BTRTN: Cohen and Syria, Comey and Korea, Chaos and Hysteria

Tom with the “SaturData Review,” which updates key political indicators and highlights other pertinent info from the week, back after a week’s hiatus.

THE WEEK

We took last Saturday off in our weekly tracking of the Trump Administration, and three giant stories emerged, along with a host of side stories that largely involve the furiously spinning Washington DC revolving door.

We mentioned several weeks ago that with the passage of the spending bill, Trump’s domestic play was pretty much over and his focus would be on the international front, where presidents traditionally have more degrees of freedom.  Trump’s rapid changeover of Pompeo for Tillerson, Bolton for McMaster and Kudlow for Cohn brought him some hawkish soulmates who would be far more likely to encourage rather than restrain his instincts in the trouble spots of the world, including North Korea, Iran, Syria and China.

No sooner was the ink dry on the pink slips and the hiring papers did Trump announce, abruptly, his desire to remove the last remaining U.S. troops from Syria.  This sent his administration scrambling for alternate scenarios that would not result in a quick return of ISIS and a ceding of Syrian influence to Russia, Iran and Turkey.  While these machinations spun, reality intervened, in the form of yet another poison gas attack by Bashar al-Assad on his own people, roughly the fiftieth of such attacks.  Trump was immediately faced with clear tension between two of his instincts – the “America First” policy of which he is so proud, the bedrock of his Syr-exit proclamation, and his macho desire to bomb Assad the child-killing-gasser to smithereens.

The ability to hold two competing thoughts in one’s head simultaneously is supposed to be a sign of creativity or even genius, but in this case neither was particularly apparent.  The resulting decision to drop a few bombs for a few minutes on some Syrian assets was the epitome of cutting the baby in half.  Trump dropped just enough bombs to call it a military response, but not so many to put any Russians in harm’s way, thereby signaling to Putin that this “attack” was symbolic.  While that type of symmetry makes for a decent news cycle, the twin aftereffects were outrage from the neocons who wanted a full departure from Syria, matched by hysteria from hawks like Lindsay Graham, who want far more missiles flying and far more influence in the region.  The ultimate response was Trump’s only real alternative, but two things are abundantly clear:  1)  we have no policy in Syria at the moment, and 2)  the only message sent to Assad was confirmation that he could gas his people any old time he wants.

Having made clear to the Russians that there was no serious military play at hand, the next step, naturally, was to try to balance that with a harsh set of sanctions against them for their role as enablers.  And this is where Trumpworld really went off the rails because that, of course, touches off Trump’s third rail – his desire to avoid confrontation of any kind with Russia that can possibly be avoided.  This led to one of the shining examples of the utter shambles of Trump’s foreign policy – somehow, the very buttoned up U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley was allowed to announce that a new round of Russia sanctions were on the way, only to have the White House cut her off at the knees the next day by bluntly stating that that decision had yet to be made.  Rookie Larry Kudlow was dispatched to tell the media that Haley was “confused,” but Haley chose not to take one for the team, and witheringly (and very publicly) responded that she “does not get confused.”  Kudlow’s tail drooped between his legs and he withdrew his assessment and apologized.  The obvious truth is Trump changed his mind.

The second major story is the upcoming summit with Kim Jong-Un, specifically the apparent concession he announced yesterday that North Korea was no longer going to test its nuclear weapons.  This, coupled with a drop in North Korea’s demands that the U.S. withdraw troops from the DMZ, are being hailed as a major thawing in relations and a win for Donald Trump.  Really?  To my ears, Kim Jong-Un simply announced that North Korea has achieved full status as a nuclear power.  There was no talk of de-nuclearization or abandoning any of his current weapons.  The North Korean dictator has played his hand exceptionally well thus far, and I am not buying a “U.S. success” until we see how this unexpected strategic play unfolds.  If you want a history lesson, ask Jimmy Carter, Madelaine Allbright and Bill Clinton how their 1994 “breakthrough” in North Korea worked out.

So – we have a very green President with no expertise and zero capability for thoughtful reflection, backed by….who?  No Secretary of State (and Pompeo’s Senate approval in some doubt), a brand new National Security Advisor who has quickly fired many incumbent staff but has yet to replace them, a U.N. Ambassador who was summarily “Tillerson’ed,” and a new senior economic adviser who has already failed his first attempt to spin news for Trump – four very powerful foreign affairs voices all, in their own ways, stumbling onto centerstage in attempting to guide the President forward.

