WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump enters the final days of his presidency isolated and shunned by former allies and members of his own party, as he faces a second impeachment and mounting resignations after his supporters launched an attack on the Capitol Building. country in an effort to halt the peaceful transfer of power.
Isolated from the social media channels that have been the lifeblood of his presidency, Trump, however, will try to take offense in the past 10 days, with no plans to resign.
Instead, Trump is planning to attack companies that have now denied him their megaphones on Twitter and Facebook. And advisers hope he will spend his last days trying to flaunt his political achievements, starting with a trip to Alamo, Texas, on Tuesday to highlight his government’s efforts to curb illegal immigration and the construction of border walls.
Trump’s decision to travel to Alamo – named after the San Antonio mission, where a small group of Texans fighting for independence from the Mexican government was defeated after a 13-day siege – served as a symbol of his challenge as he faces the most volatile end of any presidency in modern history.
Trump took no responsibility for his role in inciting Wednesday’s violence amid a rebellion by members of his own party and continued efforts to remove him from office. A second Republican senator, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, asked Trump to resign on Sunday after Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told Anchorage Daily News: “I want him to leave.”
It was an impressive turnaround for a man who had already been considered the leading candidate for his party’s nomination in 2024 and could now be stripped of his ability to run for a second term.
A new poll ABC News / Ipsos launched on Sunday, found that more than half of Americans – 56% – believe Trump should be removed from office before his term ends. And two-thirds of respondents – 67% – said he deserves a “good” or “big” blame for last week’s riots.
Trump gave a speech to his supporters in which he repeatedly said the election was being stolen and urged them to “fight” before they rushed to the Capitol while lawmakers were in the process of certifying Biden’s victories. The violent crowd pushed their way inside, looted the building and sent terrified officials and lawmakers, including the vice president, into hiding. Five, including a Capitol police officer, died.
Shaken by the violent uprising and images of MAGA supporters hunting them in the corridors of the Capitol, House Democrats quickly advanced to a second impeachment this week, although Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said a trial in his chamber would not begin before Biden’s take over.
While people close to Trump said they would certainly prefer that he not become the only president in the country’s history to be impeached for the second time, Jason Miller, a close adviser, noted that Trump’s popularity increased after his first impeachment trial. And he argued that if they move forward, Democrats risk turning public sentiment against them and hampering Biden’s agenda by continuing to focus on Trump, even after he left the White House.
“As I told the president this morning, never underestimate the ability of national democrats to galvanize the republican base behind you,” said Miller, arguing that if “national democrats followed this path, I think it would be a boomerang for them a lot severely.”
“Joe Biden does not want to spend the first 100 days of his presidency having to have a vindictive and exaggerated impeachment trial,” he added.
Concerns continued to bubble over the weekend about how Trump, who thrives on chaos and attention, can respond. Wednesday’s episode cut the heart of the nation’s self-identity – that of a stable and functioning republic – triggering a deep search in Washington and around the world.
But Trump, who was once delighted with how quickly the missives he typed on his smartphone turned out to be “LATEST NEWS” on cable news networks, expressed no regret and was consumed by anger instead. Trump has been described as apoplectic with the loss of his Twitter platform and is now without a way out of releasing that anger.
And he remains surrounded by an ever-decreasing circle of helpers, while he increasingly worries about premature departures and he rages at others, including Pence, who has spent the past four years as his most loyal soldier.
The two men have not spoken since Wednesday, when Pence informed Trump that he would not agree with Trump’s unconstitutional scheme to expel legal voters in his attempt to annul the election. Pence never had that power in the first place, but that didn’t stop Trump from insisting that he had, both publicly and privately, turning Pence into a scapegoat who could be blamed for Trump’s defeat.
Pence’s allies are now furious with the president, whom they believe has not only led him to failure, but has put his life – and the life of his wife, daughter and brother, who were with him on the Capitol – in physical danger. After repeatedly claiming that Pence could unilaterally reverse the election result at Wednesday’s rally, Trump then tweeted that Pence lacked the courage to “do what should have been done to protect our country” while the siege was underway and never worried about checking Pence’s safety, according to a person close to Pence.
Still, there is no indication that Pence is seriously considering moving to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power, as requests continue for him to make that move. The aides, however, did not explicitly rule out, keeping the option on the table in case Trump took other measures that could justify the discussion, according to two people close to him who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because were not allowed to discuss internal planning.
“What I heard from other Republicans is that they are fed up,” said former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a longtime friend and informal adviser. He told ABC’s “This Week” program that he considered Trump’s conduct a cause for impeachment, saying, “If inciting insurrection isn’t, then I really don’t know what it is.”
Christie also criticized Trump for refusing to lower the White House flags to half the team in honor of Brian Sicknick, the Capitol police officer who died of injuries sustained while trying to repel the tumultuous mob, calling him a “national disgrace”.
Hours later, the White House quietly lowered the flags, although Trump has yet to make any public comments on the official’s death.
Meanwhile, Trump has been largely absent from his presidential duties since he lost the election, consumed instead by grassroots conspiracies about mass electoral fraud that his own government rejected, even as the coronavirus pandemic increasingly outside control.
While his legacy will certainly be forever tainted by Wednesday’s violence, advisers are nevertheless pressuring Trump to spend his last days trumpeting his political achievements. The events were discussed to highlight his government’s efforts to strengthen peace in the Middle East, reverse regulations, support jobs and manufacturing and contain China’s power, although such earlier efforts have been rejected.
While it is not clear whether such an action would have any practical impact, Trump is also reflecting on possible executive action while intensifying his war on big technologies after he was banned by Twitter and Facebook and as Amazon moves to close platforms like the conservative Parler favorite amid concerns about potential future violence ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20.
___ Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.