Donald Trump’s silent public outing belies White House in tumult
Donald Trump spent 10 minutes in public Wednesday honoring America’s war veterans — a veneer of normalcy for a White House that’s frozen by a defeated president mulling his options, mostly forgoing the mechanics of governing and blocking his inevitable successor. Trump’s appearance at the annual Veterans Day commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery was his first public outing for official business in more than a week. He’s spent the past few days in private tweeting angry, unsupported claims of voter fraud. The president has made no comments in person since Democrat Joe Biden clinched the 270 electoral votes on Saturday needed to win the presidency. All the while, his aides grow more certain that legal challenges won’t change the outcome of the election, according to seven campaign and White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the thinking of the president and others in the executive mansion. Before setting off for the solemn commemoration at Arlington, Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to slam “fake pollsters” and grouse that a Republican city commissioner who defended the vote tabulation in Philadelphia wasn’t a true Republican. He also sought to draw attention to a Pennsylvania poll worker who recanted allegations of voter fraud on Tuesday before reasserting his allegations on Wednesday. Trump later posted a debunked video that had purported to show poll workers collecting ballots too late. “You are looking at BALLOTS! Is this what our Country has come to?” Trump fumed. Although his official schedule has been bare of public events, Trump has made several personnel moves — firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper and installing three staunch loyalists in top defense jobs. His pick as acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, was among the Pentagon brass that joined him at Arlington. Some supporters pushed back against the notion that Trump is shirking his presidential duties. “The president is out there as much as he’s ever been on Twitter, and the White House team are moving ahead with budget and staffing priorities,” said Dan Eberhart, a prominent Republican donor and Trump backer. He added, “The president is understandably focused on the ballot counting, but at some point soon he needs to turn his attention back to the lame-duck session and putting a capstone on his first four years.” However, few senior staffers have been around the president in recent days, with many either in quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19 or in insolation after a confirmed exposure or simply not wanting to be near the Oval Office, according to White House staffers and campaign officials. Staff working from the White House thinned out after chief of staff Mark Meadows confirmed last week that he had tested positive for the virus. Some staffers still believe the election outcome can change with litigation and recounts. But there is a growing recognition among most that the election is lost and the building will be vacated by Jan. 20. Trump’s moods have vacillated over recent days. At times, he has seethed with anger, fuming that he lost to a candidate he doesn’t respect and believing that the media –- including what he views as typically friendly Fox News — worked against him. In addition to misdoings with mail-in ballots. But aides say he has been calmer than his tweets suggest, showing greater understanding of his predicament and believing that he needs to keep fighting almost as performance, as a show to the 70 million people who voted for him that he is still battling. In recent days, some aides, including his daughter Ivanka Trump, have started to talk to him about an endgame, questioning how much longer he wants to fight. Outside the White House, one prominent former ally turned Trump critic warned that the president was doing potentially irreparable damage to the Republican Party. “The real issue is the grievous harm he is causing to public trust in America’s constitutional system,” former Trump national security adviser John Bolton wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Wednesday. “Trump’s time is running out, even as his rhetoric continues escalating.” But no one in his inner circle — West Wing staff or Cabinet — is forcefully pushing him to stop. Though he has been in the Oval Office late two nights this week, the president has done little in the way of governing and has instead been working the phones. He has called friendly governors — in red states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida — and influential confidants in the conservative media, like Sean Hannity. But he has not been as responsive to Republican lawmakers as before the election. Always an obsessive cable news viewer, he has been watching even more TV than usual in recent weeks, often from his private dining room just off the Oval Office. Trump’s approach to two crucial Senate run-off elections in Georgia remains an open question: He has not yet signaled if he will campaign there, and aides have started to worry that the extended legal battle could sap support for the GOP candidates. Trump has also begun talking about his own future upon leaving office. He has mused about declaring he will run again in 2024, and aides believe that he will at least openly flirt with the idea to enhance his relevance and raise interest in whatever money-making efforts he pursues. While he ponders his options, his involvement in the day-to-day governing of the nation has nearly stopped: According to his schedule, he has not attended an intelligence briefing in weeks, and the White House has done little of late to manage the pandemic that has surged to record highs in many states. The president’s resistance to acknowledging the outcome of the race has stalled the transition process. The head of the General Services Administration, a Trump appointee, has held off on certifying Biden as the winner of the election. The certification — known as ascertainment — would free money for the transition and clear the way for Biden’s team to begin placing transition personnel at federal agencies. White House spokesman Judd Deere said he
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No sign of Donald Trump’s replacement for obamacare
