Trump’s Plumbing Problem
Hello Hackaroos!
Well, thanks to the one and only Maggie Haberman for giving us the best headline of the week (year?) – Trump clogging White House toilets with sensitive docs. Could you imagine the outrage if Hillary flushed her emails down the toilet? That’s where we begin before turning to Biden’s economic woes plus some tidbits and another mailbag edition!
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We highly recommend wearing some of our Hacks on Tap merch to your Super Bowl party… but don’t try flushing any of it down the toilet: https://themerchspot.com/collections/hacks-on-tap.
Let’s begin…
TRUMP’S TOILET TANTREMS
MURPHY: It is said comedy and tragedy are closely linked and the latest Trump Gold Toilet kerfuffle does bring that to mind. This is the President of the United States (although defeated we must add) that we are talking about. The whole thing might be the perfect metaphor for the Trump era, which alas, is not over. If you had firmly and unyieldingly predicted all this – the keystone kops Presidency, the madness, the assault on democratic norms, and yes, the gold crapper – six years ago, you would have been correct but your friends and families would have started asking around for a good mental health professional. The lesson: the future is unknown. Anything can happen. It might be good, it might be horrible. And the Era of Trump is not over.
GIBBS: Well, Murphy, this isn’t quite the 18-karat gold toilet referenced in the above article, but what has culminated into Flushgate (seems Trump shares political plumbers with Richard Nixon?) has been quite a set of stories over the past few days. It started with descriptions of White House staff preserving Presidential records by taping documents back together that Trump had ripped up. Then the Post reported the National Archives had recovered 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago, which was followed by the reporting that some of those documents were classified or even top secret in nature. The kicker (or the plunger!) came with the report that staff had fished out parts of documents from a clogged toilet and Trump was identified as the Culprit. You just can’t make this stuff up. So, what’s next? Having worked in the White House I know the detailed briefing each staffer gets about the requirements to preserve documents. And, while I think this steady, drip, drip, drip of stories will increase pressure on the Justice Department to look into this, the legal standard for any sort of formal investigation or prosecution here is fairly high. Who packed the boxes? Did Trump direct someone to pack this stuff away so he could take it? What documents met their demise in the toilet? Politically, my hunch is Democrats are pretty up in arms mad and Trumpers think it’s either much ado about nothing or fake news. We’ll have to watch where this one goes.
BIDEN’S INFLATION NATION
MURPHY: Inflation is a politician eraser. It is a big blunt hammer that causes everybody – employee, retiree, employer, saver and investor – economic pain. It raises prices on everything and squeezes business and consumers alike. Economics contract. (The sole theoretical good it does is devalue the national debt and screw America’s credit and even that is not actually so good.) And have no doubt, inflation is here. I’d been howling about this for a year on our Hacks on Tap podcast, but to little avail. My pals on the left started dismissed it, but did agree it would be a political problem if it stayed around. And now, it appears to be staying. Economists differ on what is really going on; some say it’s temporary (the chips and auto and white goods shortage has skyrocketed prices for consumers; some economists blame up to half of all inflationary pressure on that alone), while others look at our five year+ Lost Weekend of wild government spending and central bank money printing and say this is the big bad reckoning.
I have no idea which is true. I do know is that this is a big problem for Joe Biden and his Democrats. Biden also has discovered that a COVID surge is no good news for any incumbent President; you get no credit for doing anything right and everything wrong – or painful, from closed schools and factories to itchy masks and medically smart vaccine mandates – is your fault. It’s like wearing a Velcro suit to attract voter anger. Add inflation to that and the rising prices (start with the gas pump) and you have a perfect storm with millions of voters diving for the big red political ejector seat button. And the historic midterm problem. So the big hammer is heading for Biden and Dems. They’ve also made it all worse with a stumblebum communications strategy (I’m still waiting for a speech to the country on the Ukraine crisis; my guess is they are now all about the soon arriving State of the Union speech so they feel that window is closed. Maybe, but earlier could have worked well. This White House needs to learn to hit a lot of doubles and triples instead of only thinking in terms of rare home runs.)
So, it’s bleak Gibbsie. Maybe COVID will continue to recede, maybe Omicron will force out meaner variants, maybe the nutcase Canadian Truckers will get off the damn Ambassador Bridge and get the auto industry’s just in time supply chain working again (can’t Prime Minister Dream Boat up there lure ‘em away from the bridge with a loud Guess Who tribute band or something?!?)
Anyway, maybe the Summer will bring lessening inflation and an upshifting economy. But then again, politics is a cruel game. So maybe not…. What say you?
