Trump Conflicts: Shaub’s Resignation and Ethical Standards

Walter Shaub resigned as director of the Office of Government Ethics last week after criticizing our government’s current ethical standards as being insufficiently tough.

After all, just consider our president.

In January of this year, Shaub found Donald Trump’s proposal to avoid conflicts of interests insufficient and non-compliant with 40 years of presidential practice. Trump’s base and Republicans in Congress, however, continue to tolerate trump conflicts.  

Trump Conflicts: The Shameful Tolerance of Unpresidential Behavior

That tolerance is more shameful than the conflicts and unpresidential behavior themselves, and effectively forces the rest of us to tolerate them. They would never be allowed in a chief executive officer of any company — he or she would be removed immediately. Yet we’re allowing it in America’s CEO. {mosads}That’s new.

Trump Conflicts: Historical Precedents and Past Presidents

Prior presidents fully separated themselves from their business interests to avoid potential of Trump conflicts. Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush either divested their businesses or put them in blind trusts. Johnson placed his radio and TV stations in the hands of trustees, though he frequently spoke with them.

Trump Conflicts: The Impact of Foreign Holdings on Presidential Decisions

But Johnson’s assets were domestic, and not encumbered by Trump-like conflicts. Barack Obama had little influence over his holdings; they were largely mutual funds and treasury bonds.

JUST IN: Government ethics chief who publicly criticized Trump resigns https://t.co/yDkjXtOGlX pic.twitter.com/jBaAtvO632

— The Hill (@thehill) July 6, 2017

Past presidents had enough respect for their office to separate themselves from their businesses, even though they didn’t involve the severe conflicts that attend Mr. Trump’s businesses. By today’s measures, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were worth over $500 and $200 million, respectively. But that wealth was in land, and, sadly, slaves. 

Foreign holdings like Trump’s are much more susceptible to actions by foreign governments, and much more likely to corrupt presidential decisions.

President Trump, on the other hand, retains interests in at least 500 international businesses while negotiating agreements with foreign governments that could benefit or harm those businesses. 

Would Trump lift sanctions on Russia in exchange to build Trump Tower in Moscow, which he’s been trying to do over decades? Whether he would or not, the existence of the conflict mocks the integrity of past presidents.

Trump Conflicts: International Business and U.S. Policy

Trump makes millions from hotels in the following countries, which generally require government approvals to continue operating.

All of these governments have issues pending before the administration, including:

• Canada, where Trump is renegotiating NAFTA. 
• India, where two Trump-branded buildings will soon be going up, while the Administration negotiates issues of trade, intellectual property and market access for American companies. 
• Turkey, where Trump must address arming Kurds and form our reaction to Erdogan’s brutal treatment of protestors.
• Panama, which has applied to the U.S. to extradite on corruption charges its past president, who presided over the opening of Trump’s 72-storey Ocean Club there. 
• The Philippines, where Trump must address Rodrigo Duterte’s extrajudicial killings under the banner of fighting drugs. 
• South Korea, where nuclear tensions are at a very dangerous level. The notion that Trump’s personal business interests might influence U.S. policy on the Korean peninsula is truly frightening.

Trump Conflicts: Ethics Office and Supporters’ Tolerance

Trump and his daughter Ivanka also received multiple trademarks from the Chinese since Trump took office. 

Such conflicts should not be tolerated, whether they involved quid pro quos or not.  

Watchdog groups fear for integrity of ethics office after director resigns https://t.co/qOurgrloBN pic.twitter.com/EzxLzYZXdB

— The Hill (@thehill) July 7, 2017

Trump Conflicts: Lies, Insults, and Presidential Integrity

Trump’s supporters have also shown tolerance for the most frequent and obvious lies, possibly more frequent and obvious than all past presidents put together. As New York Times columnist David Leonhardt has documented and reported, “There is simply no precedent for an American president to spend so much time telling untruths. … No other president — of either party — has behaved as Trump is behaving.” 

Trump’s break with precedent also extends to indulging in outrageous, unpresidential vitriol: mocking a disabled reporter, insulting the parents of a slain U.S. soldier who was Muslim, disrespecting John McCain’s war record because he had been captured, misogynistically libeling Megyn Kelly and Mika Brzezinski about bleeding from their eyes and face after boasting about getting away with sexual assaults, and claiming that U.S.-born Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel should be disqualified because of his Mexican ancestry after asserting that Mexicans immigrants are often rapists, drug dealers and murderers.

NEW: Trump gets set to decide who will run ethics office that vets his nominees https://t.co/jPHtQZR8dk pic.twitter.com/rCvUeDMumb

— The Hill (@thehill) July 11, 2017

Trump Conflicts: A New Normal and the Future of Dignity

Politics is a full contact sport. Every president has been criticized and has responded to attacks. The press and others made fun of George W. Bush for not being smart, of his father for vomiting on the Japanese prime minister’s lap, of President Ford for not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time, and of Bill Clinton for his transgressions, perjury and falling asleep during Hillary’s nomination speech. Yet none of these presidents degraded their office with crude insults as Trump has.

