Today

13 Jan 2021
Daniel DePetris

Trump’s legacy is in tatters

The fallout from last week’s storming of Congress by a pro-Trump mob of misfits and criminals has made the controversy over the infamous 2016 Access Hollywood tape look like a cakewalk. In the week since the worst political violence in Washington, D.C. since the British burned the White House and the Capitol Building in 1814, three cabinet secretaries have resigned in disgust over Donald Trump’s response to the melee. The White House is now stocked with dead-enders and hangers-on. Some of Trump’s most loyal allies, including former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, senator Lindsey Graham and former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, have either denounced the president or turned their backs on him. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, is no longer speaking with Trump.

Trump’s legacy is in tatters

Wednesday

6 Jan 2021
Daniel DePetris

The pro-Trump mob are trashing the Republic

Watching television news, captivated by the images of pro-Trump rioters, looters, and frankly losers storm the Capitol building in service of a lost cause, I could not but help think about the old analogy that best summarises the Donald Trump era: it's like a train-wreck; it’s hard to watch, but you can’t look away. Unfortunately, the train-wreck we are talking about today is the American Republic, which was thrown into complete and utter disarray when thousands of disgruntled, angry, maskless Trump devotees broke the barriers outside the Capitol Building, breached the doors, chased police officers up the marble staircases, and made the House and Senate chambers their own personal lounging areas. Inside, lawmakers were trying to do their constitutional duties by certifying the Electoral College votes, the final phase in what is historically a peaceful transition of power to a new US administration.

The pro-Trump mob are trashing the Republic

Tuesday

1 Dec 2020
Daniel DePetris

Will Trump spend his retirement in court?

When U.S. presidents leave office they usually take a step back to work on pet projects or write their memoirs. Jimmy Carter, one of the most active former presidents in U.S. history, began the widely-acclaimed Carter Center to monitor elections around the world. He also continued to serve as an unofficial U.S. government representative. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama began foundations of their own, with both remaining involved in hot-button political topics. George W. Bush decided to go back to his ranch in Texas and take up painting. But Donald Trump may be spending his first few months in retirement fending off criminal investigations against his business. And therein lies the obvious question: is it possible that Trump could be charged with a crime? This is not an altogether unprecedented situation.

Will Trump spend his retirement in court?

Thursday

26 Nov 2020
Daniel DePetris

Trump’s pardoning of Michael Flynn isn’t unusual

Donald Trump is out of the White House in less than two months. But he has scores to settle before he vacates his chair to Joe Biden, the man who defeated him at the ballot box earlier this month. First, it was the firing of multiple officials at the Pentagon who were deemed by Trump to be insufficiently loyal to his agenda. Next came the replacement of those officials with ultra-loyalists who would implement his orders without question or reservation. And now, Trump is levying his exclusive right to pardon people of federal crimes – a power unique to the presidency. On November 25, when most in Washington, DC were chatting about who may serve in Joe Biden’s cabinet, Trump announced that he had pardoned Michael Flynn, his short-lived national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about his calls with the former Russian ambassador.

Trump’s pardoning of Michael Flynn isn’t unusual

Monday

23 Nov 2020
Daniel DePetris

Donald Trump is now the Republican party’s kingmaker

As Donald Trump continues to insist that he actually won the 2020 presidential election, speculation has grown about how the president will spend the next four years. Trump's political future isn’t over, even if he did become the first president to lose re-election since 1992. Trump is a notoriously prickly man who can make three different decisions on one topic in a span of an hour. Not even his closest advisers and family members know what he is going to do after vacating the White House in about two months. Trump is reportedly mulling a 2024 presidential run to avenge a loss he considers fraudulent; one campaign adviser told the Washington Post this weekend that Trump could make an announcement in as soon as three weeks time.

Donald Trump is now the Republican party’s kingmaker

Wednesday

11 Nov 2020
Daniel DePetris

Make America Great Again Again: Prepare for Trump 2024

Imagine Donald Trump acknowledging that he lost the election and placing a formal concession call to Joe Biden. Now imagine the defeated one-term president spending the next four years preparing to retake his old job back. Find it hard to believe? Don’t. Because at the same time Trump is denouncing the election results, complaining about the universe conspiring against him and pushing his campaign lawyers to file lawsuits about bogus voting irregularities, the 45th president is also talking about running again in 2024. If this was another one of those ridiculous stories for the rumour mill, people would have forgotten about it after 24 hours. But more and more news outlets, including Axios, NBC News and the New York Times, are talking to people who think a 2024 Trump campaign is a possibility.

Make America Great Again Again: Prepare for Trump 2024

Tuesday

10 Nov 2020
Daniel DePetris

Who cares whether Trump accepts that Biden won?

Three days after statisticians called the 2020 US presidential election for Joe Biden, the loser of that contest continues to sulk in the White House like a spoiled eight-year-old kid and is brooding about the result. Trump’s campaign may still be holding meetings and convincing themselves that the race isn’t over – Trump’s political advisers are reportedly discussing a series of television ads and rallies to sow doubt about Biden’s victory – but back on planet earth, the math is the math: whether or not you liked the result, Biden will be the 46th president of the United States. Even some of Trump’s own family members, including his wife, Melania, are trying to talk sense into him. One reason American democracy is held in such esteem is because the US government continues to operate, regardless of which candidate wins or loses an election.

Who cares whether Trump accepts that Biden won?

Friday

6 Nov 2020
Daniel DePetris

Joe Biden should prepare for gridlock

The Democratic Party was anticipating a blue wave this fall, a victory of such magnitude that Republicans would be spending the next two years fighting amongst themselves rather than controlling the purse strings. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, was so confident of this blue wave scenario that she sent a memo to her Democratic colleagues outlining a list of bold policy proposals that unified Democratic government in Washington could achieve in the first several months. At the top of that list: a new coronavirus relief package and defending – and building on – the Affordable Care Act. Pelosi, however, got ahead of her skis. Democrats may very well win the presidency – as of writing, Joe Biden is closing the gap in Georgia and Pennsylvania and holding on to his vote lead in Arizona.

Joe Biden should prepare for gridlock

Wednesday

4 Nov 2020
Daniel DePetris

America gets the divided election result it deserves

The 2020 US presidential race was an ugly, ferocious dogfight. So it only makes sense for the contest to end the same way it started. Americans went to bed unsure who their next president was going to be. At the time of writing, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are neck-and-neck (223-212 in favour of Biden in the Electoral College tally) in most of the battleground states that will determine who emerges victorious and who will be forced into an early retirement. Trump did what he needed to do in Florida, winning by approximately three points in the perennial swing-state to keep his re-election prospects alive. It appears Trump will also pull out a win in North Carolina after trailing for most of the night. Ohio looked dicey for the Trump campaign until approximately 10pm EST (3am GMT), when the vote started filling in for the president.

America gets the divided election result it deserves

Tuesday

3 Nov 2020
Daniel DePetris

Lame-duck Trump has plenty of time to cause trouble

Making political predictions can be about as foolhardy as walking into a Las Vegas casino and predicting success at the blackjack table – better to pipe down, be humble, and watch how the action develops. But if there is one thing we can bet our money on, it’s that a defeated Donald Trump (assuming, of course, he will be defeated tonight) will still have quite a lot of time to enact policies and make history before vacating the Oval Office. There is a popular assumption that U.S. presidents who will return to normal life in late January are lame-ducks twiddling their thumbs for the remainder of their terms. History, however, demonstrates how wrong that assumption is. Free from electoral considerations and only two months away from retirement, presidents on their way out the door will very often use the remainder of their tenures to notch legacy-defining wins, protect their friends and associates, and push through reforms that on a normal day would produce howls from Congress and the public.

Lame-duck Trump has plenty of time to cause trouble

Monday

2 Nov 2020
Daniel DePetris

Don’t bank on a Biden landslide

It’s easy to turn on CNN or take a quick glimpse at the polls and just assume that Donald Trump is destined to become the first one-term president in nearly three decades. Some of my proud Democrat friends keep insisting to me that the former vice president Joe Biden will humiliate Trump with a margin of victory past presidential aspirants only dreamt of. Democratic strategists are confident of regime change in Washington DC — so confident, in fact, that they are starting to discuss possible candidates for key posts in a future Biden administration. You can’t blame them for believing the Trump era is irrepressibly doomed. Public surveys show Trump barely holding water in states that are traditionally considered strongholds for the Republican party.

Don’t bank on a Biden landslide

Wednesday

28 Oct 2020
Daniel DePetris

Obama’s bid to make Trump a one-term president

With less than a week to go before Americans cast their ballots at polling places across the country, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are leaving it all on the field. Biden spent Tuesday in Georgia, a traditionally Republican state the former vice president nevertheless has a chance of swiping on election day. Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, was making a stop in the swing-state of North Carolina. Trump held another big rally in Wisconsin where he did his usual rant about how fake the news is, how mentally 'shot' Biden has become, and how strong the military now is thanks to his leadership. Barack Obama was meanwhile on the other side of the country in sunny Orlando, Florida, scorching Trump for being a feckless carnival barker who is as divisive to American democracy as he is clueless about the job.

Obama’s bid to make Trump a one-term president

Friday

23 Oct 2020
Daniel DePetris

Joe Biden’s one job in the presidential debate

Former Vice President Joe Biden had one job in tonight’s final presidential debate: tread water. Don't get rattled. If President Trump talks about your son, Hunter, as if he were an influence peddler or a Chinese Communist Party crony, take a breath and don’t take the bait. And definitely don’t get so angry that you provide Trump an opening to expand upon the attacks. For the most part, the long-time politician got the job done. Of course, just because Biden saved himself from getting goaded into a long discussion about his son’s alleged business dealings doesn’t mean Trump wouldn’t return to the subject on a few occasions during the 90-minute debate. Trump continues to hope that Hunter Biden’s supposed business dealings will do what Hilary Clinton’s email problem did in 2016: tarnish the opponent’s credibility and reputation.

Joe Biden’s one job in the presidential debate

Wednesday

21 Oct 2020
Daniel DePetris

Can Trump the peacemaker convince US voters?

President Donald Trump has been running from rally to rally like a headless chicken ready to cluck about his accomplishments. The only issue is there aren’t many accomplishments for him to run on. His campaign advisers are begging him to focus all his energy on the prospects of an economic comeback in the last two weeks of the campaign. The candidate, however, doesn’t take orders from his staffers very well. Rather than making his case for another four years in the White House, Trump is using this critical stretch of time calling the nation’s most respected doctor an 'idiot' and a 'disaster', unconcerned about the notion that assaulting Anthony Fauci’s character will further bleed his weak support among swing-state independents.

Can Trump the peacemaker convince US voters?

Sunday

18 Oct 2020
Daniel DePetris

Even Trump’s friends are turning against him

If there is one word that best describes Senate Republicans in the age of Donald Trump, it’s “docile.” With the exception of a few independent-minded lawmakers who have been able to make a name for themselves or who have spent decades cultivating their own brand, the Senate GOP conference has played the roll of cannon fodder–dewey-eyed shock troops at the front waiting for instructions from the General residing on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. It doesn’t matter what Trump says or what controversy he creates for himself: the GOP will defend him until the last man standing. Yet a little more than two weeks from Election Day, this dynamic is starting to change. All of a sudden, the same legislators who believed their political careers were tied to how closely they hugged Trump are now realising they need to create distance between themselves and an unpopular incumbent.

Even Trump’s friends are turning against him

Friday

16 Oct 2020
Daniel DePetris

Trump won’t admit it, but he’s in trouble

President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden were supposed to debate in front of the American public last night. The debate, however, was called off after Trump refused to do it via video link. So instead, Americans were treated to two different town-halls on two different U.S. television networks. While Trump was talking about conspiracy theories on NBC, Biden was talking policy on ABC. The former was part-absurd, part-therapy session. The latter was boring and frankly what you would think a typical presidential town-hall would look like. Trump won’t admit it, but he’s in trouble. As the coronavirus count gets higher, his poll numbers are getting lower and his electoral possibilities are getting grimmer.

Trump won’t admit it, but he’s in trouble

Wednesday

14 Oct 2020
Daniel DePetris

Donald Trump is running out of time

Donald Trump was bewildered, frustrated, and downright exasperated. Addressing a crowd of red-hatted, hard-core MAGA supporters last night in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the president wondered aloud how it was even possible he could be defeated by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. 'I’m running against the single worst candidate in the history of presidential politics, and you know what that does?' Mr Trump surmised. 'That puts more pressure on me. Can you imagine if you lose to a guy like this? It’s unbelievable.' Unfortunately for Trump, losing to the former vice president is not only believable but exceedingly likely based on the direction the polls are going. Trump is on the defensive in nearly every battleground state he won four years ago, a reality that is stretching his campaign resources and his patience.

Donald Trump is running out of time

Thursday

8 Oct 2020
Daniel DePetris

What was missing from the vice presidential debate

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris is a former prosecutor. Vice President Mike Pence is a career politician. The debate between them was always going to be less lively and dramatic than the name-calling last week between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. But it wouldn’t be a snooze-fest – nothing in this election cycle is. Harris began the night with an impactful opening pitch: the Trump-Pence administration is a dumpster-fire sitting on a wrecked economy, a mountain of lies, and the worst pandemic in a century. Trump’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been the ‘greatest failure of any presidential administration’ in history. President Trump was informed early on about the deadly attributes and high contagiousness of the coronavirus, yet sat on the information and did nothing about it.

What was missing from the vice presidential debate

Wednesday

7 Oct 2020
Daniel DePetris

The US election is Joe Biden’s to lose

Donald Trump is back at the White House after a scary three-day stay at the Walter Reed medical complex. For the President, that’s the good news. The bad news: his bout with the coronavirus hasn’t won him any sympathy points from the electorate. In fact, his numbers have only gotten worse. CNN’s latest national survey saw Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden expand his lead to 15 percentage points. If the polling is any indication, Trump is four weeks away from being beaten like a drum a-la Jimmy Carter in 1980. For Biden, the last nine months have been a wild ride. There was a time not too long ago when the former vice president and three-time presidential candidate was a human seagull with a broken wing, struggling to take off.

The US election is Joe Biden’s to lose

Sunday

4 Oct 2020
Daniel DePetris

Biden can smell victory in his battle against Trump

'How is the president feeling?' shouldn’t be a difficult question to answer. And yet over the last 24 hours, nobody could say with any clarity that Donald Trump was ill, on the mend, or perfectly fine. Even reporters with impeccable sources in the White House bubble were left flabbergasted as completely contradictory accounts emerged from multiple sources. Minutes after the president’s doctors emerged from the Walter Reed medical complex to brief reporters about a president coming back from the coronavirus strong and in good spirits, the White House chief of staff told the press that Trump’s condition was quite serious. Trump, who can’t stand when subordinates are fouling up the message, decided to take matters into is own hands by releasing a meandering short video from inside the hospital: 'I came here, wasn’t feeling so well.

Biden can smell victory in his battle against Trump

Saturday

3 Oct 2020
Daniel DePetris

Covid-19 is Trump’s hardest fight yet

Donald Trump has confronted a long list of adversaries and weathered an even longer list of scandals in his nearly four years as President of the United States.  In 2017, there was FBI director James Comey, special counsel Robert Mueller, and the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville. In 2018, there was the felony convictions of Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, and his long-time fixer Michael Cohen — the latter for arranging hush money payments to a porn star on behalf of Trump. In 2019 and the beginning of 2020, impeachment dominated Trump’s state of mind. He would go on to survive all of them.This year's Covid-19 crisis, however, has proven to be his strongest opponent yet. As of now, Trump has yet to find an antidote for it.

Covid-19 is Trump’s hardest fight yet

Wednesday

30 Sep 2020
Daniel DePetris

Trump’s debate clash with Biden was a national embarrassment

Last night's presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden started amicably enough. Both men strolled on stage, Trump wearing a red and blue striped tie, ready to battle. Joseph 'Average Joe' Biden greeted the president with a 'How are you, man?' From that point on, the debate quickly degenerated into one of the most despicable, embarrassing clown acts Americans have ever seen on national television. It took about 20 minutes before Biden, visibly exasperated by Trump’s badgering and interrupting, pleaded with his opponent across the debate hall to 'please shut up.' When the whole thing wrapped up about 90 minutes later, moderator Chris Wallace had a sore throat, newscasters were aghast, and the tens millions of Americans who spent their night watching likely went to bed saddened and aggrieved.

