Political authors Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan say President Donald Trump’s likely fall from Congressional dominance could involve a constitutional crisis as the budding autocrat refuses to acknowledge a Congress that is no longer beholden to him.
Trump think himself the most powerful person to walk the Earth, thanks to a report hashed together not by a historian but by the caddy of retired South African professional golfer Gary Player, according to Haberman speaking to MS NOW anchor Katy Tur.
“If he believes he’s all powerful and he’s the most powerful person has ever walked the Earth and he always wins. There is that open question of whether he leaves office after all,” asked Tur. “He’s gilding it, he’s remaking Washington. That ball room is only supposed to be finished a couple months before he leaves office.”
“We talk about this a fair amount in this in a presidential cycle, in a lame duck term, which this is. You can see where an unpopular president’s party is headed and it’s not for good or good results on Election Day, in the midterms and then the control of the House flips, maybe control of the Senate flips, and then what follows is a lot of subpoenas and oversight, hearings and so forth. If I’m sure if the House flips if the Senate flips one or the other or both. There obviously will be attempts by democrats. To do all of that.”
“But what we haven’t seen before is what happens if a sitting administration across the board does not respond to those subpoenas, does not supply witnesses,” asked Haberman. “Now we have had instances where that has happened. You know in specific cases before under Obama, under Trump, on and so forth. What happens is if it’s everything. Congress’s ability is to actually engage in any accountability, if that’s true, is pretty hamstrung. They don’t have a jail in Congress, they will have to refer contempt of Congress, subpoenas, referrals to the DOJ, which will be led by a Trump appointee.”
“And not just a Trump appointee,” said Swan. “Trump’s own former personal lawyer.”
And Swan added that if Republicans are in any kind of position of control in either the Senate or the House they will doubtless work in Trump’s favor over the health of U.S. democracy, likely out of self-preservation.
“You are seeing the Senate operate in a slightly different way than the House. But that’s largely because Donald Trump has so aggressively alienated a few Senators,” said Swan. He added, however, not to expect the GOP to find its backbone, even in retirement.
“You know when it turns out, when you run them into retirement and defeat them and run opponents against them, they don’t tend to retain their loyalty. But it’s also instructive pretty much all these people who went against him are out of the job after the election,” said Swan. “So, this idea that, like Donald Trump, is losing all his power, I don’t know. I kind of question that a little bit. He’s still in the Republican Party, he’s still the colossus and he still ends people’s careers. So, we shouldn’t get like too delusional about that.”
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