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The Economist

2 Apr 2024

Checks and Balance newsletter: Trump’s erstwhile allies

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/04/02/checks-and-balance-newsletter-trumps-erstwhile-allies

United States | Newsletter

Checks and Balance newsletter: Trump’s erstwhile allies

Apr 2nd 2024

This is the introduction to Checks and Balance, a weekly, subscriber-only newsletter bringing exclusive insight from our correspondents in America.

Sign up for Checks and Balance.

James Bennet, our Lexington columnist, considers the former allies of Donald Trump and their refusal to endorse him

Bill Clinton had his share of scandals, as I wrote in Lexington this week, but he was an effective and popular president, and he left office with an approval rating of 66%, according to Gallup. Barack Obama also left on a high note, at 59%. When the two former presidents appeared with President Joe Biden in New York on March 28th, they were plumping for money for his campaign, but they nevertheless presented a dignified tableau of mutual respect and affection, solidarity and continuity.

What a contrast with Donald Trump. The only other living former Republican president, George W. Bush, has never even endorsed him, let alone embraced him in public. Mr Trump makes a virtue of that, of course. His politics are grounded in the idea he is breaking with everything that came before.

What’s weird, though, is that the discontinuity increasingly applies to his own term in office. His own vice-president, Mike Pence, said in mid-March he will not endorse his former boss—not a huge surprise, since Mr Pence has accused Mr Trump of putting himself “over the constitution”, and yet it is still a shocking repudiation, one without obvious precedent at that level of American politics. It puts Mr Pence on a list of officials who served Mr Trump but have since broken with him that includes an attorney-general (Bill Barr), two defence secretaries (Jim Mattis and Mark Esper), two national security advisers (John Bolton and H.R. McMaster), two chiefs of staff (John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney), a chairman of the joint chiefs of staff (Mark Milley), a secretary of the Navy (Richard Spencer), a secretary of state (Rex Tillerson), a secretary of education (Betsy DeVos), and a secretary of transportation (Elaine Chao), among others.

Maybe some of these people will have a change of heart, though that doesn’t seem probable. (Those Republicans, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, who repudiate their repudiations of Mr Trump tend to still have political ambitions. For that reason Nikki Haley, who was Mr Trump’s most formidable opponent for the Republican nomination, may come around, though she appears to be resisting so far.) Mr Kelly has called Mr Trump “a person with nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our constitution, and our rule of law”. Mr Esper has said “his actions are all about him and not about the country.” Mr Bolton has said he thought foreign leaders saw Mr Trump as “a laughing fool”.

It seems to defy not just conventional politics but even common sense that such condemnation and contempt from formidable people who worked closely with Mr Trump does not matter much. At least not so far.