Trump's Ignorance, Ego, And Lack Of Discipline Keeps Wasting GOP's Legislative Time

Reflecting on Donald Trump's first 100 days of epic failure, what is shocking is to think just how much time was wasted, by his administration, by Congress, and by the American people on irrelevant or doomed issues simply to fuel Trump's enormous ego or deal with his enormous ignorance. Beyond the wasted legislative days that the Trump administration has not taken advantage of,  Republicans in Congress have had to spend hours and days defending the indefensible or reacting to Trump's latest outrage. All that has taken away from the time that the GOP can spend building popular momentum for their agenda, no matter how unpopular much of it may be. Admittedly, some of these irrelevant issues are designed to deflect attention from Trump's criminality or failure, but they nonetheless waste valuable legislative time for both Trump and Congress.

It began virtually on day one, with the ridiculous argument over crowd size and then the damaging attacks on the media and the intelligence communities, disgracing himself and his office in front of the Wall Of Heroes at the CIA.  It was followed by the illegal voting claims and the poorly crafted Muslim ban that would not stand constitutional scrutiny, followed by attacks on the judiciary. As the Russia investigation started to heat up, Trump then claimed Obama tapped Trump Tower, which precipitated the whole fiasco with Devin Nunes and the unfounded accusations against Susan Rice. And, because of Trump's ignorance and stubbornness, he tried to ram through the Muslim ban 2.0 which refused to address the problems with the original order.

But the best example of how Trump's ignorance and ego is hurting Republicans is the disaster of the AHCA. Trump's inability to focus on the details and instead simply demanding that the Republicans in the House pass the bill actually helped splinter the GOP in the House. When the AHCA did not even get to the floor for a vote, Trump lashed out House Freedom Caucus and suggested they were as much the enemy as Democrats. But rather than moving on to tax reform (aka tax cut), Trump has insisted that the House keep on pushing to repeal Obamacare no matter how unpopular the issue has become for the GOP in order for him to get a "win" before his first 100 days are up. That, again, resulted in another predictable failure but, even now, Trump is pushing forward to try to somehow get to a vote, wasting even more time on an issue that, at this point, is doomed to failure. Paul Ryan may want to pass something to save his own job and the Freedom Caucus may want to pass something so they won't be blamed, but, even if they actually accomplish passing some form of repeal and replace of the ACA, it will never pass the Senate. Right now, they are just wasting time in futile attempt to simply avoid blame.

Today, Trump provided even further evidence for how damaging he can be. In an interview this morning, he apparently backed off the key promise of allowing states to opt out of covering pre-existing conditions that had actually gotten the Freedom Caucus on board with another try to pass the AHCA. In addition, Reince Priebus refused to knock down the story that Trump is considering revising the First Amendment to allow news organizations to be more easily sued, presumably by Trump. Republicans in Congress will have to react to both of these issues at some point tomorrow.

In addition, Trump seems to provide no discipline or direction for the administration. Everyone knew that tax reform would be the next item on the agenda after dealing with the ACA. Yet, when Trump surprised the Treasury Department with his announcement that they would be presenting a tax plan last week, another item fueled by Trump's need to get a "win", the best they could come up with was a laughable one-page bullet point draft. It seemed that Treasury had done little or no preparation on tax reform at all.

Besides the first 100 days being the time when most Presidents get most of their legislative priorities passed or at least outlined and in Congressional committees, there are only around 150 legislative days for Congress in any calendar year.  Much of that time is often used up with required actions like putting together a budget. Because of the incompetence of the Trump administration driven by Trump's lack of leadership and discipline, around 40 or 50 legislative days of this year have already been used up. The AHCA is dead but still being debated. There are no other bills focused on the GOP agenda that are even being considered in Congress. In fact, Congress is still dealing with the 2017 budget. They still have the 2018 budget and the debt ceiling to worry about, and both those items will require Democratic votes.

As the year progresses and it becomes clearer that Trump may face an entire year of legislative futility, his ego will fuel even more distractions and outbursts. All this is good new for Democrats, But, eventually, Congress, especially Mitch McConnell, will take control of the legislative agenda, crafting legislation either on its own or with elements inside the Trump administration but away from Trump's interference. When that time comes, Democrats must be ready to relentlessly resist in the same ways that we were able to defeat the AHCA.