No. of Recommendations: 7
I thought Trump was Totally The Second Coming of SuperHitler. What happened?
Trump is still not very good at Presidenting. At least, the part of Presidenting that involves the Congress.
That doesn't mean that he won't do terrible things (in the eyes of progressives) with the power will have in the Executive. But one of his flaws in his first term is that he didn't have the skills to manage Congress very well. Which is why his various proposals that required Congress (money for The Wall, repeal and replace of Obamacare, Infrastructure Week) were frustrated.
One key skill of Presidenting is communicating what you want to your Congressional Leaders. If Trump didn't want the bill that Johnson had negotiated with Jeffries to move forward, then the thing to do is tell Johnson that. If he wanted the bill to include provisions on the debt ceiling, then tell Johnson that. Trump's been President-Elect for a month and a half, and this bill has been cooking for even longer - plenty of opportunity to communicate to the Speaker's office if the President has a problem with it.
There's no hint that Johnson had any idea that Trump opposed the bill, or that he wanted the debt ceiling addressed. He went into the beginning of the week thinking this would pass, without objection by Trump. Which is a big part of why this is so messy.
