Democrats have landed a few punches on President Donald Trump. But these may help him, not them.
One was his withdrawal of a memo about his order to freeze some spending. Democrats diligently frightened the public by falsely suggesting this would cut Medicaid payments and other money flows mandated by law. Oppositional bureaucrats apparently also sabotaged the order by posting an alarming and inaccurate banner about disruptions on the Department of Health and Human Services website. A gleeful Democratic strategist told NBC News, “Yesterday was the first day I felt good about Dem messaging in, like, six months.”
But substance beats messaging. Trump will now fight and probably confirm that the Constitution allows him not to spend money on programs that conflict with promises he made to voters. Yes, it’s frustrating that officials, rushing to steer the federal government on a new course, made drafting errors, but it’s better for Trump and for the country to fight on the substantive matter and not waste time defending less certain ground created by sloppy drafting.
Democrats may also score hits by defeating two of Trump’s big-name nominees. Tulsi Gabbard, in her Senate hearing for director of national intelligence, couldn’t even say Edward Snowden was a traitor despite the fact that he gave U.S. military secrets to our enemy, Russia, where he now lives.
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who was one of the senators who asked Gabbard about this, said later of Snowden, “He was certainly someone who betrayed the United States and put American soldiers at risk all around the world based on his actions and activities.” That doesn’t sound like a vote to confirm her.
Just a day earlier, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. put in a shaky performance testifying on Capitol Hill for the job of secretary of health and human services. When asked by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to commit to not “suing drug companies and taking your rake out of that” — in other words, to stop creaming off millions of dollars as he has in the past by referring cases to his trial lawyer friends — he refused to do so. He did not clear up his several conflicts of interest. It did not look good.
So, these Cabinet picks may go down. But while it would be a short-term defeat for Trump, it would be a long-term win. The Washington Examiner has already called for Gabbard to be rejected. And Republican senators would also be doing Trump a favor if they obliged him to pick a new nominee for HHS instead of Kennedy.
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The president had little choice but to nominate Kennedy in exchange for his endorsement in the election — that was the deal — and he has to stick with the nomination. But if senators, in their wisdom, say the man isn’t fit for the job, well, Trump will have kept his side of the bargain and yet be free to move on to someone better.
A couple of nominee knockdowns by Democrats, with a few Republicans, would produce a better administration. If Trump takes these hits, they will make him stronger, like so many attacks he’s risen from in the past.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
