|
The fundamental charge that Michael Wolff levels in his book, Fire and Fury, is that Donald Trump is unfit to be President. According to Wolff, all of Trump’s staff say that his behavior is childish and undisciplined. They feel that he is totally ignorant of any policy issue and unwilling to even try to learn about any policies. Many of them say that he incapable of understanding complex thoughts or accurately processing the information. Also, they say he lacks impulse control and good judgment—all things that are necessary parts of the President’s duties. Administration and Republican spokesmen flooded the talk shows to defend Trump by seizing on minor inaccuracies in names or places to refute Wolff’s narrative. Because their focus on these minor errors did little to shake Wolff’s narrative, Trump attempted to contradict Wolff’s account of a chaotic administration by presiding over the televised opening of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) negotiation between Republicans and Democrats. According to the script envisioned by Trump, the meeting would show the public his leadership, bi-partisanship, and engagement with the issues.
|
|
While Trump was able to pull off a performance highlighting his role as a chief executive, he failed to demonstrate familiarity with immigration policy issues. When Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, suggested that he sign off on a DACA bill to only legalize the status of the “Dreamers” without including Republican demands for increased border security, Trump initially agreed. It was left to Republican House Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, to forcefully remind Trump that the Republican position, previously agreed to by Trump, called for demanding a “wall.” Trump then went on to undermine his previous insistence on a continuous concrete wall by noting that the wall could be interrupted by natural barriers such as mountains and rivers, did not have to be concrete, but could be chain fence, and in places, could make use of electronic detection devices. Trump acceded to all but one of the objections that opponents of the wall had raised: he still insisted on the symbolic need for it. Then the right wing base quickly and vocally turned on him. Within hours following the televised meeting, Trump backtracked to the original Republican demands that had stymied an agreement. In effect, rather than providing the leadership for a framework to reach a settlement, Trump’s televised drama further muddled the prospects for an agreement. He had intensified the anguish of 800,000 young “Dreamers”, but for him, worse than that, he had proven Wolff’s premise that he is incompetent.
Two days later Trump even more seriously undermined his attempt to rehabilitate his image as a capable leader of the free world. On Tuesday (January 9), the White House had issued a statement supporting the bill to reauthorize section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FISA. They said, “Section 702 is vital to keeping the nation safe,” and on Wednesday the press secretary reiterated the Trump Administration’s support for the reauthorization.
But, after listening to a rant on Fox Broadcast on Thursday, a Trump tweet almost undermined a year’s long effort to reauthorize section 702Trump tweeted “House votes on controversial FISA ACT today. This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?”
In fact, section 702 of FISA deals specifically with the ability of U.S. intelligence services to eavesdrop on foreign nationals outside of the U.S. where they have no protection from the U.S. Constitution. Because some U.S. citizens, who do have protection from warrantless eavesdropping are inadvertently surveilled when they are communicating with foreigners outside of the U.S., concern for the need to limit Section 702 has been raised. Nonetheless, contrary to Trump’s tweet, there has been no blanket questioning of Section 702.
Despite his administration’s support for the bill, Trump’s tweet came so close to undermining it that White House Chief of Staff had to make an unscheduled visit to Capitol Hill to reaffirm the administration’s support for the bill. Although the bill was reauthorized, Trump’s tweet cast doubt on his understanding of his administration’s policies and the purpose of the reauthorization, FISA, and Section 702 of FISA. All in all, Trump again did little damage to the narrative set out in Fire and Fury.
Two days later Trump even more seriously undermined his attempt to rehabilitate his image as a capable leader of the free world. On Tuesday (January 9), the White House had issued a statement supporting the bill to reauthorize section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FISA. They said, “Section 702 is vital to keeping the nation safe,” and on Wednesday the press secretary reiterated the Trump Administration’s support for the reauthorization.
But, after listening to a rant on Fox Broadcast on Thursday, a Trump tweet almost undermined a year’s long effort to reauthorize section 702Trump tweeted “House votes on controversial FISA ACT today. This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?”
In fact, section 702 of FISA deals specifically with the ability of U.S. intelligence services to eavesdrop on foreign nationals outside of the U.S. where they have no protection from the U.S. Constitution. Because some U.S. citizens, who do have protection from warrantless eavesdropping are inadvertently surveilled when they are communicating with foreigners outside of the U.S., concern for the need to limit Section 702 has been raised. Nonetheless, contrary to Trump’s tweet, there has been no blanket questioning of Section 702.
Despite his administration’s support for the bill, Trump’s tweet came so close to undermining it that White House Chief of Staff had to make an unscheduled visit to Capitol Hill to reaffirm the administration’s support for the bill. Although the bill was reauthorized, Trump’s tweet cast doubt on his understanding of his administration’s policies and the purpose of the reauthorization, FISA, and Section 702 of FISA. All in all, Trump again did little damage to the narrative set out in Fire and Fury.