many thought.
That, in addition to Trump’s continued anger at Fed Chair Jerome Powell, combined to push the market even lower to the steepest Christmas Eve losses in decades. The Dow Jones industrial average, for example, plunged 653 points, or just under 3 percent in the shortened trading day. The benchmark S&P 500, meanwhile, dropped 2.7 percent.
As markets decline, “the president will continue looking for a scapegoat,” notes Bloomberg. Mnuchin and Mick Mulvaney, the incoming White House chief of staff, said the president knows he can’t fire Powell. That means Trump may be looking for someone else to take the blame. And if he looks toward Mnuchin there won’t be many in the White House who will stand up for him. “There are plenty of people inside the White House who are not fans of Mnuchin who are happy to throw him under the bus,” Stephen Myrow, managing partner at Beacon Policy Advisors in Washington and a former Treasury official, tells Bloomberg. “Up ’til now, he’s been protected by the fact that Trump liked him and he’s been a loyalist.”
Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company.
All contents © 2018 The Slate Group LLC. All rights reserved.
Read more news from CNN
VIEW IN APP
Live TV
Trump says no end to shutdown until border barrier funded, plans January visit to new section of wall
By Kevin Liptak, CNN
Updated 11:24 AM EST, Tue December 25, 2018
(CNN) President Donald Trump said Tuesday the government won’t reopen until funding is secured for his border barrier, and he plans to go to the border in January to visit a new stretch of wall.
“I can’t tell you when the government is going to be open. I can tell you it’s not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they would like to call it,” Trump said in the Oval Office after a Christmas call with US troops.
Negotiations between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration over the President’s demands for a border wall have so far not yielded an agreement, and the shutdown will continue until at least Thursday, when the Senate returns to Washington. Both sides seem entrenched in their opposing stances and it’s possible parts of the government could remain closed until the new Congress is seated in the first week of January, when Democrats will take control of the House.
Trump repeated a claim made a day earlier – without explanation – that he’d recently approved 115 miles worth of border barrier. The White House hasn’t provided any further details about the claim, which Trump first made on Twitter on Christmas Eve.
He said he would go to the new stretch of the wall in January.
“It’s going to be built, hopefully rapidly,” he said. “I’m going there at the end of January for the start of construction. That’s a big stretch.”
“We’re almost having a groundbreaking, it’s such a big section,” he said. “It’s probably the biggest section we’ll get out.”
Trump has previously visited wall prototypes near the border.
During a brief question-and-answer session with reporters, Trump also said he continues to have confidence in Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, despite the December downturn in the stock market. He also warned Democrats that oversight of his administration would amount to “presidential harassment.”
Trump also claimed, without evidence, that federal employees on furlough or working without pay understand his demand for a border wall – and support him in his mission.
“I think they understand what’s happening,” he said. “They want border security. The people of this country want border security.”
“It’s not a question of me,” he continued. “I would rather not be doing shutdowns. I’ve been at the White House. I love the White House, but I wasn’t able to be with my family. I thought it would be wrong for me to be with my family, my family is in Florida, Palm Beach, and I just didn’t want to go down and be there when other people are hurting.”
Trump was presumably referring to his adult children; his wife, Melania Trump, returned to the White House on Monday to spend the holiday with her husband.
Trump said many federal workers have told him to hold out for wall funding, though the President didn’t provide names or positions of those workers.
“But many of those workers have said to me and communicated, stay out until you get the funding for the wall. These federal workers want the wall. The only one that doesn’t want the wall are the Democrats, because they don’t mind open borders, but open borders mean massive amounts of crime,” he said.
This story has been updated
View on CNN
© 2018 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Who would have thought that with the hoopla surrounding the demise of the Soviet Union, and the world-harangue of total all inclusive World inclusive capitalism, such could augment the cyber-political collusion:
RUSSIA BEGINS TESTING NUCLEAR WEAPON THAT CAN TRAVEL UNDERWATER AND ‘NOTHING’ CAN STOP IT, REPORT SAYS