President Trump began his 7th week in office by taking a long weekend in his “Winter White House,” a luxury resort in Palm Beach, his presidency reeling from revelations of practically his entire administrative team having met with his Russian sponsors and lying about it, with Congress unimpressed with absurd claims that Federal government ethics laws do not apply to the White House staff.
In Florida, Trump went off on one of his patented unhinged Twitter benders, blaming and deflecting like mad, featuring a misspelling of the word “tap,” (tapp), while really jumping the shark when he accused (!) former President Obama of tapping his phone at Trump Tower during the election campaign, something no president has the power to do.
He also found time for an angry Tweet directed at Arnold Schwarzenegger for leaving Trump’s reality show.
On Sunday FBI Director Comey asked the Justice Department to ignore Trump’s crazy claims about Obama. Press Secretary Sean Spicer refuses to discuss the topic with reporters until someone on Team Trump provides him with the alternate meaning of Trump’s words.
On Monday Trump signed a revised travel ban against 6 Muslim countries this time instead of the 7-nation ban that the courts rejected, letting Iraq off the hook. Hawaii and 7 other states are already challenging it in court.
Tuesday was a day for the Republicans to roll out their much-ballyhooed replacement plan for Obamacare, a confusing mess that will cause 10 million low-income Americans to lose health care coverage, costs workers a lot more, is opposed by the American Medical Association and every hospital, and tries to fix things that are not broken, like Medicaid. Even diehard Republicans fear it will get them gunned down in their next Town Hall meeting, forcing the White House to call the bill “a work in progress.”
They did, however, take time on Wednesday to note International Women’s Day by announcing their intention to defund Planned Parenthood.
Trump spent Tuesday and Wednesday not doing much of anything except telling transparent lies on Twitter and attacking the media for telling the truth, challenging his spokesman Sean Spicer to make up crazier and crazier excuses, and forcing him to berate the press for reporting the exact words Trump says instead of translating them into the more sensible statements the president obviously meant to make.
Oh, and he sharply reduced Child Care Services for military families, since child care providers for working military parents are considered “non-essential personnel” and subject to a hiring freeze.
In Trump Cabinet news, Secretary of State Tillerson recused himself from talks on the Dakota Access Pipeline due to conflicts of interest, and EPA chief Scott Pruitt recused himself from reality due to conflicts with proven science. A rocky week for #45.