On Friday, many Americans wondered if President Trump hasn’t simply given up on winning the 2020 presidential elections. He cannot answer questions about his agenda for his second term, the chances of which are rapidly slipping away anyway, and most of the things he says to his supporters are just repeated lines from 2016 and all the promises he made that haven’t been kept.
That same day, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) began pleading with people in the White House to get ahold of Trump. The idea that the current power held by Republicans is hinged on an incompetent reality TV show host finally seems to have struck Trump’s fellow GOP officials. The plea from Grassley comes the day after the president’s interview with Fox News TV host Sean Hannity, who asked Trump directly what his legislative agenda is for beyond the 2020 elections and Trump was unable to give a coherent answer.
In the vast majority of polls, Trump is losing to Biden. In states Trump won big in 2016, his support has shrunk, and in the states he lost or just narrowly won, Biden is up to anywhere from one to fourteen points ahead of Trump. Perhaps Trump should listen to the writers of the Wall Street Journal op-ed if he wants to win in 2020, but it’s far more likely that he’ll just attack Grassley on Twitter later.
The Wall Street Journal op-ed warned that:
‘Now the election is four months away, voters know him very well, and Mr. Trump has reverted to his worst form. His record fighting the coronavirus is better than his critics claim after a bad start in late February and March. He mobilized federal resources to help hard-hit states, especially New York.
‘But he wasted his chance to show leadership by turning his daily pandemic pressers into brawls with the bear-baiting press and any politician who didn’t praise him to the skies. Lately he has all but given up even talking about the pandemic when he might offer realism and hope about the road ahead even as the country reopens. His default now is defensive self-congratulation.’
