Hmm. Amazing. Now he wants to do his job. He Trump, that is.
The outgoing president emerged briefly from his sulk last night. Donald Trump posted to Twitter a video response to the covid relief bill Capitol Hill expected him to sign so everyone could go home for Christmas with a deal in their sacks. USE YOUR LEVERAGE, Trump says (and Tony Schwartz wrote for him) in “The Art of the Deal.” He sees leverage now and he’s using it.
Trump labeled the $600 stimulus checks to individuals “ridiculously low” and demanded $2,000 instead (what Democrats wanted all a long). He elided the fact that the $600 amount came from his own treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. Trump condemned a series of items he deemed “wasteful” and hinted he would veto the legislation if he did not get changes (Washington Post):
The video landed like a sonic boom in Washington. His own aides were stunned. Congressional aides were stunned. Stock market futures quickly slumped on the prospect that the economic aid could be in doubt.
And the implications for what happens next could be severe. If he refuses to sign the bill, the government will shut down on Dec. 29. The $900 billion in emergency economic aid will be frozen, and the race for the two Senate seats in Georgia could also be upended.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), however, quickly responded to the Twitter post by saying congressional Democrats would move as soon as Thursday, when the House is scheduled to meet for a brief pro forma session, to advance the $2,000 stimulus checks.
The Post reports that Ben Williamson, a spokesman for Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, publicly signaled Trump would sign the bill ahead of its release. But Trump had recorded his response five hours before the bill’s release and tweeted it after a number of aides and Meadows had already left town.
Virtually all the complaints about waste Trump voiced in the video referred not to the relief part of the bill, but to the omnibus appropriations package. Congressional leaders packaged the two together.
A desperate Trump may be hallucinating another angle for staying in the White House past January 20. He finished his video saying, “I am also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation, and to send me a suitable bill, or else the next administration will have to deliver a covid relief package, and maybe that administration will be me.” If successful, Trump will have delivered $4,000 per couple just ahead of asking his cult members to back whatever last-ditch scheme he has for holding onto the presidency. Failing that, he could pocket a ton of the federal cash he just secured for them.
No doubt Trump will use the video to make yet another fundraising pitch to his large email list. He’s washed-up. A has-been. A failure. But that does not mean the one-term president cannot make money off the disaster of his maladministration even as his net worth sags. He has not stopped fundraising since Nov. 3. Trump has raised over $200 million from losing, using false claims the money will go towards an “official election defense fund” when he could in fact spend it on himself. As Leo Bloom says in The Producers, “Under the right circumstances, a producer could make more money with a flop than he could with a hit…”
Leo Bloom: Let’s assume, just for the moment, that you are a dishonest man.
Max Bialystock: Assume away.
Leo Bloom: It’s very easy. You raise more money than you need.
Max Bialystock: What do you mean?
Leo Bloom: Well, you did it yourself, only you did it on a very small scale.
Max Bialystock: What did I do?
Leo Bloom: You raised $2,000 thousand more than you needed to produce your last play.
Max Bialystock: So? What did it get me? I’m wearing a CARDBOARD BELT!
Leo Bloom: Well, that’s where you made your mistake: you didn’t go all the way. You see, if you were a truly bold criminal, you could’ve raised a million.
Max Bialystock: But the play cost me only $60,000 thousand to produce!
Leo Bloom: And how long did it run?
Max Bialystock: One night.
Leo Bloom: You see? You see what I’m trying to tell you? You could’ve raise a million dollars, put on your $60,00 thousand flop, and kept the rest.
Max Bialystock: But what if the play was a hit?
Leo Bloom: Well, then you’d go to jail. See, once the play’s a hit, you have to pay off all the backers, and with so many backers, there could never be enough profits to go around. Get it?
Max Bialystock: Uh-huh. A-ha! So, in order for this scheme to work, we’d have to find a sure-fire flop!
Trump already has his flop. His legacy? A U.S. grievously diminished in the world’s eyes and more divided against itself than ever. His response to the pandemic? A disaster: 320,000 Americans dead and climbing; small businesses failing or on life support (and too little of that). What a financial opportunity for someone unscrupulous enough to exploit it!
Richard Nixon got an opera. Why not Trump a musical? Axios reported Tuesday morning that Trump is “turning bitterly on virtually every person around him.” In the right hands, quotes from the Axios story are virtually titles of show tunes. It might not be “Springtime for Hitler,” but it has potential:
“Weak, Stupid or Disloyal”
“Backing Away”
“First One Off the Ship”
“The Ultimate Betrayal” (about Vice President Mike Pence)
“Focused on the Middle East” (sung by or about Jared Kushner)
“Congratulations. You now own 45 percent of ‘Prisoners of Love.’ NEXT!“
Who knows? After New York City and the state of New York are through with him, Trump might even end up in Sing Sing, too.
It’s Happy Hollandaise time here at Hullabaloo. If you’d like to drop a little something in the old Christmas stocking you can do so here: