When America Doesn’t Have a President

Although it should have probably faded from the rapid-fire news cycle by now, the New York Times’ interview with Bob Corker keeps poking its head up. This week both Michael Gerson and Robert Kagan had dueling op-eds referencing Corker’s statements.

This past Sunday, Senator Corker said — in just barely uncertain terms — that Donald Trump was unfit for the presidency:

[Trump]would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation. […] I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him.

Corker’s criticism comes at a time when most of the other Republicans in Congress have been reluctant to publicly attack the President. Aside from a few tweets from Senator Ben Sasse when he gets feisty and a brief statement from John McCain, the Senate has largely remained silent. In the House, Paul Ryan has been a more-than-willing capitulant to most of Trump’s agenda.

For those reasons, you might be tempted to give Corker some amount of credit for being so bold, but almost everyone knows that his newfound sense of freedom is a result of one thing and one thing only: His decision to retire from the Senate. If Corker had to face reelection — either in 2018 or in 2020 — it’s highly unlikely he’d be so bold.

Still, Corker’s interview is important because it inevitably led to reporters asking other Senators what they thought about his comments, on the record or off the record. It turns out that one of the worst kept secrets in Washington is that most of the Senate feels exactly the same way as Corker. Republican senators — both moderate and conservative — have all privately confided to one another and to reporters that they suspect Trump is not fit to serve (sometimes these conversations accidentally get recorded). Gabriel Sherman confirmed this in a piece that went up only a few days after the Corker interview:

Even before Corker’s remarks, some West Wing advisers were worried that Trump’s behavior could cause the Cabinet to take extraordinary Constitutional measures to remove him from office. Several months ago, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversation, former chief strategist Steve Bannon told Trump that the risk to his presidency wasn’t impeachment, but the 25th Amendment — the provision by which a majority of the Cabinet can vote to remove the president. When Bannon mentioned the 25th Amendment, Trump said, “What’s that?” According to a source, Bannon has told people he thinks Trump has only a 30 percent chance of making it the full term.

While it’s always nice to hear that some Republicans share the same concerns as a majority of Americans, it sure would be nice if they actually did something about it, or maybe had the courage to voice those concerns in public.

Just this week, Donald Trump has relayed (via Twitter) that his government’s mediocre cleanup effort in Puerto Rico cannot continue indefinitely; threatened to suspend the broadcast license of NBC News because he didn’t like their coverage of him; and — with the stroke of his pen — revoked a portion of Obamacare that will increase premiums by 20% and increase the deficit by $53 billion over the next 9 years, for almost no reason at all. This doesn’t factor in his reckless threats towards North Korea or the ongoing investigations into his campaign and its coordination with elements of the Russian government.

In light of this, it’s hard for the average checked-into-reality American to figure out what Republicans are waiting for. Even Steve Bannon — President Trump’s former advisor, now back at Breitbart — intimated to friends that he believes Trump has only a “30% chance” of getting through his first term.

A lot of the hesitancy is centered around politics. It’s hard for any reasonable person — Republican or Democrat — to see how the GOP impeaching or removing their own President could end up going well for them. For this reason, it’s crucial to remember that Trump is unlike any other president we’ve ever had; in many ways, Trump is not the president at all.

The president of the United States simultaneously wears several hats, but he is by-and-large, the head of government and the head of State, as well as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces; it’s extremely odd to think of Trump in those terms. For one, it’s hard to imagine even a general or batallion leader tweeting about the actions of NFL players. In normal circumstances, it should be hard to imagine the president actively tweeting about those actions, with no end in sight.

Just this week during an interview with Sean Hannity, Trump suggested that the stock market’s gains since his inauguration could potentially wipe out the national debt, a claim so laughably false that Hannity is the only person on earth who wouldn’t have corrected him. Similarly, Trump stated that he needed to fix Obamacare because Henry Kissinger (seated next to him at the time) shouldn’t have to deal with increases to his monthly premium. Kissinger is 94 and likely on Medicare, which has essentially nothing to do with Obamacare.

These aren’t really the statements of a president. In fact, they’re more consistent with the performance of a game show host who makes stuff up as he goes along, which is something Trump might actually be good at.

The most ironic thing about Trump is that despite being a reality TV icon, he has the impressive ability to deny the reality that is set out in front of him. For instance, Trump routinely says in interviews and on Twitter that the Republicans just need to get rid of the filibuster and they can repeal Obamacare, despite the fact that any repeal legislation has failed to get to 50 votes, which is all the GOP needs for reconciliation. Just this week Trump said Senator Corker voted for the Iran bill, an objectively false claim.

I’ll give one final example. When President George W. Bush was interviewed about the Iraq War after it became clear that Saddam Hussein did not possess nuclear weapons, President Bush made a few varying statements: He said that he felt “sick” about the intelligence failures in Iraq and wished that the intelligence had been different. In other words, Bush acknowledged the failures of his own government and made a case for his own governing philosophy (he said he cannot go back and re-litigate his decision to invade). Try to imagine Trump in the same situation.

The intelligence failure in Iraq was massive. Acknowledging that requires nuance and self-reflection, two qualities that Trump has yet to manifest. If Trump had been sitting for the same interview, there would be no acknowledgement of the intelligence failure; no acknowledgement that the war had been a mishandled; and Trump would have uttered lie after lie to support his position. (“We had the best intelligence.” “Many, many people have told me the war has been a total success, more successful than they ever imagined.”)

What would you call a man who refuses to acknowledge failure, which in turn means he is unable to learn from his mistakes? What would you call a man who creates his own reality, and denies the one that is set out in front of him? You’d call him a lot of things: Liar; charlatan; game show host, etc., but it’d be hard to accept that he was THE President.

The problem is that Trump is very much THE president. But he certainly doesn’t act like A president. So this is where we are: We don’t really have a president leading the country; we have Trump.

The #NotMyPresident movement that sprung up right around the inauguration was obviously hyperbolic and emotional, but they were still onto something. The current man who occupies the White House doesn’t act like the head of State that he is. He has no interest in actual governmental policy. Trump is more than someone liberals disagree with (like Bush), he is not really the president at all.

Congressional Republicans obviously have hesitations about removing a president in such a dramatic fashion. There is an argument that the voters got us into this mess and the voters should be the ones to bail us out. Two impeachment proceedings in 20 years — as many in all the years previous, if you count Nixon — is pretty alarming.

But this logic really only applies if you consider Trump to be a president of the traditional variety. In private, Republicans in government will concede that Trump is a pretty unique danger to the United States. Unique problems call for unique solutions. Invoking the 25th Amendment doesn’t seem like it’s very democratic, but it’s a process that is allowed for within our system.

But most importantly: It gets a lot easier to support such an action when you separate Trump the man from the office of the Presidency. The less Trump seems like a president, the easier it is to envision the responsible members of the government taking action to protect their country from his impulses.

So keep up the #NotMyPresident slogan. We’re on the right track. Remember to disrespect Trump every chance you get. Do not take him seriously. Treat him as the reality TV show host that he is. This won’t remove any of his power, mind you, but it does make the pill go down easier when Congress and/or the Cabinet are eventually forced to swallow it.