President Donald Trump is trying to combat new weakness in his Republican base and re-energize his staunchest supporters after months of White House backbiting and legislative failures.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump is trying to combat new weakness in his Republican base and re-energize his staunchest supporters after months of White House backbiting and legislative failures.<\/p>\n
White House officials have been urging the president to fire up his efforts on immigration and other agenda items favoured by conservatives, evangelicals and working-class whites who propelled him to the Oval Office. The president has increased his media-bashing via Twitter and staged rallies hoping to marshal his base to his defense. On Monday, he lashed out at Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal in multiple tweets after the lawmaker expressed support for a special counsel\u2019s probe of Trump\u2019s associates\u2019 links to Russia.<\/p>\n
The surge underscores Trump\u2019s shaky political position not yet seven months into his presidency. Trump has remained deeply unpopular among Democrats, and there are signs that his support among Republicans may be softening. His advisers are aware that a serious slip in support among his core voters could jeopardize hopes for a major, early legislative accomplishment and would certainly increase Republicans\u2019 worries about his re-election prospects.<\/p>\n
Trump on Monday dismissed his own adviser\u2019s statement on his political standing after White House counselor Kellyanne Conway acknowledged that the president\u2019s approval rating among Republicans \u201cneeds to go up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president fired back on Twitter: \u201cThe Trump base is far bigger & stronger than ever before\u201d and \u201cwill never change!\u201d<\/p>\n
But polling doesn\u2019t support Trump\u2019s claim. A recent Quinnipiac University survey showed the president\u2019s approval dipping into negative territory among whites without college degrees \u2014 a key group of supporters for the president. The percentage of Republicans who strongly approve of his performance also fell, with just over half of Republicans saying they strongly approved of Trump. That\u2019s down from the two-thirds of Republicans who strongly approved of the president\u2019s performance in June.<\/p>\n
Just one-third of all Americans approved of his job performance, a new low in the poll.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s struggles already have prompted public speculation about his political future. The White House pushed back angrily Sunday against a New York Times report about Republicans preparing for 2020 presidential race that may not include Trump. The report described Vice President Mike Pence as laying groundwork in case Trump does not run. Pence called the report \u201cdisgraceful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The chatter has been fueled by Trump\u2019s unsuccessful attempt to shepherd health care legislation through Congress, the drip-drip of revelations about his associates\u2019 ties to Russia and the churn of turnover and turmoil at the White House. The president\u2019s advisers have tried to drown out the bad news by promoting policies that conservatives like.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are telling him, \u2018just enact your program,\u2019\u201d Conway said of the president\u2019s base. \u201cDon\u2019t worry about a Congress that isn\u2019t supporting legislation to get big-ticket items done. And don\u2019t worry about all the distractions and diversions and discouragement that others, who are trying to throw logs in your path, are throwing your way.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a televised event at the White House last week, the president endorsed legislation that would dramatically reduce legal immigration to the United States. The bill is unlikely to ever become law, but that mattered little to Trump\u2019s advisers. Their barometer for success was the reaction from conservatives like commentator Ann Coulter, who called the White House\u2019s backing of the controversial legislation \u201cthe best moment of the Trump presidency since the inauguration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Immigration is expected to continue being a focus for Trump in the coming weeks, including a push for the border wall with Mexico. Officials also are weighing a more public role for White House policy adviser Stephen Miller, a favorite of Trump backers whose hard-line immigration policies irritate some congressional Republicans.<\/p>\n
The appointment of White House chief of staff John Kelly also fits into that effort. While Kelly was brought in primarily to bring much-needed discipline to the West Wing, officials note that he, too, is viewed favorably by some Trump loyalists for his early execution of the administration\u2019s immigration policy as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Kelly\u2019s appointment was particularly welcomed by senior strategist Steve Bannon, who has taken on the task of ensuring Trump doesn\u2019t drift from the promises he made to his base during the campaign.<\/p>\n
Several White House officials and Trump advisers insisted on anonymity in order to discuss the ways the administration is moving to shore up support for the president.<\/p>\n
Some of what the president has to offer his core supporters is more show than substance. In late July, Trump announced on Twitter that he was banning transgender people serving in the military \u2014 a policy shift sought by social conservatives \u2014 despite the fact that the Pentagon had no plans in place to enact the change. The policy is now being crafted.<\/p>\n
Alice Stewart, a conservative who worked for the presidential campaigns of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, said Trump is right to make overtures toward his coalition of loyal supporters, even if some of his moves are incomplete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump is trying to combat new weakness in his Republican base and re-energize his staunchest supporters after months of White House backbiting and legislative failures. President Donald Trump is trying to combat new weakness in his Republican base and re-energize his staunchest supporters after months of White House backbiting and legislative failures. White […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1567,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions\/1567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}