It’s been a humbling few days for Donald Trump, even if the American president is reluctant to acknowledge it.
In a series of setbacks, Trump has faced adversity in matters both large and small; two of which he cares about dearly and one that could determine his and his party’s political fate for the remaining two years of his presidential term.
From a flawed attempt to renovate a Washington landmark to questions about his pick to head the justice department to increasingly complicated efforts to end his war in Iran, the president has been handling tricky issues – many of his own making.
Trump’s response has been a familiar one. A first term refrain – that the president makes his own reality with “alternative facts” – is still the operative one. He sticks to beliefs even in the face of contravening evidence.
On Friday, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News host and stalwart Trump ally, moved to drop felony destruction of property charges against former Olympian David Hearn, who federal prosecutors had accused of intentionally damaging the Reflecting Pool near the Washington Monument.
“The damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism,” she wrote in a 20-page court filing announcing her department’s decision. She attributed her decision to prosecute Hearn as the result of misleading information provided by the Department of Interior.
Trump may embrace alternative facts, but the evidence Pirro confronted – what she would have had to defend in court, before a judge and potentially sceptical jury – provided scarce support for her case. And so she abandoned it.
Trump had enthusiastically endorsed the vandalism explanation, however, and he stuck by it. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, he criticised Pirro’s decision to drop the case and did so again in comments from the Oval Office on Monday.
“She folded like an umbrella,” he groused.
If the Reflecting Pool case was an instance of Trump being forced to face legal reality, up on Capitol Hill it was an unpleasant political reality that confronted him.
- ‘She folded like an umbrella’ – Trump slams Jeanine Pirro over Reflecting Pool case
- Trump administration drops Reflecting Pool vandalism charge and admits ‘botched’ repairs
One of Trump’s closest allies – his former criminal defence attorney Todd Blanche – was hitting stiff headwinds in his bid to become attorney general on a permanent basis.
Two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, had joined Democrats to block Blanche’s nomination. They were demanding Blanche provide a letter formally disavowing any attempts to revive the proposed $1.8bn fund to pay individuals who claimed to have been the targets of politicised government prosecution.
Tillis called it a “payout pot for punks” amid concerns it could be used to compensate people prosecuted over the US Capitol riot by Trump’s supporters in 2021.
- Holdout senators back Blanche for AG after he formally withdraws Trump fund plan
In another Saturday Truth Social post, Trump wrote that he would keep Blanche on as acting attorney general and “push hard” to get Congress to pass legislation authorising the fund.
“It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done,” he wrote, suggesting that no matter what the ultimate outcome of Blanche’s nomination, Trump is unlikely to ever let the issue go.
The political maths in the Senate, however, was undeniable. By the next day Blanche had acceded to the senators’ request, releasing two letters that Tillis and Cornyn said satisfied their concerns.
In comments from the White House on Monday, Blanche escaped the scolding that Pirro the prosecutor received. Trump said he “didn’t look at” Blanche’s documents. “I understand there’s been a sign-off, but I don’t know what they agreed,” he said.
While the Reflecting Pool prosecution and the so-called “anti-weaponisation fund” may be topics of intense presidential interest, they barely register as concerns for the larger American public.
That is decidedly not the case with the war with Iran, where Trump is once again accusing Iran of deceit amid another round of on-again, off-again negotiations and threats of overwhelming American military action.
On Monday, after asserting the previous day that he had called off “an attack that would have been the biggest attack since World War II” at the behest of Iranian officials and Arab intermediaries, Trump took to Truth Social to condemn what he said was Iranian duplicity after Iran denied any new direct negotiations.
“They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg’, talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions,” Trump wrote.
If Iranians are misrepresenting the status of talks it wouldn’t be the first time – but it also wouldn’t be the first time Trump has seemingly taken their assurances at face value and heralded a new diplomatic breakthrough.
The latest twists in the war have become a familiar pattern with little progress, as polls continue to show American disapproval of the conflict and concern that Trump is not achieving his war goals.
Those recent public-opinion surveys suggest the war has become a growing drag on the president’s overall popularity. A recent Associated Press poll puts Trump’s approval at 33%, aligned with similar findings by CNN, Quinnipiac and YouGov. That matches or is below Trump’s ratings after the Capitol riot and is above only Richard Nixon – who resigned from office in disgrace – among second-term US presidents in modern American history.
Trump, however, has repeatedly dismissed surveys suggesting his historic unpopularity.
“My REAL Polling Numbers, not those made up by the Fake News Media, are the best they have ever been,” he posted to Truth Social on Monday.
In three months, voters will head to the polls for congressional midterm elections. And Trump has shown surprising strength at the ballot box in the past, even in the face of seemingly daunting poll numbers.
While Trump may be grappling with – and, at times denying – recent adversity, that will be ultimate measure of his political fate. And if Republicans struggle, it may provide yet another reality that Trump, despite his best efforts, must eventially face.
Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.
