Will Trump Recover?

[Lord Admirale]

I know Trump has been plagued with controversy during his administration, but now it seems like he's taking serious hits with a majority of the GOP railing against him, especially with Senator Corker saying he's unhinged and Senator Scott saying Trump's moral authority has been compromised. This seems like his worst debacle since Pussygate.

So, will he recover?

[GoTfan]

Well there's two scenarios. Either he does, and the world moves on (like with the Access Hollywood tapes); he doesn't, and Republicans get hammered with it in the midterms; he seems to, then the Democrats put out some attack ads referencing it in 2020.

[GlobeSoc]

If Republicans do impeachment, it will be either before the midterm primary season or after the midterm GE. I'm leaning towards the latter, but the former seems increasingly likely.

[Daniel909012]

Whereas Trump is more beloved by Republicans than any leader of the old guard, doing something against him would be a Republican suicide.

[Inmate Trump]

Republicans will not vote to impeach him, ever.

I suspect a majority of the GOP in Congress would love to remove the prez from office, but if they did anything of the sort they would lose all support from Republican voters, who still (79% at last polled) overwhelmingly support Trump.

[Santander]

He may regain a few points in his approval rating, but things will never be the same. This is the beginning of the end of Trump.

[Tekken_Guy]

Republicans will not vote to impeach him, ever.

I suspect a majority of the GOP in Congress would love to remove the prez from office, but if they did anything of the sort they would lose all support from Republican voters, who still (79% at last polled) overwhelmingly support Trump.

Can we wait for the full poll numbers? The Gallup numbers actually slightly improved from yesterday.

[ProudModerate2]

He may regain a few points in his approval rating, but things will never be the same. This is the beginning of the end of Trump.

[GGover]

I don't think he's ever really going to "recover." This debacle will just be added to the long list of scandals and terrible things that Trump has done, and it will be forgotten over the next few weeks until the midterms. I don't think Trump has the capacity to learn from his actions or change, so it seems unlikely that he's going to win back significant support from those who already disapprove of him.

If tax reform is a success, he might be able to heal some divisions. But it's gotten to the point that I don't think most people will be able to overlook all of his flaws because of tax reform.

[Deblano]

I'm starting to be unsure about that at this rate.

I think he will go out with a whimper.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I've generally been of the view that it's going to take far longer to get Trump out of office - via the 25th, impeachment, or him resigning - than we would like. That said, he term has more incompetence and self-inflicted wounds than I, a long-time Trump critic, ever thought possible.

Still, I think there's a real chance he's losing it. Maybe it's the pressures of the office, or maybe he's internally panicking over Mueller. Still I'd say odds of him recovering to his old net -16 or close to it for a while are three out of four.

[Beet]

I know Trump has been plagued with controversy during his administration, but now it seems like he's taking serious hits with a majority of the GOP railing against him, especially with Senator Corker saying he's unhinged and Senator Scott saying Trump's moral authority has been compromised. This seems like his worst debacle since Pussygate.

So, will he recover?

So swampite elites have paid lip service against him, he's wounded? Where have we seen this movie before? No. Do you see him dropping in the polls? No. Oh no, James Murdoch has said something about him, oh no, Republicans senators don't like him, oh no, the military-industrial complex is contradicting him, oh no, rich CEOs are denouncing him, oh no, Fox News hosts are breaking with him... Fellow liberals. Look at the groups I've just named. What bedfellows is this president pushing us into? These are our enemies. Let us not forget who we are and get in bed with them. Who's missing? The people. The white working class.... they have not abandoned him.

Because Bannon was right... the longer the left talks about identity politics, the better for Trump. He's going up in the polls, not down.

The Democrats should've used this time to roll out their single payer alternative to the ACA.

[Don Vito Corleone]

He won't reach a 39-40% approval rating again for a while, if ever.

[Brittain33]

This reminds me a lot of Pussygate. Plenty of Republican office holders jumped ship then... and jumped back in a few days later.

At the end of the day, Trump is still president and more popular with the base than they are.

[Beet]

This reminds me a lot of Pussygate. Plenty of Republican office holders jumped ship then... and jumped back in a few days later.

At the end of the day, Trump is still president and more popular with the base than they are.

The Trump presidency is like this bizarre nightmare where every freak out there you previously hated comes out of the woodwork and wants to be your friend, only.... (1) it's fake friends, (2) they only want to be friends in the most useless ways, (3) you never wanted them as your friends, and (4) if you really embrace their friendship you'd have to ditch your real friends.

[TJ in Oregon]

This reminds me a lot of Pussygate. Plenty of Republican office holders jumped ship then... and jumped back in a few days later.

At the end of the day, Trump is still president and more popular with the base than they are.

I agree. This is one of those situations where the polite company of politicos is a lot angrier than the average person in the street. The people jumping ship at this juncture are primarily establishment sorts who believe the horse can no longer pull out a victory from a minor injury than anything of substance, because, frankly the Charlottesville episode has little policy impact. Most people undoubtedly do think Trump should have been more forceful in condemning the white supremacists, but I also think most people are tired of hearing about this argument. I mean, condemning white supremacists is pretty much the definition of safe political comment in America. Nothing is more unhip than being a Neo-Nazi. Heck, even a being a traditionalist Catholic is more hip! It's not like people are going to reevaluate their opinion of Hitler based on Donald Trump. On the other hand, the Republican Congressmen are far more concerned with what the chattering classes think of them, thus they condemn it quickly. In this situation, the Republican Congressmen, those who gave measured critiques anyway like Ted Cruz (and not Marco Rubio), are correct, but their vanity is a huge part of why the Republicans are in this situation to begin with.

[Mr. Morden]

This reminds me a lot of Pussygate. Plenty of Republican office holders jumped ship then... and jumped back in a few days later.

I don't think that's quite right.  Or at least, I wouldn't put it that way.  The media botched their reporting of the GOP reaction to Pussygate.  In actuality, hardly anyone actually de-endorsed Trump only to re-endorse him later.  There were a few such examples, like Mike Crapo, but that was pretty rare.  Far more common were cases like John McCain (de-endorsed Trump, and held to that through election day) or John Thune (said that Trump should drop out because the party would be better off with Pence leading the ticket, but never said that he wouldn't vote for Trump in the event that Trump failed to drop out).

What did happen though is that the Republicans who de-endorsed Trump after the tape came out didn't keep talking about it non-stop throughout the remaining weeks of the campaign.  They made their statement, and then pretty much left it at that.  For some reason, I think some folks were expecting them to start campaigning for Clinton or something?

Similarly, with the current situation, I don't see that many Republicans contradicting their statements on Trump, as such.  They're not calling on him to resign or saying they'd vote to impeach, and I doubt they're going to.  They're saying that they hate a particular action or position of his, but then moving on.  I'm not sure that counts as "jumping ship and then jumping back on".  If they never called on Trump to resign, then in what sense have they ever "jumped ship"?  Presidents get criticized by their own party on something or other all the time, so I'm not sure what's supposed to be different about this time.