By Denny Gulino
THE WHITE HOUSE (MaceNews) – President Trump’s quiet departure for Mar a Lago Friday sidestepped the reporters at the ropeline who would have loved to get some answers about his addition to his legal team of Ken Starr, a veteran of the Bill Clinton impeachment effort, and of Alan Dershowitz, the prominent attorney lugging the baggage of his years of Epstein defense – and parties.
Even some conservative supporters of Trump have been questioning the selection of Dershowitz – who vociferously denies the lawsuit accusations related to underage females, – given Trump’s own history of accusations. No matter. The Trump presidency is way past any delicate image enhancement. It’s a for-or-against-the-MAGA-hat kind of presidency without much nuance.
On the eve of the impeachment trial, the ritual preliminaries of which have been replayed countless times on TV screens, perhaps it’s time to begin to reflect on its somber trappings that will be evident starting Tuesday and which may elicit an equally somber mood among viewers.
The details of the TV spectacle promise less than an unbroken diet of Senate courtroom drama, since the TV screens will go dark whenever senators are discussing, arguing or otherwise talking, unlike the C-Span protocol in which every word is relayed, significant or not. While the cameras are on, senators are not allowed to speak, check their smartphones or do anything else than just sit in their seats and listen. The chief justice could place any violators into custody. Really.
Before jumping ahead to next week, the defense attorneys led by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone are presumably putting finishing touches on their arguments why the president should not be found guilty and removed from office, due on Capitol Hill Saturday.
Earlier in the day, Trump invited the visiting college football playoff National Championship game champs, the LSU Tigers, to see his desk in the Oval Office.
Of the iconic Resolute Desk, Trump said , “A lot of presidents, some good, some not so good” have worked there. Trump continued, again interjecting a reference to the impeachment trial like those which have been a constant presence in his tweets and extemporaneous remarks all week. “You’ve got a good one now … even though they are trying to impeach the son of a bitch,” were his words in the pool report.
As darkness descends outside the White House press room and a few remaining reporters, camera folks and technicians wait for the signal to go home, after the evening network newscasts are put to bed, others are already on their way to Switzerland, to set up for the Davos talkathon next week at which Trump is expected to show up.
His appearance among the top-tier attendees, other government officials and business executives from around the world who will be gravitating to the cameras at the prestigious and expensive Tuesday-through-Thursday World Economic Forum is apparently intended to demonstrate a certain nonchalance. How far away – literally and in terms of mindspace – are the proceedings that will be underway in the Senate. At least until the next tweet.
Business news channels and streaming video, distributed far beyond the United States, will be packed with interviews and scenes of the comings and goings of those who might as well be wearing jerseys with “We’re the Elite, You’re Not” stenciled on them.
And there will be the American president juxtaposed with scenes from far away Washington, under the Capitol Dome, as he is occasionally beset by reporters asking about Alan Dershowitz, Lev Parnas, Ukraine President Zelensky, Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, Rudy Giuliani, ex National Security Adviser John Bolton, Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and the others among the cast of characters who have become so familiar.
Already the news agenda’s big items from earlier in the week – the signing of the Phase One agreement with China, the final congressional passage of the new Nafta pact with Mexico and Canada, the aftermath of the U.S.-Iran counterstrikes – are slipping to the bottom of the priority list and already dropping off the evening newscasts while the impeachment trial is firmly ensconced at the top where it will stay, perhaps for weeks.
The breakdown of China’s promised purchases of soybeans and pork and fuel, semiconductors, pig iron and some other selected manufactured products along with some financial services products are occupying most of the couple of hundred trade groups based in Washington for whose members the numbers spell out hopes for 2020.
It will be another month before anything starts to happens, after that trade pact becomes effective. Those details, the final product of a year and a half of trade negotiations and invective, may be too boring for the news anchors to spend time on. After all, few viewers are likely to wonder any more if the trade fight was worth it.
Sure, the numbers don’t necessarily add up to $200 billion in China purchases over two years, with so many unresolved discrepancies. China and the U.S have never agreed even on how much each bought from the other in years past. So adjudicating how much gets traded in the future will be a story to play out in the months ahead, long after the Senate verdict. State subsidies for China’s zombie and chronically oversupplying firms? No interruption.
At some point in the months ahead Canada will make the USMCA a ratified and activated trade pact and its provisions will slowly take hold, probably far too slowly for anyone to actually see happening. Check back in a couple of years to assess its effects on the U.S economy, if they are visible by then.
In the markets, then, will there be more positive surprises like 2019, ever higher record levels for stocks? How will that new 20-year Treasury bond work out? Will LIBOR ever truly be replaced? What happened to that SOFR floater? (Quick, Wikipedia.)
Then, for a country which has its attention so heavily invested in the presidency, there will be the coming election to occupy the top spot for news producers. How long will it take for even the Senate verdict to fade from view? The year 2020 is gaining momentum. Let’s get on with it.
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Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com