President Donald Trump is in hot water in facing the challenges of leadership in dealing with the environment, NAFTA, TPP, NATO, globalisation, imposition of unnecessary sanctions on Iran and on allies trading with Iran. He has also put sanctions on Russia (although he is a friend of President Putin). He has been shooting knee jerk twits from the hip to all and sundry for criticism levelled at him.
He is living in a dream world of his own linking politics with real estate wheeling and dealing and a TV reality show which are incompatible. He seems to be power drunk, ill-tempered and autocratic. He wanted to drain the swamp but the swamp is trying to swallow him instead. He is not proactive but he is reactive. That will not take him far.
He feels vulnerable with the Russia investigation steamrolling ahead, anonymous administration officials seeking to undermine him and the spectre of impeachment proceedings, should the Democrats retake the House on Nov. 6. He is confronting broadsides from every direction — legal, political and personal.
A senior administration official penned an anonymous column in the New York Times describing a “resistance” within to guard against the president’s impulses, while Bob Woodward’s new book, “Fear,” and Bill Press’s book ‘Trump Must Go’ offers an alarming portrait of a president seemingly unfit for the office.
Donald Trump’s marriage is facing a fresh crisis as a porn star sues him over their alleged sexual affair. Stormy Daniels has issued court proceedings against the US President, saying their non-disclosure agreement is null and void because he did not sign it.
Trump has been similarly restrained this week as federal judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, his pick for the Supreme Court, fights to save his nomination amid an accusation of sexual assault, which Kavanaugh denies. Trump has publicly defended Kavanaugh, though he has refrained from attacking the judge’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.
Although some have suggested Mr Trump will not serve his full four year term he is still unlikely to be impeached as both Houses of Congress, which have to vote to remove him, are controlled by Republicans. No US President has ever been formally impeached. In 1974 Richard Nixon resigned before he could be formally removed. Looks like he will escape the noose.
Baldev Sharma
Rayners Lane, Harrow
