What an interesting opinion piece. Do you have any evidence that 99% of Trump’s popularity is because of/due to SESSIONS?
Do you have any evidence that, according to you, “If Sessions is gone, Trump’s 36% approval rating will plummet”?
Do you have any evidence that, “if he fires Sessions, Trump won’t even be able to fill a meeting room at a Holiday Inn”?
Do you have any evidence that Trump will fire, or intends to fire, Sessions?
Your suggestions/opinions sound as if they came from some kind of Democrat party/collectives talking points. Or possibly a list of some Democrat’s wish list? Or maybe they’re just “feelings”?
Isn’t the Solicitor General third in line? Or let’s go to the first person in line who is not subject to Senate confirmation. Say he is 9th in line. This is the procedure:
Fire 9th guy in line.
Replace 9th guy with lackey
Fire guys #1 through #8.
Lackey becomes “acting” AG.
Acting AG fires Mueller.
President never submits a new name to be confirmed as AG.
Others have said that Congress could only allow a named AG to fire the special prosecutor or else Congress itself would gain that power. Surely any procedure that entrusts Congress with an executive branch function would have to be unconstitutional, no?
Trump will likely fire people, one after another in rapid-fire succession, until he gets his henchman. But there’s another possibility: Trump ignores the regulation and says “See you in court.” Yes, he’d lose, but in the meantime, he’d probably disrupt the flow of things if nothing else.
But, again, here is where I have a disconnect. A federal regulation is an executive branch directive regarding how to implement a statute. By constitutional definition, the President IS the executive branch. There is nothing a subordinate can do that he cannot undo, or at least should not be.
By custom, the executive branch has grown to mammoth proportions and the President is usually not involved in most things. But there is no reason he cannot be. This is similar to the “Trump is leaking classified information!” cries. He decides what is confidential.
We have three distinct separate branches of power in this country. I have talked often about judicial overreach intruding on the legislature. This seems to be the legislature invading on the executive.
I guess you missed my post that Trump is doing more to advance the conservative agenda than most politicians who have been Republicans all their lives.
I didn’t see anyone suggest Congress would gain that power, unless you’re referring to elucidator’s initial “I heard some guy” post. Looking at what that guy actually said was that there were federal regulations protecting Mueller. I suppose Trump could order those regs changed and go on a firing spree.
Thinking about it though, if Congress was outraged enough, there’s a couple of simple counter punches they could do. They could make positions 9-20 Senate confirmable or more likely they could reinstate some version of the Independent Counsel legislation and appoint Mueller.
538 has the aggregated polls today at 38.4%. But that doesn’t show the nuance – the people who disapprove of him strongly disapprove, and his "strongly approve* ratings are sinking faster than his general approval rating. That is, a majority of people really hate him, and his rabid base is losing members.
And behold the liberal bias of media! Not a one of these so-called “objective” samples take into account the millions of illegal voters for HRC! No matter how much proof you got, how loud you yell, they pretend it isn’t so!
I’m pretty sure you mean HurricaneDitka’s link says 39.7%. That’s the only link in the post by Ulfreida you quoted. It goes to RealClearPolitics and they do indeed show the President at 39.7%.
Ulfreida didn’t include a link to 538, as you can see below:
However, if she/he had included a link it probably would have gone here on the 538 website. They do show their aggregated polls have the President at 38.4%.
Whatever the number is, it doesn’t seem to be rising.
Here’s my thesis, nutshell-style:
[ul]
[li]Trump attracted the core of his base by making remarks about Mexicans and Muslims and women and blacks that a particular type of person hadn’t heard from a mainstream candidate before; this core became correspondingly devoted to Trump.[/li][li]But once Trump was elected, that core expected more than just words.[/li][li]Trump turned out to be one of the luckiest people on Earth in that Jeff Sessions existed, had long-term friends in the Senate, and wanted to work for him. In Jeff Sessions Trump found something that the odds were against him finding: a man of core-pleasing policy ambitions who had a chance of being confirmed. Because any person with Sessions’ beliefs and intentions who was not a long-term Senator had no chance of being confirmed.[/li][li]Because of Sessions’ ongoing fulfillment of the core’s wishes, Trump has retained the core’s devotion.[/li][li]Trump has no idea that the core remains devoted to him mainly because of what Sessions has been doing and continues to do.[/li][li]If Trump either fires Sessions or moves sessions to DHS (where Sessions won’t be able to accomplish all he’s accomplishing now), Trump’s approval ratings will suffer markedly.[/li][/ul]
…That’s it. That’s the thesis. It all hangs on the good luck Trump had: that Sessions held the beliefs he does and yet was a long-time Senator with many friends in the Senate. If not for that, impeachment proceedings would have begun months ago, because no one in Congress would have feared for their seats—the Core would be filled with disgust at Trump for his inaction and empty words (because the AG would be someone much less racist, er, ‘anti-immigrant hardliner’). The Core would be perfectly happy to see Trump gone, either through trial by the Senate or through voluntary resignation.
Shorter version: Trump is nothing without Sessions.
I believe Sessions would have to be confirmed as Homeland Security Secretary–but I can’t find, er, confirmation. The entire topic of ‘switching Cabinet posts’ is resisting my powers of search at the moment.
[li]Trump has no idea that the core remains devoted to him mainly because of what Sessions has been doing and continues to do.[/li][/QUOTE]
The question here in this thread is whether anybody else in the world thinks this is true besides you. Nobody has said yes yet. I don’t believe anybody will.
However, you did make a testable proposition: that Trump’s approval rating will “suffer markedly” if Sessions is fired or even moved. So we can check back at a later date and see what happens.
Yes, but only if Trump does it while the Senate is in recess he can use recess appointments to both appoint Sessions to Homeland Security and appoint a new AG. The downside is both officeholders would have their terms expire with the 115th Congress (ie until January 3rd, 2019), but Trump doesn’t think in the long term.