by Greg Valliere, AGF Management Ltd.
Insights and Market Perspectives
Author: Greg Valliere
October 8, 2019
FINALLY — SOME BIPARTISAN UNITY: It’s impossible to over-state the reaction in Washington yesterday to President Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds, an impulsive decision that violated two cardinal rules in this city.
FIRST, TRUMP BLINDSIDED VIRTUALLY EVERYONE: His advisers, Congress, and the Defense Department were caught off-guard. Trump is an isolationist who believes it’s time for U.S. troops to come home, an admirable goal, but it’s unclear whether he consulted with anyone, and veteran Republicans were stunned.
SECOND, THE DECISION APPALLED BOTH PARTIES (see this morning’s Wall Street Journal editorial) because of the signal this sends to U.S. adversaries, who already got the message that Trump has no desire to confront Iran. This is a green light to the butcher Bashar Assad and Turkish President Erdogan.
THEN SOMETHING INTRIGUING HAPPENED: Republicans spoke out, harshly, against the president. It wasn’t just the outrage from Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, etc. It was widespread, and the most significant criticism came from Nikki Haley, the highly regarded former United Nations ambassador. Haley, 47, is widely considered a frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination, and her willingness to alienate Trump’s hard-core base spoke volumes.
COULD THIS IMPACT IMPEACHMENT? The Senate is widely assumed to lack enough Republicans to convict Trump after a trial, but that’s not a certain assumption. Assuming all Democrats vote to convict, there would have to be 20 defectors from the 53 Republicans — a tall order, but not an impossible task if Trump continues to blindside his allies.
AS OF NOW, we think there could be four or five GOP defectors, but fresh disclosures will be pivotal. The key, obviously, is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the pro-Trump sycophant who has a re-election fight of his own in Kentucky. Notably, McConnell ripped into Trump yesterday for his abandonment of the Kurds.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR: Will Trump mount a tweet-storm against the Republicans who oppose his decision? He held his fire yesterday, but could he hit back at the GOP and engage in an all-out fight with his own party? Trump’s base outside the Beltway still loves him, but there’s Trump fatigue among Republicans on Capitol Hill. “Pence wouldn’t be this erratic,” a senior GOP staffer told us last night.
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