All this, of course, while there is major geopolitical movement underway of some undetermined kind in North Korea (including a rushed summit) – led covertly by Pompeo in his CIA role with no State Department involvement; China tariff wars in pay, led ostensibly by the brand-new Kudlow, who’s body language suggests he is not a fan of the tariffs at all; ongoing attempts to develop a coherent policy in Syria, where there is none; and an awkward and clearly half-hearted attempt to effect a more hawkish tone toward Russia.  So Trump is managing monumental events in Syria, Russia, China and Korea (and the Iran nuclear package as well) simultaneously, without the benefit of staff, and with no guardrails save General Mattis. We are all terrified.

One would think that these challenges would, as the Brits like to say, ”concentrate the mind.”  But Trump’s mind, of course, is a stranger to concentration, and his limited attention span appears to be far more engaged in the third major story of the past two weeks, that of the very public raid on Michael Cohen’s office and homes.  The raid was conducted by investigators from New York’s Southern District on a tip from Robert Mueller’s investigation.  Rod Rosenstein deftly allowed Mueller to hand the material over to New York City’s Southern Division and let them run with it, thereby allowing two separate investigative bodies to cover the various potential transgressions of Trumpworld.

Cohen, is, of course, Trump’s fixer, the man who knows all – Cohen does not just know where all the bodies are buried, he’s the guy that did the hits and dumped those bodies hither and yon.  And apparently he keeps pretty detailed records of hither and yon, and Trump himself is hysterical about the raid and plainly terrified of what Cohen had in those ten boxes and all those electronic devices that are now in the possession of federal prosecutors in New York.  Mueller is child’s play at this point, and Trump has his lines down pat:  there was no collusion, therefore there could be no obstruction, therefore this is a witch hunt by the Deep State.

Cohen – not so easy.  Trump does not know what he has; much of what might relate to Trump dates back to his career before he occupied the White House; some of it relates to the payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels; and Cohen himself is clearly facing the prospect of a lifetime in prison and could quite easily flip Trump to minimize that and not even think once, much less twice, about it.  Trump’s current lines are pretty flimsy – somehow I don’t think whining about the demise of lawyer-client privilege carries quite the same resonance as the Deep State blues with the base.

On the comings and goings front, we say goodbye to Paul Ryan, wondering if he will re-emerge when Trump departs, be it in 2020 or 2024.  Ryan has always been the young man (still only 48) in a hurry, and the Speakership was not a stop he wanted to make on that fast track.  He took it for much the same reason Trump expelled a few Russian diplomats – he simply had to.  He was seen as the only person at the time – after his successful though losing VP run with Mitt Romney – who could satisfy both wings of the GOP, and turning it down would have been seen as cowardice.  He managed to get out after three years, and left with only one (big) stain – he never called out Trump from his leadership post with any real vigor.  That will hurt him if/when he re-enters the Oval Office stakes.

Others seemed to be on the verge of departure but, lo and behold, they continue in place, most prominently Rod Rosenstein and Scott Pruitt.  The odds were at Secretariat-at-the-Belmont-like levels that Rosenstein would be gone after the Cohen Raid, since it is not terribly clear that firing Rosenstein would cross any GOP bright lines for taking action on Trump.  (It’s not even clear firing Mueller would trigger an impeachment process.)  But Trump did not take the bait, and Rosenstein remains.

It is worth noting that Trump’s current support on the policy side – the self-inflicted void caused by the departures of Tillerson, McMaster and Cohn – is mirrored on the legal side.  He still has not replaced John Dowd per se, and is facing down both Mueller and the New York prosecutors with a very modest legal staff.   It is truly incredible how the most powerful person in the world, facing an extraordinary set of crises around the world and in the courts, is going it alone.  And the latest news that Rudy Giuliani has been exhumed to represent Trump cannot really be taken seriously; Giuliani has not practiced law for decades.  He’s there in the rather vain hope he can put some muscle on Bob Mueller, and also provide a fig leaf PR boost to counter the Trump-has-no-lawyers story line.

