It now seems like months or even years ago that Bob Woodward's Fear came out. At the time, many persons thought this was it -- someone has finally taken down the president. There was even an op-ed from a mysterious senior level official in his administration supporting Woodward's allegations, but that too seems relegated to history. Trump survived yet another blow from the lamestream media, and it is safe to say he will survive the latest allegations by the New York Times that he duped authorities out of more than $400 million in taxes over a 20-year period.
It's a lengthy article. I haven't gone through it yet. The lead photo shows a smiling Donald in the back of his limo salivating over his rise to power on Wall Street, not much unlike Gordon Gekko. This is the same guy who gamed Fortune magazine into believing he was one of the richest men in the world by claiming his father's assets as his own. Trump wanted everyone to know he was a player.
1984 was Trump's breakout year. He made it onto the Fortune 400 by creating an alias John Barron to relay to the magazine that Donald had taken control of his father's business and was now a billionaire. Trump saw the value in projecting himself as one of the richest men in the world, whereas most real estate developers tried to keep a low profile, so as not to attract attention to their shady deals. For Donald, it didn't matter. He had spent years making phony claims on behalf of his father so that Dear Old Dad wouldn't have to pay so much in taxes. He had developed the con to an art form and figured he could get away with anything.
He would spend the next 30 years promoting one or another of his real estate and business ventures, selling his name to other ventures and starring in his own reality game show where he was judge, jury and executioner. Trump was king of the entertainment world, or so he liked to proclaim on twitter. Nothing escaped his eye, especially celebrity relationships, a habit that has carried over into his presidential days.
These creepy tweets continue to pop up. He can't resist the entertainment section of the news because he still sees himself principally as an entertainer. Trump loves a crowd, especially an adoring crowd, going off on riffs that leave his press handlers scrambling to bring the damage under control the next day. Case in point, he no sooner said that Christine Ford was a very credible witness than two days later he called her a fraud at a Mississippi rally and now thinks the FBI should press charges against her for libel. This plays well among his rabid conservative base, but it isn't what mainstream Americans want to hear, so Sarah Huckabee Sanders is left with the thankless task of downplaying his incendiary comments.
We have become so inured to it that we simply don't care anymore. Wall Street certainly doesn't care. The market has finally regained most of its losses from the first half of the year, largely thanks to an economy that seems to be doing fine on its own. Of course, the Trump administration will have you believe it's entirely his doing. That's pretty amazing for a guy who mostly follows Fox & Friends and the latest entertainment gossip.
Trump has also been gloating over the new NAFTA deal, or USMCA as he calls the trade agreement. It has yet to be ratified but no matter, he personally strong-armed Mexico and Canada into a deal that he has been promising for almost two years. He had very little role in it, leaving it up to Jared to oversee matters. Depending on what you read, it is either NAFTA light or MAGA 2.0. Trump is demanding Congress ratify it as is, but no doubt will have its say on the matter, much to the Donald's chagrin. At the moment, Congressional Republicans are busy trying to cram another tax cut bill through both chambers before the midterm elections.
This along with the Kavanaugh confirmation has pushed Woodward and Omarosa and all the other nay-sayers to the sidelines. As of yesterday, Trump enjoyed a 51% approval rating in his favorite poll, with strongly approve and strongly disapprove cancelling each other for the first time in months, resulting in an approval rating index of zero. He even had Fareed Zakaria praising his UN Speech as one of his most articulate statements yet on his America First policy, while others tried to assess whether the world was laughing at him or with him. All in all, a great two weeks for the Trumpster.
CNN and other news networks gauge what this sudden upsurge in his approval will have on the midterms. Only problem is that we are still four weeks away and Trump has made political stumping his chief priority, which means just about anything could come out of his mouth to send his approval ratings into another nosedive.
Trump's fortunes seem to roughly coincide with the stock market, which is currently hovering around 26,500, only a 100 points lower than it was when it hit its peak in January. The Dow had spent most of the summer around 24,500, so this is a big improvement. However, uneasiness remains, and all it takes is some incident like say a weaker than expected third quarter economic report to bring it tumbling down again. It will be pretty hard to match that 4.1% GDP growth Trump crowed about in July, but then Trump has gamed the system before. He has his own guy in the Fed just as he does the Supreme Court, so anything is possible, especially hearing some of the things Jerome Powell has said recently, although in this case Jerome fumbled the ball. He'll need Steven Mnuchin to pick it up for him again.
Meantime, Donald Trump does what he does best, entertain, in his own bully way.
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