Donald Trump changes his mind about tax bill signing for the dumbest reason possible
This week we brought you the saga of how the Republican Party frantically rushed the tax scam bill through Congress, only for Donald Trump to suddenly announce that he was going to refuse to sign it until next month, while providing a nonsensical explanation. Then the next day he changed his mind and signed the bill immediately. The reason he’s providing is quite possibly the dumbest thing ever uttered.
Here’s how Trump characterized his change of heart about the bill signing: “I was going to wait for a formal signing some time in early January but then I watched the news this morning and they were all saying, ‘Will he keep his promise? Will he sign it by Christmas?’ And I called downstairs and I said: ‘Get it ready, we have to sign it now.'” (link). That’s right, according to Trump, he moved a bill signing forward by two weeks or more because of what some pundit said about him on television. However, we believe his real reason for changing his mind is even more foolish.
The Republicans in Congress rushed through a half finished bill before holiday recess for a reason. It’s the same reason they began rejecting Trump’s latest batch of nominees over the past week, after having rubber stamped them throughout the year. They expect the political landscape to be so wildly altered by the time they come back in January that passing partisan legislation will be nearly impossible, even though they’ll still have the majority. Further, they expect something to have changed with regard to Trump.
Donald Trump likely decided to sit on the tax bill until the next year, as leverage just in case the GOP was plotting to strategically oust him over the holidays. The GOP knows full well it’ll get slaughtered in the 2018 congressional elections if it doesn’t get rid of Trump soon. His delayed signing was his insurance policy. Then the Republicans all got together and sang his praises, and Trump being the narcissist that he is, he decided they love him, and so he decided to sign the bill. Either that, or you can go with his claim that he changed his mind based on what a TV pundit said. He is, after all, deranged.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report