Tolerating Trump’s conflicts and behavior is made even more shameful by his supporters’ willingness to ignore its broad dissemination in the media. Is this a new normal that has been forced upon our country? Has Donald Trump permanently compromised our dignity? Let’s hope not. But his supporters should be more anxious to restore our dignity than his detractors.

History will not be kind to those who passed over Trump’s transgressions in silence.

The post Every American must be a watchdog when it comes to Trump’s conflicts of interest  first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Political Divide and McCarthy’s Potential Return

With the House in turmoil, Democrats may get a second chance.  McCarthy says he’s open to being Speaker again. In fact, there’s nothing he’d like better, especially if it means he could escape the grip of the extreme MAGA wing and the House could govern like it’s supposed to. House Democrats could back him, and if he doesn’t deliver, they could always vote to remove McCarthy again. 

Historical Precedents for Bridging the Political Divide

There is precedent that makes such a solution plausible. This might be a good time to recall that we have worked out our differences across bitter divides many times in our history: 

• In 1787, small state delegates fiercely opposed any plan to change the equal representation under the Articles of Confederation, while large, populous states demanded proportional representation. They compromised: proportional representation in the House and equal representation in the Senate. 
• In the runup to the 1860 Republican convention, three warring candidates sought the nomination for president. President Lincoln appointed all of them to his Cabinet. 
• In 1964, a civil rights bill passed the House and encountered widespread opposition in the Senate, mounting the longest filibuster in Senate history. Democrat Mike Mansfield implored Republican Everett Dirksen to join him “in finding … the resolution of this grave national issue,” and they did, passing the landmark Civil Rights Act. 
• Liberals and conservatives put aside bitter division over welfare programs and compromised, enacting welfare reform in 1966. 
• Bills to limit the food stamp program were introduced in the 1970s, and Democrats dug in to oppose them. Sens. Bob Dole and George McGovern found a compromise and the Food Stamp Act became law in 1977. 
• The 1935 Social Security Act was perhaps the most polarizing law in Congress’s history. In the 1980s the Social Security Trust Fund risked running a deficit, and measures to keep it solvent faced deep opposition. Sens. Patrick Moynihan and Bob Dole worked together to defuse partisanship, and Social Security reforms were passed and signed by President Reagan. 
• In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was divisive. Republicans argued it was overaccommodating and placed undue burden on employers. Yet both parties came together to pass it.  
• In 1997, conservatives opposed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program as a budget buster. Sens. Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch worked together and got it passed later that year. 
• President Obama’s Cabinet included two Republicans whose positions were markedly different from his own — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. 
• Obama extended the Bush tax cuts, angering Democrats who felt they favored the wealthy. A bipartisan compromise extended unemployment benefits and avoided middle-class tax increases. 
• The 2012 Jobs Act was, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said, “a rare legislative victory where both sides worked together and passed [it] with strong bipartisan support.” 
• The 2013 Bipartisan Budget Act set discretionary spending halfway between what Senate Democrats and House Republicans wanted. Paul Ryan dropped his insistence that Democrats agree to reduce entitlement spending in exchange for Republicans agreeing to higher taxes. 
• In 2018, Republican senators were pandering to President Trump’s desire to undo everything President Obama accomplished. But Sen. John McCain warned them not to repeal key provisions of Obamacare. Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joined him, and the repeal failed. 

Political Divide: Rebuilding Trust and Governance

We’ve bridged deep partisan divides many times before; we can do it again. Admittedly, today’s divide is wider and more intractable than in the past, because the differences are not about policy. They’re about staying in power at all costs — even smearing the opposition and lying to voters. A lot of damage needs to be repaired. 

Political Divide and Government Paralysis

The federal government is paralyzed. As former Defense Secretary Robert Gates lamented, Congress hasn’t passed a Defense Appropriations Bill since 2010, and can’t even confirm senior military officials, devastating our military even as we face Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and war in the Middle East. Bridging the political divide is essential for effective governance.

Political Divide: The Call for Effective Leadership

Once, Swiss Ambassador Jacques Pitteloud recalled, “When the world was in danger, they looked to the United States for leadership.” But, he said, “they could no longer do that because [America is] so polarized at home fighting over things that didn’t matter.” 

Political Divide and Rising Threats

Republican demagoguery has incited violence since Trump’s election. Since 2016, threats against members of Congress and federal judges have skyrocketed. In addition, 15 percent of local elected officials were threatened last year, and threats are rising against election workers. 

Political Divide and the Path Forward

It’s a new low, and it’s all the more reason to invoke our history of political cooperation and political divide when it counts. We must stop the slide into dysfunction now. House Democrats can use their votes to reinstate McCarthy as Speaker and help turn the House from partisanship and demagoguery back to the business of governing. 

The post A history of reconciliation: How Democrats can bridge the political divide to fix the Speakership mess in the House  first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.