Times UK Washington writer Katy Balls reports there is no question what target Democrats are putting in their sites should voters deliver them the House, Senate or both in November.
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It’s a big, slow target — and it’s very easy to hit.
“There’s a running conversation in the bars of Washington these days: when to cash out? It’s not about closing the tab. It’s when to call it quits and swap the long hours and (comparatively) low federal pay for the private sector,” said Balls. “Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump’s press secretary, is off to focus on her family (she gave birth in May). But a great many others are looking to the midterm elections and deciding to skip what may well be the misery of a lame-duck presidency.”
According to Balls, Democrats are making known to DC ears how difficult they plan to make that lame duck.
“If the Republicans are mauled on November 3, as is widely expected, it will herald a new world of investigations, subpoenas and an increasingly rattled boss. Already it’s not uncommon to hear MAGA figures talk in the past tense about a presidency that still has over two years to run.”
“It didn’t have to be like this,” says Balls, quoting “one of the party’s prospects” speaking to her anonymously. “But we did Iran and we didn’t do Epstein.”
The result: Trump’s approval rating has ended up tracking Joe Biden’s as the cost of living bites for many Americans.
Seeing the iceberg, Trump’s rats are already hitting the water and swimming, reports Balls. Within the last month, Trump has lost senior White House aides, including his chief liaison to Congress, his pardon attorney and his chief counsel.
“More officials approved by the Senate have left Trump’s second administration than during the first 18 months of any other 21st-century administration,” reports Balls.
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Some of this is standard, she said, because aides rethink their futures in every political cycle. But it’s also an extreme case of trepidation driving people to grab their resumes.
“Prediction markets, Washington’s favorite pastime, give the Democrats a 47 per cent chance of winning both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Even if Republicans lose just the House, the mood in Washington will change overnight. Even Trump openly claims he’ll “be impeached … If we lose the midterms.”
Pfft. Impeachment could be “the least of Trump’s worries,” said Balls, as Democrats mull a series of Capitol Hill investigations into Trump family finances, the funding of Trump’s pet projects and the handing of government contracts to friends and associates.
“The Trump family’s ventures into cryptocurrency and work with sovereign wealth funds are all being discussed by Democrats as potential targets,” said Balls. “One idea going round is to start with the companies and individuals that have made big donations to Trump’s pet projects, such as the White House ballroom, where estimated costs have at least doubled to more than $400 million.”
And all of this is “likely to come against a background of more checks on Trump’s executive powers, which will only darken the president’s mood and could turn ugly,” said Balls. Trump hates losing. When a court stopped him from processing the visas for 75 nations he canceled all of them. When he was told to take his name off the Kennedy center, he threatened to demolish it.
“Expect more such wrath, particularly abroad,” said Balls. “If Democrats really succeed in checking Trump, burying his agenda and bogging him down in a running battle with vexatious investigations, he’ll spend more time on foreign affairs where it is easier to act without congressional approval. If a frustrated president is thwarted in Washington, action in Cuba or even an escalation of the current trade war with Canada may start to have appeal.”
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