It took Donald Trump all of ten hours to completely fall to pieces
There is perhaps no better way to sabotage the credibility of your own line in the sand than to add “…and this time I mean it!” By merely saying those words, you’re admitting that you’ve said it before and not meant it, or not been able to follow through on it. Various presidents have had to swallow various things they swore they never would. But Donald Trump just pulled an “and this time I mean it” in such swift turnaround time that even his own head is probably still spinning.
On Friday morning, Trump tweeted this: “I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill.” Just ten hours later, he tweeted this: “I’ve signed the Omnibus Spending Bill.” Oh come on, no one is this weak. To be clear, nothing changed about the bill during those ten hours, other than his faltering resolve. Trump claimed that he only signed the bill “as a matter of National Security.” But wait, if that’s the case, then why was he threatening to veto the bill earlier in the day? This is the best he’s got.
Trump then tried adding “I say to Congress: I will NEVER sign another bill like this again.” That’s cute, but when he threatens to veto a bill and then just ten hours later he caves and signs it, he’s showing Congress that he will sign the next bill. At least George H.W. Bush saw more than a year go by in between the time he said “Read my lips, no new taxes” and the time he caved by signing a bill adding new taxes. Trump lasted just ten hours. Right now Anthony Scaramucci is looking at this mess and feeling better about the fact that he lasted eleven days. That’s a lifetime compared to how quickly Trump caved on this.
Donald Trump just keeps demonstrating that he’s all bark and comparatively little bite. He’s also a stunningly poor tactician. If he was going to meekly sign the bill at the end of the day, the very worst thing he could do was to announce at the beginning of the day that he was considering vetoing it. He drew a line in the sand and then quickly retreated across it for no apparent reason, other than that he’s weak willed and he was always going to retreat across it. Then he tried to make it all better by adding “…and this time I mean it!”
