200 Lawsuits in 100 Days: Trump’s presidency fuelled by 'revenge'

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00:00We can now bring in Todd Bell, Director of the Political Management Program at George Washington University.

00:07Thank you so much for joining us on the program today.

00:10Not too long ago, Donald Trump was elected with a pretty strong mandate.

00:15Now the polls are saying, the recent polls are saying, that 55% of the American population disapprove of the way he's handling the presidency.

00:23So what went wrong, in your opinion?

00:27Thanks for having me on again. It's great to be with you.

00:30Well, to first say that Donald Trump has a mandate, he would certainly say so.

00:34But remember that it was 49.8% of the vote that voted for him.

00:38So a majority of Americans actually voted for someone else.

00:41He would like to say that he won all the swing states and claimed that as his mandate.

00:45But things have gone wrong. They've really gone off the tracks.

00:48Donald Trump, with his 40% approval, is at the lowest we've ever seen for a president, going back to Eisenhower, for whom we have data.

00:56Second lowest, him during his first term.

00:58So it's been really bad, and it's been on a bad slide.

01:01And his approval ratings for the economy are even worse than his overall approval numbers,

01:07showing you that people are really worried by the fact that he has not been focused on the bread and butter issues.

01:12In our GW politics poll, we found that the number one issue for people was the economy.

01:17Number two was health care costs.

01:18That was kind of surprising because neither candidate last year talked much about that.

01:22And the third was prices.

01:23And with these tariffs, people are very concerned that prices will spike because, you know,

01:28if you restrict imports and supply is restricted, prices are going to go up.

01:32So I'm curious to know about your poll, what people feel on immigration and his handling of immigration.

01:41Right.

01:42Our finding on immigration is that people are broadly supportive of stronger measures in order to restrict illegal immigration,

01:49even to the extent that many of them are supportive of deporting families with children who are here legally.

01:58So that is something that is within what he's been doing.

02:03However, it's how he's been doing things.

02:05The devil's really in the details here.

02:07Lacking any due process for the people that he's sent to El Salvador, the mistakes that have been made.

02:14It just looks like he's done everything too fast, too quickly and without proper procedures.

02:19And when you get down to it, this is what our country, the United States, was founded on,

02:24was the fact that King George was throwing people in jail without due process.

02:28This is in our Constitution.

02:30Americans are very faithful to the Constitution.

02:32And it looks like Donald Trump is violating them by the way he's going about it,

02:36even though people support the policy in general.

02:38Do you see a scenario where Donald Trump reverses course,

02:44or does he not really care about risking it for Republicans come the midterms?

02:49Well, of course, Donald Trump is never going to say that he did anything wrong or apologize for anything.

02:55But we have seen him go back and forth on the tariffs.

02:58Right now, he says that they were leveraged to get better deals,

03:02and these better deals are coming forth with other countries.

03:06But he also said that America was going to have to have a little bit of pain.

03:09And one thing about people in the United States is they don't like any short-term pain.

03:14You can think back to Jimmy Carter with our oil shocks and the embargo back in the 1970s and the rationing that went on.

03:22Americans just don't like to take a little bit of pain.

03:25They have a short-term view of this.

03:27But Donald Trump has changed his mind on tariffs, and I think a lot of people are hoping he will.

03:30The problem is the inconsistency.

03:33Businesses can't plan.

03:34The financial markets don't like it when they can't rely or make long-term plans on what things will be.

03:39But this is what's surprising about Donald Trump's tariff policy,

03:43because there have been so many inconsistencies, sometimes within the span of 24 hours.

03:50And as somebody who claims and touts his business credentials, it's surprising that he does it anyways.

03:54Yeah, it is surprising to most of us, but he will say, and his supporters will say,

04:00that this comes out of his book, The Art of the Deal,

04:03and the fact that you don't want to be predictable and be able to walk away from a deal at any moment.

04:09Those are core principles for negotiating in business.

04:13However, Donald Trump is not running a business.

04:15He is running a country, and countries are not businesses.

04:18Governments have to provide services that the private sector doesn't provide.

04:22And because of that, he needs to provide more certainty to businesses,

04:26instead of just looking at it as a one-to-one transactional issue,

04:30which is the way he tends to do things.

04:33Todd, during Donald Trump's first presidency,

04:35we had the Democrats who said, you know, there would be adults in the room

04:41to keep the U.S. president in check.

04:44But now we see that there are no adults in the room,

04:47and it seems that he pretty much has a free hand to do what he wants.

04:53And the levers of power in terms of the judiciary or Congress also are giving,

05:01in terms of the Republicans out of the aisle, are giving the president a free pass.

05:07You're absolutely right.

05:10Donald Trump part two is very different than Donald Trump part one.

05:13As you mentioned, he's surrounded by a number of yes people

05:16who are much more compliant this time.

05:18They want to help him do what he wants,

05:20rather than to provide those guideposts and restrictions

05:23as, you know, the traditional Republicans

05:26who came in with him in the first time.

05:28He's put a lot of people around him who he prioritizes loyalty for.

05:32Secondly, we have that Supreme Court case, as I think you were alluding to last July,

05:38that says the president for his constitutional actions has full immunity

05:42and for his executive actions has presumptive immunity.

05:47And, of course, Donald Trump is motivated by revenge,

05:50and he learned from last time that he needs to get a fast start.

05:53So roll that all together,

05:54and that's why you have so much action coming out of the presidency right now,

05:58sometimes too fast, right?

05:59They're making mistakes,

06:00and there are 200 lawsuits against the president

06:02for a lot of these executive actions.

06:04So a lot of it has been stalled in the courts as well.

06:07I just have to ask you about the Democrats here,

06:10because have they gotten their strategy

06:13with how to stand up and fight Donald Trump in order?

06:16Because it seems like the Democrats are singing

06:19from very, very different song sheets,

06:21because on one hand, you have people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

06:24and Bernie Sanders who are going off

06:26and doing their own thing with their rallies,

06:28and you have, obviously, the leadership, Chuck Schumer,

06:32what have you, on the other side.

06:34What are the Democrats doing here?

06:35It seems they're in disarray still.

06:39Well, you're exactly right.

06:40It's no surprise that Democrats are in disarray.

06:43That's usually their natural state.

06:45But they have no levers of power, right?

06:47And so that's really the problem.

06:48The only thing that they can do is file court cases

06:51from the state level where the Democrats do have some power

06:53to the federal level.

06:55But, of course, Donald Trump really stacked the federal bench

06:57before he left office with a lot of judges

07:00that are sympathetic to his side.

07:02And because of that, Democrats are looking for some leadership.

07:06Chuck Schumer has not risen to the challenge,

07:08as many Democrats might have wanted.

07:10And so they're looking for someone new.

07:11You have governors out there like Gavin Newsom

07:13and J.D. Pritzker going around as well,

07:16in addition to Bernie Sanders and AOC.

07:18Democrats are looking for leadership,

07:19but it's hard to figure out who's going to be a leader

07:22if you don't even have any levers of power yet.

07:25Interesting point.

07:26Todd Belt, we're going to have to leave with that, unfortunately.

07:28Thank you so much for joining us on the program today.

07:31Great to be with you.

07:32Thanks for having me on.

07:33Now.

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