This week was a mixed bag for Donald Trump. The president was finally able to implement a limited version of his “Muslim ban”, but another campaign pledge – to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act – stalled in the Senate in the face of damning predictions about how many people would lose health insurance if a Republican healthcare bill became law.
Trump then ended the week in one familiar position – under fire for comments about a high-profile woman – and a less familiar one: seeing his staff accused of blackmail.
Last weekend
Trump weighed into the debate over the controversial Senate Republican healthcare bill, saying he wanted the new legislation to have “heart” and confirming that he called the House version “mean”.
“I don’t think they’re that far off,” he told Fox News. “Famous last words, right? But I think we’re going to get there.”
Monday
It soon became clear exactly how far off they were. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its assessment of the Senate bill, predicting that 22 million Americans would lose health insurance over a decade if the plan were passed. Republican senators continued to abandon the bill.
But Trump also secured a partial victory when the supreme court reinstated significant elements of his travel ban aimed at six Muslim-majority countries, pending a full hearing in the autumn. The same day, the president was criticised for not hosting an iftar dinner during Ramadan, breaking a near 20-year tradition. Meanwhile Carter Page, once a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, claimed that in March he set for a series of FBI interviews about ties between Russia and the campaign. Plus, a study found that three quarters of the world had little or no confidence in Trump’s leadership.
Tuesday
The president could hardly disguise his glee when three journalists resigned from CNN after the network was forced to retract a story about a Trump associate and the head of a Russian investment firm. “So they caught Fake News CNN cold, but what about NBC, CBS & ABC?” Trump thundered. “What about the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost? They are all Fake News!”
On the legislative front, however, there was a major setback as Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was forced to postpone a planned vote on the healthcare bill in the face of seemingly insurmountable opposition from both wings of his party. “If we don’t get it done, it’s just going to be something that we’re not going to like,” said the president – who had frequently promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, and replace it with a “more comprehensive” and “less expensive” system, often saying he would do so on his first day in office.
Meanwhile, the Guardian revealed that Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s attorneys, approved plans to push poor and jobless people to donate money to his Christian not-for-profit group, which since 2000 has steered more than $60m to Sekulow, his family and their businesses.
Wednesday
Three polls showed support for the Republican health bill to be under 20% nationally, as Trump assured sceptics “you’re gonna have a great, great surprise, it’s gonna be great” and pushed back against claims that he did not understand the details of the bill, which would repeal major pieces of Obamacare and carve deep cuts into Medicaid, a public health insurance program for low-income Americans. “Some of the Fake News Media likes to say that I am not totally engaged in healthcare,” Trump tweeted. “Wrong, I know the subject well & want victory for US.”
Authorities in two states, meanwhile, said they were looking into Sekulow’s Christian not-for-profit group following the Guardian’s story the day before.
Internationally, the IMF cut its growth forecasts for the US economy while the White House ended the day with an unusual statement suggesting the Assad regime was preparing a chemical weapons attack and warning the Syrian leader “he and his military will pay a heavy price” if they went ahead. Trump was also criticised for commenting on the appearance of a female Irish reporter as he spoke to the Irish taoiseach on the phone in the Oval Office.
Finally, Time magazine asked Trump to remove from his golf clubs fake framed covers discovered by the Washington Post and shown to claim: “TRUMP IS HITTING ON ALL FRONTS … EVEN TV!”
Thursday
Even those somewhat desensitised by more than two years of shock and outrage at comments by Trump found they could still be appalled by the president’s behaviour when he began the day reviving a feud with MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, claiming that when the couple visited his Florida bolthole Mar-a-Lago last winter “she was bleeding badly from a face-lift”. The remarks were roundly condemned as crude and sexist, although White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Melania Trump’s spokeswoman both defended the president. Mrs Trump launched a campaign against cyber-bullying in November.
The Guardian’s attention turned to one of Trump’s other lawyers, Marc Kasowitz, who is advising the president on the Russia investigations, revealing that Kasowitz’s law firm was involved in the sale of a prestigious piece of New York real estate to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law-in-chief, in a deal that could fall under the spotlight of the very same Russia inquiry. The Guardian also revealed that Trump had told White House aides to come up with possible concessions to offer as bargaining chips in his planned first meeting (that we know of!) next week with Vladimir Putin.
Elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal reported that a veteran Republican researcher had sought access to Hillary Clinton emails stolen by Russian hackers in order to help Trump’s campaign. Peter Smith died at age 81 on 14 May, 10 days after the Journal interviewed him.
In the evening, the modified travel ban came into force, barring entry to people from Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Yemen, Syria and Libya unless they had a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States”. David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, called the ban alarming, confusing and inhumane.
Friday
Scarborough and Brzezinski upped the ante by accusing White House staff of blackmail. Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, claimed several top White House staffers had warned him about an unflattering article about the couple that was due to be published in the National Enquirer and told him that Trump could arrange for the story to be pulled – if the MSNBC host called the president to apologize for negative coverage of the administration. Trump alleged that Scarborough phoned him: “He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no!” the president wrote on Twitter. The supermarket tabloid said: “We have no knowledge of any discussions between the White House and Joe and Mika about our story, and absolutely no involvement in those discussions.”
This one may not rest there.
