{"id":63855,"date":"2018-08-09T21:14:57","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T03:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/milbank-down-badly-at-halftime-trump-declares-victory\/"},"modified":"2018-08-10T03:14:57","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T03:14:57","slug":"milbank-down-badly-at-halftime-trump-declares-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/milbank-down-badly-at-halftime-trump-declares-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"MILBANK: Down badly at halftime, Trump declares victory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Trump-boosting Republican member of Congress has been indicted on charges of insider trading \u2013 from the White House, no less. Trump\u2019s former campaign chairman and another former aide are squabbling in court over who is the bigger criminal. And in a closely watched special congressional race in Ohio \u2013 a seat Republicans have held for 35 years in a district Trump won by 11 points and Mitt Romney by 10 \u2013 the Republican was clinging to a 0.9-percentage-point lead Wednesday despite Trump\u2019s intervention and vast sums of Republican dollars.<\/p>\n

In situations such as these, there is only one thing for Trump to do: declare victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongratulations to Troy Balderson on a great win in Ohio,\u201d Trump proclaimed, even though the number of uncounted provisional and absentee ballots meant the race could not be called. Trump further declared it \u201ca great victory\u201d in a \u201cvery special\u201d race.<\/p>\n

Even if Trump\u2019s man wins, it\u2019s hardly a triumph to eke out a victory for a seat that is competitive only because of Trump\u2019s unpopularity. But actual victories are not a prerequisite for Trump\u2019s declarations of victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cTariffs are working big time,\u201d Trump announced this week, though his tariffs have provoked layoffs and plant closures and forced Trump to announce $12 billion in emergency aid to farmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of tariffs, we will be able to start paying down large amounts of the $21 Trillion in debt,\u201d added Trump, though we\u2019re actually celebrating a substantial increase in the debt at the moment.<\/p>\n

After his meeting in Singapore with North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un, Trump summarily declared that there \u201cis no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.\u201d He said Americans can \u201csleep well tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hopefully, they are sleeping so soundly that they slept through the subsequent news that North Korea is still creating fissile materials and expanding its missile program and, as Trump\u2019s national security adviser, John Bolton, admitted, \u201chas not taken the steps we feel are necessary to denuclearize.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his meeting with NATO partners in Brussels, Trump said it \u201cwas an acknowledged triumph\u201d and \u201ceveryone has agreed to substantially up their commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amid the victory celebration, it might have been missed that NATO member nations had not actually offered to increase their defense spending commitment beyond the 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2024 they had already pledged in 2014.<\/p>\n

In May, Trump said that drug companies would in two weeks \u201cannounce voluntary massive drops in prices.\u201d Instead, they announced increases.<\/p>\n

Trump attacked Pfizer for the increase, and when Pfizer agreed to postpone it until the end of the year, Trump declared victory again in July: \u201cGreat news for the American people!\u201d<\/p>\n

A big win! Never mind that prices had not gone down, and, as Bloomberg News reported, at least 10 other drugmakers raised prices while Trump was celebrating the Pfizer win.<\/p>\n

At best, the presidential victory decrees are premature, the equivalent of giving the coach a Gatorade shower when you\u2019re down three touchdowns at halftime.<\/p>\n

\u201cMission accomplished,\u201d Trump declared after his strike on Syria, yet the war continues and the Assad regime endures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe end of the ISIS caliphate is in sight,\u201d Trump proclaimed, though the latest reports indicate a resurgence by the terrorist group in Iraq.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Summit with Russia was a great success,\u201d Trump exulted, as his performance met universal criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig win in the House,\u201d Trump announced during Republicans\u2019 doomed attempt to repeal Obamacare.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps one of the biggest wins,\u201d Trump said July 27, is a \u201c$52 billion\u201d drop in the trade deficit in the second quarter of 2018. As it turned out, it was more like $20 billion, and even that may have been a blip.<\/p>\n

You can see where this is going. If actual achievements are not required for declarations of success, Trump can merely claim that he already made America great again. \u201cOur country\u2019s in great shape. We\u2019re so strong again,\u201d he said at a rally last week. \u201c\u2019Make America Great Again\u2019 will morph into \u2018Keep America Great!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe this isn\u2019t such a bad thing. Facing daunting prospects in 2020, Trump might decide his best move is to declare victory \u2013 and step down.<\/p>\n

Dana Milbank is a columnist for The Washington Post. Reach him at danamilbank@washpost.com<\/a>. \u00a9 2018 The Washington Post Writers Group<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

du1-i-syn A Trump-boosting Republican member of Congress has been indicted on charges of insider trading \u2013 from the White House, no less. Trump\u2019s former campaign chairman and another former aide are squabbling in court over who is the bigger criminal. And in a closely watched special congressional race in Ohio \u2013 a seat Republicans have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-63855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63855"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=63855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}