By Dan Balz
July 27, 2017
President Trump recorded a remarkable
trifecta on Thursday. In fewer than 24 hours, he was rebuked by the chairman of
the Senate Judiciary Committee, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the chief
scout executive for the Boy Scouts of America.
On a day when so many eyes and ears in
Washington were riveted on the escalating feud between White House Chief of
Staff Reince Priebus and new White House Communications Director Anthony
Scaramucci, no one should lose sight of the incoming fire that arrived at the
White House.
It didn’t come from the hard left or the
Democratic resistance. Instead, it came from people who represent communities
or constituencies considered friendly to the president: the Republican Party,
the military, and a civic organization known for its promotion of patriotism
and traditional values.
The rebukes were carefully worded so as not
to be true rebukes, but they were unmistakable in their intent. In their own
ways, the messages to the president carried a common theme: They were asking
him to stop behaving as he has been behaving. Trump has crossed so many lines,
as a candidate and as president, that the public often is numbed to what he
says and does. Not this time. Perhaps that’s because each of the rebukes was
about a different transgression, all of them coming in the period of only a few
days.
It’s far too early to know whether they mark
a turning point in how people who have been at least nominally supportive of
the president will approach him in the future, but Trump ought not to be
dismissive of their significance. The critiques may not change the president’s
behavior, but as a marker of the rising concern about the president even from
allies, they couldn’t have been more obvious.
The
first of the three came from Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the generally even-tempered
chairman of the Judiciary Committee. It was in response to the president’s
repeated tweets and statements brutalizing Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The
president will not forgive Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia
investigation, and as his blood pressure has risen week by week, he decided to
lash out.
The tweets attacking Sessions and the
president’s comments — “Time will tell,” Trump said when asked about the
attorney general’s future — sparked fears that the president was looking to
fire Sessions or force him to resign, with the obvious next step of appointing
someone who in one way or another could contain or get rid of the Russia
investigation now in the hands of special counsel Robert Mueller.
In terse language, Grassley made clear that
he would not consider holding confirmation hearings for a replacement any time
this year. That would leave the Justice Department in the hands of Rod J.
Rosenstein, the career prosecutor who is now deputy attorney general and
someone who also has earned Trump’s disrespect for having appointed Mueller.
Grassley’s stamp of disapproval was an
extension of the chorus of support for Sessions from his former colleagues in
the Senate, particularly those in the Republican Party. They responded to the
president’s public humiliation of the attorney general and the implied threat
to Mueller with varying degrees of alarm. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said
there would be “hell to pay” if Trump decides to force Sessions out and rein in
Mueller’s operation.
For the most part, Republicans on Capitol
Hill have sought to avert their gaze whenever the president’s tweets or actions
spark controversy. So there has been nothing like this so far in Trump’s presidency.
Whether that’s because it involves a former member of the Capitol Hill club or
because of the potential implications for a constitutional crisis if the
president tries to scuttle the Mueller investigation, the response to this has
been different.
Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the
Joint Chiefs, was responding to a different controversy, the president’s sudden
and unexpected announcement — through Twitter — that transgender individuals
would be banned from military service.
Amid
confusion within the ranks, Dunford issued a statementsaying there would be “no
modification” to current policy until the Pentagon receives an actual directive
from the president and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has had adequate time to
evaluate it and decides how to implement it. In other words, the Pentagon will
not allow the president to change policy through a tweet.
As was reported in the hours after Trump’s
tweet, Pentagon officials were caught by surprise by the proposed ban. The
reaction to the ban was immediate, starting with the LGBT community and
transgender members of the military and extending to Democratic and Republican
lawmakers and many citizens. If Trump was simply playing to the culturally
conservative part of his political base, he miscalculated the overall state of
public opinion — and perhaps his own military.
The third rebuke came in two stages. It took
the leaders of the Boy Scouts several days to issue a full criticism of the
president’s appearance at the National Jamboree. Presidents are always invited
to address scouts at the jamboree. Those who have done so in the past have
stuck to obvious themes of service, civic virtue and pride in America.
Trump treated his appearance as just another
raucous political rally. He was partisan, attacking rival Hillary Clinton and
former president Barack Obama. He was offensive, talking to the young Americans
about the “hottest” parties in New York and a rich friend who he said did
things that he couldn’t reveal to such a young audience.
No doubt unwilling to directly criticize the
president, the Scout association initially issued an anodyne statement
reminding everyone that the Boy Scouts are open to all ideas and generally free
of politics and partisanship.
On
Thursday, Michael Surbaugh, the chief scout executive, went further, issuing a lengthy apology on
the Boy Scouts website. The good works by scouts at the jamboree, he said, had
been “overshadowed by the remarks offered by the president of the United
States.” He extended “sincere apologies” to those offended and said injecting
partisan politics into the event was “never our intent.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee
Sanders was asked about the apology at her briefing. She said she hadn’t read
it. She was there at the jamboree with the president and saw nothing
inappropriate in his words. She noted as well that many of the scouts were
cheering the president, which was correct. Older and more experienced members
of the scouting family knew that the president crossed a line, and the reaction
was swift and harsh.
The Pentagon will carry out the transgender
directive (assuming it arrives from the White House) once it has been reviewed
and evaluated. Trump is their commander in chief. The Boy Scouts will retreat
quickly now that they have apologized to the president’s critics. They are not
a combative or confrontational organization. Republican lawmakers will approach
their battles with the president gingerly. They are risk averse about offending
Trump’s loyalists.
Still, the triple criticism, on three
separate issues, from the Trump-friendly side of the American electorate should
be a signal to the president. But is he listening?
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