June 7, 2020: President Trump Angry because Vladimir Putin Can't Come to Play

 

6/7/20: President Trump is mad because German Chancellor Angela Merkel made it clear she isn’t coming to a G-7 summit in the U.S. during the pandemic. Other world leaders agree. Trump, who had hoped to include pal Vladimir Putin in an expanded summit, had his feelings hurt.

 

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“This order is petty and preposterous.” 

Sen. Jack Reed

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He postponed the meeting until September. But his feelings still hurt. So he decided to announce he would reduce U.S. troop levels in Germany by a third, because he was tired of paying to protect other countries. 

Such as our closest allies.

This announcement did not sit well, even with Republicans. Rep. Liz Cheney, the number three GOP leader in the House of Representatives, promptly labeled Trump’s decision “dangerously misguided.” 

“If the United States abandons allies, withdraws our forces, and retreats within our borders,” Cheney warned, “the cause of freedom – on which our nation was founded & our security depends – will be in peril.” 

We rarely quote Democrats on this blog, but Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was appalled. “This order is petty and preposterous,” he said.

 

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IT WON’T HELP the president’s sour mood if he picks up a copy of Saturday’s New York Times. According to a report by Jonathan Martin, there’s increasing rumbling at the top of the party. Martin says he has been told that former President George W. Bush won’t support Trump’s re-election. Jeb Bush isn’t sure. Senator Mitt Romney won’t back Trump and is deliberating whether to write in his wife’s name, Ann, or cast another ballot in November. Cindy McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain, “is almost certain to support Mr. Biden but is unsure how public to be about it because one of her sons is eying a run for office.” Two former GOP Speakers of the House, Paul Ryan and John Boehner, “won’t say how they will vote” 

You can pencil in the names of former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell and former  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Both plan to vote: “No,” on Trump 2020. I think we can assume Rex Tillerson, Trump’s first Secretary of State, and James Mattis, his first Secretary of Defense, will vote for an egg and cheese omelet before they vote for their old boss. 

Rep. Francis Rooney is retiring from Congress at the end of this term. He told Martin he hasn’t voted for a Democrat in decades, “But Mr. Rooney said he is considering supporting Mr. Biden in part because Mr. Trump is ‘driving us all crazy’ and his handling of the virus led to a death toll that ‘didn’t have to happen.’”

 

Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat, told Martin that he had “had five conversations with [GOP] senators who tell me they are really struggling with supporting Trump.” Sen. Coons declined to name them. 

Martin couldn’t convince one particular Republican senator to go on record. He did report, however, that while the senator was  “publicly supporting the president,” he admitted in an interview, 

that he might prefer a Biden victory if the G.O.P. managed to preserve its Senate majority. This lawmaker, like a number of Republicans, is uneasy with Mr. Trump’s behavior [emphasis added] and weary from the near-weekly barrage of questions from reporters about the latest presidential eruption.

 

“There is an organized effort about how to make our voices useful in 2020,” said Kori Schake, another “No Thanks, Donald” Republican.