As a candidate for the White House, Donald Trump repeatedly promised that he would “immediately” replace President Barack Obama’s health care law with a plan of his own that would provide “insurance for everybody.” Back then, Trump made it sound that his plan — “much less expensive and much better” than the Affordable Care Act — was imminent. And he put drug companies on notice that their pricing power no longer would be “politically protected.” Nearly three years after taking office, Americans still are waiting for Trump’s big health insurance reveal. Prescription drug prices have edged lower, but with major legislation stuck in Congress it’s unclear if that relief is the start of a trend or merely a blip. Meantime the uninsured rate has gone up on Trump’s watch, rising in 2018 for the first time in nearly a decade to 8.5 percent of the population, or 27.5 million people, according to the Census Bureau. “Every time Trump utters the words ACA or Obamacare, he ends up frightening more people,” said Andy Slavitt, who served as acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the Obama administration. He’s “deepening their fear of what they have to lose.” White House officials argue that the president is improving the health care system in other ways, without dismantling private health care. White House spokesman Judd Deere noted Trump’s signing of the “Right-to-Try” act that allows some patients facing life-threatening diseases to access unapproved treatment, revamping the U.S. kidney donation system and the FDA approving more generic drugs as key improvements. Trump has also launched a drive to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic. “The president’s policies are improving the American health care system for everyone, not just those in the individual market,” Deere said. But as Trump gears up for his reelection campaign, the lack of a health care plan is an issue that Democrats believe they can use against him. Particularly since he’s still seeking to overturn “Obamacare” in court. This month, a federal appeals court struck down the ACA’s individual mandate, the requirement that Americans carry health insurance, but sidestepped a ruling on the law’s overall constitutionality. The attorneys general of Texas and 18 other Republican-led states filed the underlying lawsuit, which was defended by Democrats and the U.S. House. Texas argued that due to the unlawfulness of the individual mandate, “Obamacare” must be entirely scrapped. Trump welcomed the ruling as a major victory. Texas v. United States appears destined to be taken up by the Supreme Court, potentially teeing up a constitutional showdown before the 2020 presidential election. In a letter Monday to Democratic lawmakers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi singled out the court case. “The Trump administration continues to firmly support the recent ruling in the 5th Circuit, which they hope will move them one step closer to obliterating every protection and benefit of the Affordable Care Act,” Pelosi wrote, urging Democrats to keep health care front and center in 2020. Accused of trying to dismantle his predecessor’s health care law with no provision for millions who depend on it, Trump and senior administration officials have periodically teased that a plan was just around the corner. In August, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, said officials were “actively engaged in conversations and working on things,” while Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway suggested that same month an announcement was on the horizon. In June, Trump told ABC News that he’d roll out his “phenomenal health care plan” in a couple of months, and that it would be a central part of his reelection pitch. The country is still waiting. Meantime Trump officials say the administration has made strides by championing transparency on hospital prices, pursuing a range of actions to curb prescription drug costs, and expanding lower-cost health insurance alternatives for small businesses and individuals. One of Trump’s small business options — association health plans — is tied up in court. And taken together, the administration’s health insurance options are modest when compared with Trump’s original goal of rolling back the ACA. Since Trump has not come through on his promise of a big plan, internecine skirmishes among 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls have largely driven the health care debate in recent months. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are leading the push among liberals for a “Medicare for All” plan that would effectively end private health insurance while more moderate candidates, like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, advocate for what they contend is a more attainable expansion of Medicare. Brad Woodhouse, a former Democratic National Committee official and executive director of the Obamacare advocacy group Protect Our Care, said it is important for Democrats to “put down the knives they’ve been wielding against one another on health care.” “Instead turn their attention to this president and Republicans who are trying to take it away,” Woodhouse counseled. Some Democratic hopefuls appear to be doing just that. During a campaign stop in Memphis, Tennessee. this month, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called out Trump on health care, saying the president is “determined to throw Americans off the boat, without giving them a lifeline.” Polling suggests Trump’s failure to follow through on his promise to deliver a revamped health care system could be a drag on his reelection effort. Voters have consistently named health care as one of their highest concerns in polling. And more narrowly, a recent Gallup-West Health poll found that 66 percent of adults believe the Trump administration has made little or no progress curtailing prescription drug costs. Prescription drug prices did drop 1 percent in 2018, according to nonpartisan experts at U.S. Health and Human Services. That was the first such price drop in 45 years, driven by declines for generic drugs, which account for nearly 9 out of 10 prescriptions dispensed. Prices continued to rise for brand-name drugs, although at a more moderate pace. Trump’s broadsides against the pharmaceutical industry might well have helped check prices, though drug companies have