Trump’s debate clash with Biden was a national embarrassment

Monday

28 Sep 2020
Daniel DePetris

Trump’s tax leak won’t turn the election

Donald Trump has a lot to worry about these days. The man who is deathly afraid of being 'a loser' could be weeks away from losing in the most visible way to Joe Biden, a competitor Trump has blatantly suggested may be taking performance-enhancing drugs to stay awake on the campaign trail.  He is facing an ongoing coronavirus crisis in the United States which passed the 200,000 fatality mark last week. The polls aren’t looking great for the President either; the Washington Post released a survey on Sunday showing Biden up 10-points nationally. The last thing Trump needed was another public relations fire to put out. But then the New York Times published a months-long investigation on Trump’s history of dodging taxes.

Trump’s tax leak won’t turn the election

Wednesday

29 Jul 2020
Daniel DePetris

Has the EU finally found its spine when it comes to China?

There is no point putting lipstick on a pig: the relationship between the United States and China, two powers holding a combined 40 per cent of the world’s GDP, is at its most depressing and alarming since the establishment of their diplomatic relations in 1979. As soon as you think bilateral ties couldn’t get any worse, Washington and Beijing prove us wrong by closing consulates and harassing each other’s diplomats. This puts the European Union, that slow, cumbersome bureaucratic machine, in a tricky position. On the one hand, Europe doesn’t want to rock the boat with either the US or China. Yet on the other, EU officials and European heads-of-state are beginning to realise that the US-China grudgematch is forcing them to do the one thing they want to avoid: pick sides.

Has the EU finally found its spine when it comes to China?

Monday

27 Jul 2020
Daniel DePetris

Trump’s suburban nightmare

Public opinion polls haven’t been particularly positive for President Trump or his Republican allies on Capitol Hill. This past weekend was no better. CNN’s most recent poll has presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leading Trump in Florida by 5 percentage points, Arizona by 4, and Michigan by 12. The Associated Press piled on the bad news with an even more dismal showing for the president: only 32 per cent of Americans support Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. And eight in ten Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. America’s presidential election contests are decided in a few swing states like Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. But it’s in the suburbs of those states where elections are won or lost.

Trump’s suburban nightmare

Thursday

23 Jul 2020
Daniel DePetris

Is Trump toning himself down for re-election?

The last time a U.S. President lost re-election, the year was 1992 and the victim was George H.W. Bush. President Donald Trump is currently doing everything in his power to make sure he isn’t the first incumbent in 28 years to vacate the White House after a single, four-year term; if that means ditching the improvisation and unconventionality he wears on his lapel every day, so be it. That Trump gave two consecutive press conferences, on 21 and 22 July, about the coronavirus now rampaging the American South and West is not surprising. You may remember this past April, when Trump and his advisers thought it would be a good idea for the President to give daily news briefings about the virus with vice president Mike Pence, Dr.

Is Trump toning himself down for re-election?

Thursday

9 Jul 2020
Daniel DePetris

Kanye for president? Ye, he can

Kanye West is a great artist. But would he make a great president? Kanye and Trump are certainly similar. They both love publicity and are master self-promoters. So for Kanye, what better way to market oneself than running for the Oval Office? This isn’t the first time the hip-hop mogul thought about throwing his hat in American politics. Kanye said he would be a presidential candidate during the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. He said it again when he won the Video Vanguard Award. He dabbled in the prospect in 2018, when he told a radio host that his platform would be part-Trump, part-Bernie Sanders. Kanye even briefly talked about a future presidential run at the White House, when he told Trump that he didn’t have to worry about him as a potential competitor.

Kanye for president? Ye, he can

Thursday

18 Jun 2020
Daniel DePetris

Will Trump’s ‘Great American Comeback’ work?

There’s no spinning it: if the U.S. presidential election were held today, it is highly unlikely Donald Trump would win a second term. And that's saying nothing of the damning revelations emerging from John Bolton's book about his former boss, whom he says 'remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House'. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll published just this week has former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden up 13 points nationally, with 57 per cent of Americans surveyed disapproving of Trump’s performance in office. Trump, who is notoriously obsessive about polling and typically dismisses any survey that shows him losing to Biden, will likely lash out at the Reuters study as fake news or unrepresentative of what is actually going on.

Will Trump’s ‘Great American Comeback’ work?
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