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Analysis
Donald Trump Refuses Crown Help: Is He Going Crazy Now?
Four weeks before the election, the president has become completely unpredictable.
“Then they should eat cake after all,” Marie Antoinette is said to have scoffed when hungry crowds on the streets of Paris asked for bread. It was a stupid saying with fatal consequences. A little later France had its revolution and the queen ended up under the guillotine.
The following tweet won’t cost Donald Trump his head, but it may cost him his office. He is no less stupid and says the following:
“I have instructed my people to suspend negotiations (on the crown aid package) until after the elections, as soon as I win, I will launch a major economic stimulus program.”
The president wants to suspend all aid from the crown until after the elections. In concrete terms, this means that millions of American homes and businesses, from airlines to SMEs, are now on dry land. Families are being driven from their homes and children are starving because there is no more money.
Even political veterans cannot explain what the president was thinking. William Hoagland, a former adviser to the Republican Party, explains in the Wall Street Journal: “It seems almost unthinkable that the negotiations will stall. Both parties may have made mistakes. But I don’t see how that could help Trump politically. “
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Democrats reacted immediately to the presidential tweet. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s actions “an act of desperation.” Meanwhile, presidential candidate Joe Biden stated:
“Make no mistake about it: who is unemployed, whose business has closed, whose child cannot go to school, who has unemployed colleagues, Donald Trump decided today that he does not care about anything.”
The presidential announcement also found misunderstanding within the Republican ranks. Sen. Susan Collins said she is not in favor of postponing the crown’s aid package. Democratic MP Elissa Slotkin added: “I cannot understand why the president wants to suspend the negotiations, unless it is a cynical measure.”
Not just politically, but also economically, Trump’s approach doesn’t make sense. Hours earlier, Jerome Powell, president of the US Federal Reserve, had asked the exact opposite. Not enough money can be injected into the economy right now, Powell said, continuing to explain:
“Too little support leads to a weak economic recovery. This creates unnecessary suffering for homes and businesses. Bankruptcies will increase, economic productivity will weaken, and wages will fall. However, the risk of us doing too much is much lower. “
Stock exchanges also reacted violently. The Dow Jones, for example, lost around 600 points shortly after Trump’s fateful tweet.
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Meanwhile, the president has partially reversed his rash announcement. Still, he has advised Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, to give the election of new federal Judge Amy Barrett a higher priority than a rescue package from the crown.
In addition, the president acts increasingly confused. Although it has been known since the Bob Woodward tapes were published that Trump knows how dangerous the coronavirus is, he has recently been comparing Covid-19 to a harmless flu and advising Americans to fight it.
Meanwhile, chaos reigns in the White House. New cases of corona are known every day. After consultant Kellyanne Conway, consultant Stephen Miller and press spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany have now also been hit.
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Furthermore, the United States must hope that no one wants to start a war against them. Virtually all members of the top military leadership are currently in quarantine.
Since his bizarre appearance on the White House balcony, reminiscent of Mussolini or Kim Jong Un, the question has arisen in earnest: is the president still sane? The answer is left to the specialist in charge. But Thomas Friedman already makes one thing clear in his “New York Times” column: “To re-elect Trump would be an act of collective madness.”