By Denny Gulino
THE WHITE HOUSE (MaceNews) – President Trump Monday reached for legacy-building opportunity in the Middle East as threats – among them the market-stifling corona virus, John Bolton, the Taliban and others – seemed to be tangible just beyond the extra-secure White House gates.
As the temperature began to fall and overcast replaced sunshine, the late afternoon White House scene seemed one increasingly tentative, as if loose ends were all over the place, a state of affairs that seems to recur at frequent intervals.
The extra security was for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now a resident of Blair House across the street. He and his political opponent Benny Gantz, who was separately welcomed to the Executive Mansion, are both waiting for the noontime Tuesday unveiling of the administration’s Mideast peace plan that has been in development almost since Inauguration Day.
One of the plan’s architects, son-in-law Jared Kushner, has switched his day-to-day to the reelection campaign, the current top priority project. Another, Trump’s special Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, is long gone after putting in two-years of effort. The plan itself was once ready for release after Israel’s September election, a point in time that became irrelevant in the ensuing electoral confusion.
With Netanyahu next to him after his late-morning arrival, Trump acknowledged he could no longer wait to find out who will be the next Israeli president.
“I’ve been waiting now — this is my third election,” Trump said. “We keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting. So, let’s go. What kind of a system is that? That’s a very strange system you have over there.”
Trump also acknowledged that whether the plan ultimately survives an already-delivered Palestinian rejection is a tossup even though he thinks it is, he said, too generous.
Mr. President, did you speak to the Palestinians? he was asked.
“It’s something they should want,” Trump answered. “They probably won’t want it initially, but I think in the end they will. I think in the end, they’re going to want it. It’s very good for them. In fact, it’s overly good to them.”
In Afghanistan the Taliban, another recalcitrant “partner” in a peace process, insisted they had shot down a U.S. military plane, killing several Americans. The U.S. military said the plane was not shot down but offered hardly any details, like who and how many were on board.
The Taliban claimed several of the victims were CIA personnel. The Taliban killing of an American in September brought peace talks to a halt for a time.
In day seven of Trump’s Senate trial, his defenders plodded through their original plan, arguments that the president did nothing wrong. It took until after dark, when noted constitutional expert Alan Dershowitz to deal with what everyone was actually thinking about, the cloud that appeared on the pages of The New York Times Sunday night in the shape of the former national security adviser.
Bolton said, according to a draft of a book he’s reported to be writing, Trump was explicit that he was holding up Ukraine aid until he got that investigation of the Bidens and of Democrats’ alleged interference in the last election, not to prod Ukraine to root out corruption.
Dershowitz went so far as to say that even if what Bolton supposedly alleges is true, it’s irrelevant, because withholding military aid from an embattled Ukraine is not an impeachable offense.
It had not taken long for President Trump to deny the reported Boltom assertion, in tweets and in remarks while he was hosting Netanyahu. So now will four Republicans necessary to join Democrats vote after all to call for Bolton testimony? There was no immediate answer though a couple senators indicated they were rethinking whether witness testimony is called for.
There was a view published of two experts that the presiding chief justice could on his own call for Bolton to show up, as Boltoon already said he is willing to do under subpoena. They wrote that any such call would take a two-thirds Senate majority to block. In other words, it couldn’t be blocked.
The assembled Senate heard from the Senate chaplain opening the day’s session with a fervent prayer, that Kobe Bryant’s death was a reminder that, “We all have a limited time on earth to leave the world better than we found it.”
Chaplain Barry Black also disclosed that it was a special day for Chief Justice John Roberts. “Thank you for giving our chief justice another birthday,” his 65th, he said.
So now what? Who is to be believed, President Trump or John Bolton? Is there going to be no end of disclosures even after the Senate votes its verdict?
Because every day is a new beginning at the White House, sort of what Jack Kerouac might have had in mind when he wrote, “The whole mad swirl of everything that was to come began then.”
Given the day’s U.S. stock markets results perhaps some investors were wishing there could have been the kind of extension of the Lunar New Year’s pause in trading, until Feb. 2, that China’s exchanges are enjoying. The 1.57% losses for the Dow and S&P and the 1.89% drop for the Nasdaq weren’t quite matched by the small-business Russell, down 1.1%.
Meanwhile, the 10-year treasury yield momentarily slipped below 1.6% before rebounding to 1.61%. With the Federal Open Market Committee due to hand down its latest policy decision Wednesday afternoon, it was well to remember how far that is below the top of the range for overnight fed funds, 1.75%.
The market reverses happened despite the fact the day’s Centers for Disease Control briefing was somewhat reassuring, that the infectiousness of the corona virus, while very serious within a dense population, appears to be far less than for measles and that so far, the disease does not seem to be spreading rapidly in the U.S. The World Health Organization, meanwhile, was less reassuring, saying it made a mistake in not upgrading the world alert last week.
And the news that several million people fled Wuhan before transportation was shut down was unsettling. The Wall Street Journal reported that most of the 1,000 Americans in Wuhan are stuck there for the time being. Some of them can’t even get to the airport with the AFP news service pictures of eight-lane highways totally vacant. The single State Department charter on its way there will be mostly filled with U.S. government evacuees.
Nevertheless, Warren Buffett once had advice for investors who get caught up in the darkness of the moment.: “An investor will succeed by coupling good business judgment with an ability to insulate his thoughts and behavior from the super-contagious emotions that swirl about the marketplace.”
So insulate, insulate.
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This story was updated at 9:45 p.m. ET with Dershowitz remarks
Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com
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Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com