Why ‘Trump Administration’ Is An Oxymoron

 

By Howard Fineman

WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump took the oath of office two months ago, but is not yet running a real presidency. His administration, thus far, largely is playing like a junta that surprised the royal guards and seized the palace ― while still remaining unable to pacify the capital city, let alone inspire the countryside.

The White House is as stately as ever, but there aren’t enough friends outside the (porous) iron fence to make the inhabitants as comfortable as they should be in the first months of a new regime.

Rather, Trump is under siege from pretty much all sides.

Federal courts again are slapping down Trump’s first, signature move: a temporary travel ban on citizens from predominantly Muslim countries that he says harbor “radical Islamic terrorists.”

The joint Trump-GOP effort to “repeal and replace” Obamacare ― another key first promise and response ― is bogged down in multiple internal Republican divisions over everything from spending numbers to philosophy to legislative strategy. 

With growing sharpness and specificity, GOP leaders are joining Democrats in dismissing as flat-out false the president’s repeatedly tweeted charge that former President Barack Obama “tapped” ― or surveilled in any way ― Trump Tower or its owner.

Trump’s new guns-and-no-butter first budget, which would literally take food from the poor and the elderly to give more money to Pentagon contractors, has been greeted with derision by many Republicans, who regard it as less of a blueprint than a political statement too harsh even for the tea party. 

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Source: The Huffington Post