STARTING THIS WEEK, NO CHANCE THE PRESIDENT WILL GET ALONG WITH THE DEMOCRATS

….This will be a regular view of our president in 2019

As with Bill Clinton, the current Senate could save Trump from impeachment.

Let’s face it, 2019 and 2020 will be very different for President Trump.

He’s enjoyed a Republican majority in the House and the Senate that advanced his agenda, shielded him from serious investigations and since most of the Republicans have no back-bone, they have largely refused to challenge him on anything.

The on-going government shutdown is a Trump Cherry on top of the congressional Republicans sundae, which has supported the demands of Trump and his voter base.

The GOP Senate decided not to fund a clean bill that would put the requirement on Trump to sign it or veto it over his border wall money.  Instead, the House Republicans voted on a measure to keep the government running that included $5.7 billion for the border wall that Trump repeatedly had said Mexico would pay for.  

House passage of that bill effectively ensured a government shutdown because it would never pass the Senate.

Next week, Trump will no longer have House Republicans to do his bidding.  For the first time, he will experience real divided government.  For any president, the prospect of partisan oversight is nerve-racking, but for the Trump White House, it is especially threatening, given the large number of issues that the Democrats are eager to probe.

There is no chance that Trump will get along with the Democrats, and he will blame all of his problems on not getting his way with Congress on the new Speaker Pelosi.

A key problem will be that no one can trust what Trump decides or says at any given moment.

The Democrats have already received a peek into how negotiations between Trump and Democratic leaders will go.  That is because, when Trump invited Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) to the Oval Office for an on-camera discussion about funding the government, it was pure political theater that de-generated very quickly.  

Then, the next morning, Trump tweeted: “We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall.”

The country will have to watch for this kind of bazaar activity over the next two years.

Trump has warned after the Democrats won the House, that if they launched investigations into him, he’d view that as an act of war.  But that hasn’t affected the Dems who are eager to fire their opening salvos.

There’s no incentive for Democrats to compromise with Trump, especially since you can’t believe a word Trump says.

In this political climate, purity overrides compromise. To be seen working with Trump will not help Democrats going into the 2020 presidential and congressional elections, at least for during the primaries.

But then, what will Trump’s relationship be like with Republicans?

For Trump, there is both good and bad news here.

Many of the GOP lawmakers who challenged him,  have resigned or retired, or they lost their seats.  Those left behind are those who are totally aligned with the president.  

But Trump’s recent decision to unilaterally pull troops out of Syria has angered many Republican lawmakers, including those who have been his close allies on Capitol Hill like Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.). Therefore, lack of having a comprehensive foreign policy will complicate Trump’s relationship with his party.

Mitt Romney, who has been very negative towards the president, his arrival to the Senate as Utah’s freshman senator will be very interesting to watch. His extreme critical opposition to Trump in the past could give him the role of elder statesman, and he could become the party’s real conscience.

However, during Romney’s campaign, he walked back some of his real Trump criticism and dissent, so he could either choose to keep a low profile, or he could become a real pain-in-the-butt for Trump.

I doubt that Trump will change his behavior change with this new Romney dynamic.

The reality is that Trump is lucky it’s the House and not the Senate that flipped in the latest election because he’ll still be able to get his nominees for key administration and judicial posts confirmed.

So he’s assured some victories,  But, just like with Bill Clinton, the Senate can also save Trump from being removed from office if the House moves forward with an impeachment charge

This brings us all to the big outlier.  That of the special counsel, Robert Mueller III’s up-coming report.

If Mueller’s findings directly implicate Trump, the president will need every friend he has in Congress to stand by him.  This could get increasingly difficult for GOP lawmakers.

Mueller will dictate so much of what happens next year, and of course, that includes mostly Trump’s temperament.

Everyone had better buckle up for what’s going to be happening over the next two years.

Copyright G. Ater  2018