GIBBS: More grim inflation news this week as the prices consumers are paying continue to go up and inflation is at its highest 12-month number since 1982. All of this complicates Biden’s hope for an economy producing record job growth and growing wages to give him a political tailwind. Right now, inflation (and its relationship to the continuing pandemic) has caused Americans to feel anxiety, grumpiness and dissatisfaction about the nation’s economic picture. It doesn’t look like strained supply chains will be fixed anytime soon and inflation in the near term looks to be here for a bit. That won’t make the White House happy and gives Republicans a powerful emotion to campaign on as we head to November. Regrettable, the tools at the White House’s disposal to help this situation are somewhat limited and the Federal Reserve will have to help here without causing growth to slow. All in all, far from an ideal situation for this White House. Democrats up in November have already begun introducing legislation to do things like suspend the Federal gas tax through the end of the year in hopes of providing a little relief and producing some strong rhetoric to land on the side of angry voters. Will Congress propose and pass larger tax cuts to deal with cost increases? Don’t expect a lot here especially since some will be careful not to inject more money (and therefore the possibility of more demand) into an already hot economy. Like the virus and other issues, Biden wants, hopes and needs this to steadily get better before voters cast their votes in less than 9 months.
TIDBITS
GIBBS: Many on Capitol Hill have turned their attention to updating the rules for individual stock ownership and Representatives and Senators serving in Congress. What once seemed like a longshot is now seeing multiple proposals being introduced and even some bipartisanship as well. Is it at the top of voters’ lists of concerns? I certainly doubt it. However, my guess is this is very popular. This one seems to have a lot of momentum and will likely garner big voting margins should the complicated questions around this get sufficient answers and votes come to the floor.
GIBBS: A quick Georgia update. The Republican Governors Association is up with ads supporting incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp as he faces a primary against the Trump endorsed former U.S. Senator David Perdue. It’s a test for Trump as the RGA looks to protect one of its own. Additionally, a Federal Judge suggested Georgia’s primaries could be delayed if he throws out Georgia’s new political maps for violating the Voting Rights Act. If that happens, the GOP primary for Governor would happen later in the cycle and potentially give the winner of the nomination less time to heal a potentially divided Republican party before November.
MAILBAG
Ian Bremmer: True that foreign policy carries much larger political downside than upside potential. Ironic that presidents' one exclusive competence has such an asymmetric risk profile...
MURPHY: Well said by our friend Ian, who runs an excellent newsletter here at Bulletin. Check it out. I totally agree. Foreign Policy is usually ignored by most voters, until it isn’t. It’s sort of the like the slow leak I once had in my wonderful old three-story Georgetown townhouse. The leak was in the walls. No sign of it. A year after a sold the house the old cast iron bath tub I had in the top floor bathroom took a three-story trip straight down through the floor. Suddenly, as far as that house was concerned… it was the ONLY thing.
GIBBS: Sad but true. If you need a good listen this weekend, check out Axelrod’s podcast recently with Ian. Guaranteed you’ll hear a lot!
Gayle Anderson: Guys, I love your newsletter but PLEASE get an editor to correct your grammar, proper word use, etc. For English/Journalism majors (decades ago) who had to diagram sentences in school, it’s distracting and frustrating. I want to pull out my red pencil but I’m on my phone.
REPLY: Tom Knappenberger
it’s two guys talking in a bar. Lighten up.
Kent Ring
I am happy to edit! I will join team Hacks as Jr editor
MURPHY: Great comment. I’m smiling. (First biggest problem is Gibbs, between us). Some explanation: we do this with a mix of writing and a phone call together and we do it fast to keep it fresh. So the copy is in, say, a very vernacular style. And my writing voice on this caper is a bit stylized. Every AP editor’s worst nightmare. We do give the King’s grammar a bit of a nasty stretch. We do make errors, mostly due to speed and limited time for editing finesse. And sometimes the odd rhythm of the writing. With the broken rules… makes for a snappier and funnier read. To quote the great comic Don Rickles, and I say this with love, I love the grammarian people, who (during a performance I saw in Las Vegas years ago) turned to an aghast audience member in the front row… “These are the jokes Lady! What do you want me to do, Bless the Room?!?” I kid. Nonetheless thanks for your comment. And, join me in checking one of my favorite twitter feeds: @plain_language.
GIBBS: Oh, yikes! My Dad wouldn’t be happy with this, Gayle. We will do better! But, please don’t make us diagram sentences, that’s the worst!
Ben: A question for Axe, Gibbs and Murphy: which one of the three of them would make the best President, and why?
MURPHY: Me, because unlike them I read the comments! M
GIBBS: What a disconcerting question. I mean, obviously, we can eliminate Murphy quickly (!!) and I’d happily nominate Axe, though my guess is he’d pull a LBJ and declare he shall not seek, nor accept the nomination for President.
Have a great weekend!
Murphy and Gibbs