Then there was the return of James Comey, the Man Absolutely Everyone Despises.  Comey’s book tour basically confirmed many things we already knew – Trump is immoral, unfit for office and has no use for protocol.  Comey disdains Trump, believes he stands on the Mt. Olympus of moral rectitude, and loves the limelight.  Much as I delight in Comey’s detailed notes and his spot-on descriptions of Trump, all the lurid prose and earnest interviews really do is illustrate once again Comey’s lack of judgment.  Does he really think commenting on Trump’s hair and hands demonstrates “A Higher Loyalty”?  Comey will always be the man who, when faced with decisions of epic import, was guided by neither protocol nor policy, and instead relied solely by his own self-proclaimed righteousness.  And thus he utterly and miserably failed to make the right calls.

THE NUMBERS

Trump’s approval rating dropped a single point, back down to an abysmal 42%.  The Dems continued to hold a commanding +8 point lead (though down -1 pp since last week) on the generic ballot, enough to indicate a flip of the House in November of it holds.   The Trumpometer held steady at +14, with a rising stock market offset by a continued rise in gas prices.  The +14 means that our five economic indicators – the Dow, the unemployment rate, the price of gas, Consumer Confidence and the GDP -- are, on average, up +14% since Trump’s Inaugural in January, 2017. (The full chart and methodology explanations are at the bottom of this article.) 

SaturData Review	Jan 2017   Inaug.	Jan 2018 Year 1	Last 4 Weeks
			Wk ending   Mar 31	Wk ending  Apr 7	Wk ending  Apr 14	Wk ending  Apr 21
Trump Approval	48%	41%	42%	42%	43%	42%
Trump Net Approval	+4 pp	-14 pp	-12 pp	-12 pp	-10 pp	-12 pp
Generic Ballot	D + 6	D + 6	D + 7	D + 8	D + 9	D + 8
Trumpometer	0%	+19%	+14%	+14%	+14%	+14%

POLITICAL STAT OF THE WEEK

They are dropping like flies.  With just under 200 days left until the midterms, there are more members of Congress retiring (or otherwise vacating their seats) than ever before, and the count is at 54 at this point.  And, not surprisingly, most of them are Republicans (37 versus 17 Dems) who don’t want to run in the face of a tsunami.

Incumbents, of course, are harder to displace than a fresh face, so the hype is not just hype.  Rather it becomes self-fulfilling.  Seats thought to be redder than Mars suddenly are eminently flippable – just look at Alabama or Pennsylvania’s 18^th.

  

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Here is the complete SaturData chart with accompanying methodology explanations:

SaturData Review	Jan 2017   Post-Inaug.	Wk ending  April 14	Wk ending  April 21	Change vs. Last Wk	Change vs. Jan 2017
Trump Approval	48%	43%	42%	-1 pp	-6 pp
Trump Disapproval	44%	53%	54%	-1 pp	-10 pp
Trump Net Approval	+4 pp	-10 pp	-12 pp	-2 pp	-16 pp
Generic Ballot	D + 6	D + 9	D + 8	-1 pp	+2 pp
Trumpometer	0%	+14%	+14%	0 pp	+14 pp
Unemployment Rate	4.7	4.1	4.1	0%	13%
Consumer Confidence	114	128	128	0%	12%
Price of Gas	2.44	2.81	2.86	-2%	-18%
Dow-Jones	19,732	24,360	24,463	0%	24%
Most recent GDP	2.1	2.9	2.9	0%	38%

Methodology notes:

BTRTN calculates our weekly approval ratings using an average of the four pollsters who conduct daily or weekly approval rating polls: Gallup Rasmussen, Reuters/Ipsos and You Gov/Economist. This provides consistent and accurate trending information and does not muddy the waters by including infrequent pollsters.  The outcome tends to mirror the RCP average but, we believe, our method gives more precise trending.

For the generic ballot, we take an average of the only two pollsters who conduct weekly generic ballot polls, Reuters/Ipsos and You Gov/Economist, again for trending consistency.

The Trumpometer aggregates a set of economic indicators and compares the resulting index to that same set of aggregated indicators at the time of the Trump Inaugural on January 20, 2017. The basic idea is to demonstrate whether the country is better off economically now versus when Trump took office.
The indicators are the unemployment rate, the Dow-Jones Industrial Average, the Consumer Confidence Index, the price of gasoline, and the GDP.