Standing in the glittery gold and pink marbled lobby of his Manhattan Trump Tower late Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump spoke to America in unplanned remarks that may have been as historic as any formal address any president ever gave in the White House Oval Office.
Speaking boldly and with unmistakable clarity, Trump left no doubt about what he was really thinking. But what made his message so historic was that what he was thinking turned out to be reprehensible. So unacceptable, indeed, that his off-the-cuff rant may someday be viewed as the beginning of the premature end of the Trump presidency.
What was bugging Trump on Tuesday turned out to be the same thing that had been bugging him Saturday. As you may remember, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and alt-right racists marched in Charlottesville, Va., to oppose the removal of a statue of the Confederacy's Gen. Robert E. Lee. They clashed with others protesting their racism, resulting in bashing, bloodshed, injury and one death when a Nazi wannabe drove a car into a crowd. And Trump's reaction, typically, was to see no difference between those on the right _ whom he didn't even name _ and those on the left, who were just protesting these white supremacists.
Trump's initial comments Saturday set off howls of protests, including from his own Republican Party. It got so bad that, on Monday, Trump yielded to the GOP pressure and actually condemned by name the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.
But Trump's feigned contrition lasted just one day. On Tuesday, while his top advisers watched from the sidelines, expecting The Boss would be only making infrastructure news, Trump erupted yet again when a reporter asked about Charlottesville.
Trump spewed, ranted and raged that the KKK, neo-Nazis, alt-right and white supremacists were being mistreated, misunderstood and scapegoated by the "fake" news media. "There is blame on both sides" _ and good people on both sides, Trump claimed.
It's a race-politics game Trump has long played. In the 2016 Louisiana Republican presidential primary, Trump refused to deplore former KKK grand wizard David Duke or reject his endorsement, pretending he didn't even know who Duke was. Trump just wanted to make sure he got the white racist vote. This week, Duke and other alt-right racists again tweeted their thanks to The Donald for his even-handed treatment of bigots and those who protest them.
Trump's controversial outbursts helped get him elected but have failed him since inauguration. His presidency has been disastrously bullied by his own pulpit.
Most importantly, he has ignited a firestorm within what is only nominally his own Republican Party. GOP leaders, who have mainly been trying to remain standing while their spines turned to jelly, finally exploded in rage after their president returned to equating the KKK, neo-Nazis and the alt-right with those who have the guts to protests such racists. By Wednesday afternoon, scores of Republicans had rebuked their president.
House Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted: "We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted: "Mr. President, you can't allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame."
Now this from the GOP business elites: Trump was forced to disband a White House advisory panel of business execs after eight of them (mostly Republicans) quit to protest Trump's Charlottesville blurtations.
For half a year, the Grand Old Party _ rewarded with control of the White House, Senate and House _ has proven itself an unmitigated failure at governance. The GOP hasn't enacted a single major policy accomplishment. Trump, meanwhile, has been bizarre to fellow Republicans _ as when he praised the House health bill one day, then called it "mean" the next and then finally called Senate Republicans inept because they wouldn't pass that "mean" House bill.
But now _ for the first time _ the GOP's timid leaders, prodded by their disgusted rank-and-file, may be showing signs of rebelling against the soulless, self-centered president who cannot even bring himself to condemn the Klan and neo-Nazis _ and mean it!
Can a presidential ouster happen short of impeachment and conviction? Constitutionally, yes, but practically, no. The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet can recommend a president be removed from office if he or she is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." Then two-thirds of the Senate and House can confirm that decision. But that simply isn't going to happen.
If fed-up Republicans join with Democrats, however, they could combine to prevent a president from impacting any policy legislatively. Thus an isolated president could just sit and serve out the remainder of a term with little impact _ which could happen if Trump persists in his tantrums.
A true Republican revolution could be just one more Trump outrage away.
