Is the plan to run against congress?

The only strategy we can see the President planning is to run for reelection against the congress — both republican and democratic.
Think about how this might be setting up.

Healthcare goes down by a single vote. He wants to lower legal immigration while building a wall to stop illegals. He wants tax cuts, a travel ban, educational reform, welfare changes ……….

The congress won’t support almost all of what he wants. The only group less popular than him right now is congress. So he goes out to the people and says, Washington is a swamp (he may change it to sewer) and runs against a do nothing, just say no congress. He goes out and supports some changes and candidates saying this is what we need. I am on your side, too many in office are globalists. America First with me ….

Is there risk in this? Not really. The Democrats are clear they support nothing or anyone the President wants. They are united against him. The Republicans (in office) don’t like him. He beat the party. Along the way he called them names, individually and collectively, so they have no loyalty. They don’t trust him. They feel like if they support him now he will turn nasty on them in a minute (see Jeff Sessions), so they will never support him.

With no party support and little getting done we think the President has begun setting up a run against the congress and presenting himself as a man of the people.

This can only work if he gets his act together and right now he is a long way from that. The polls yesterday showed him at a new low in support and trust. There are two more instances of misleading this AM. He claimed he got calls of support from the Boy Scouts and the President of Mexico. After both denied that, he backed down to they told him that in private face to face conversations. His credibility continues to decline and if you lose personal trust and integrity it is impossible to recover.

We have a Presidency in turmoil and the best hope is for General Kelly to get it under control. There are some early signs, but can he get his boss under control?

Some Poll Data:

A Rasmussen national poll finds that 55% of Likely U.S. Voters think Trump is his own worst political enemy. In distant second is the national media, cited as his worst enemy by 25%.
Just 14% believe Democrats are the Republican president’s chief political foe, while five percent (5%) blame other Republicans.

In a separate release Rassmussen (generally a higher Trump positive poll) showed that 38% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Sixty-two percent (62%) disapprove.

Other polls released this week:
Quinnipiac — 61- 33 negative on Trump.
Economist: –55 -39 negative
Now the Economist on congress: 68-9 negative.

 

President to Mattis:

It was reported that the President told Defense Secretary Mattis we are losing in Afghanistan and questioned the generals in charge.
First I hope he didn’t think reversing eight years of pull back and thousands of years of tribal differences would be as easy as he said during the campaign.  After all Mr President fixing healthcare on “day one” with lower costs, more coverage and better care wasn’t that easy either was it? Or maybe building a wall and having Mexico pay for it.
Secretary Mattis is already angry over the transgender tweet, be careful.

Casualties in Afghanistan

There was a report of two American casualties in Afghanistan this AM, which may or may not be related to the story above.
The MSM will cover this big, but not mention more soldiers died under Obama in the area, than Bush or Trump. They simply did not cover this for the eight years we were in retreat. Here’s a chart:
U.S. fatalities by year with totals by Bush, Obama and Trump years.

2001                                                     7
2002	30
2003	33
2004	49
2005	93
2006	88
2007	111
2008	153	557 (Bush)
2009	310
2010	496
2011	412
2012	301
2013	120
2014	54
2015	22
2016	14	1729 (Obama)
2017	6	6 (Trump to date)

 

The confrontation with CNN at press briefing:

The White House press team had Pres. Trump’s senior policy adviser Stephen Miller take the questions on the administration’s new immigration proposal. It got quite heated when CNN’s Jim Acosta asked whether the new plan was racist and flies in the face of those immortal words at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. Well, Acosta, who has been quite negative got hit back hard. If you missed it here is a link:

http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/miller-to-acosta-one-of-the-most-outrageous-insulting-ignorant-and-foolish-things-youve-ever-said/337178

But the conversation turned contentious when Miller accused Acosta, the son of a Cuban immigrant, of ignorance and foolishness

The TV Ratings:

Today we include Tuesdays numbers (Fox narrowly beats MSNBC) and the Sunday shows .

Total Viewers (Live +SD)      TUESDAY

• Total day: FNC: 1.652 | CNN: 855 | MSNBC: 1.331 | HLN: 220
• Primetime: FNC: 2.499 | CNN: 1.136 | MSNBC: 2.327 | HLN: 240

	4p:	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	Cavuto: 1.365	Specialists: 1.753	Baier: 2.162	MacCallum: 1.927	Carlson: 2.643	Five: 2.309	Hannity: 2.545	Carlson: 1.509
CNN	Tapper: 954	Blitzer: 1.079	Blitzer: 1.002	Burnett: 1.105	Cooper: 1.191	Spcl: 1.093	Lemon: 1.119	Cooper: 786
MSNBC	Wallace: 1.165	MTPDaily: 1.363	Melber: 1.368	Matthews: 1.837	Hayes: 2.085	Maddow: 2.571	O’Donnell: 2.302	Williams: 1.730
HLN	Files: 111	Files: 206	Files: 179	Files: 186	Banfield: 187	Files: 244	Files: 288	Files: 376