'Boxed in Trump' has 'nowhere to move' as his presidency crumbles: top historian

As President Donald Trump’s latest approval numbers collapse to historic lows of 32 percent, renowned historian Heather Cox Richardson says, “We’re into new hatred territory here for any American president.” In response to this plunging popularity, the White House is “flailing” for a win while attempting to characterize those who disapprove of Trump as “enemies of the state.” “That’s obviously an incredibly dangerous thing,” says Richardson, “but it’s also operating from an extraordinary position of weakness. He desperately, desperately, desperately needs to reassert his authority over the United States and over Congress.” She goes on to provide wide-ranging evidence.

Tuesday’s announcement that passports would be released bearing his photo, for example, is a sign that “they’re trying to assert Trump’s authority in really dramatic, visible ways.” Then there is the administration’s push to spend $52 million to officially change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. “They’re trying to put his stamp on stuff,” notes Richardson, “and they’re doing so in these really heavy-handed ways because the administration is in such bad shape right now.”

On top of that, there are Trump’s renewed legal attacks on personal enemies like former FBI director James Comey and late night host Jimmy Kimmel. She says that such efforts are “dangerous for sure, but a sign of a presidency that’s crumbling."

But perhaps the greatest sign of Trump’s panic is in regard to the war in Iran.

“He got into this war buying that it was gonna be quick, that it was gonna be easy, and that the Iranian people were going to rise up and overthrow their government,” says Richardson. Instead, the Iranian regime has maintained power while asserting its right to control the Strait of Hormuz.

“That’s everything they wanted and nothing that Trump wanted,” notes Richardson. “And I’m being careful to say Trump there because the U.S. actually had most of what it wanted under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015 under Barack Obama…Trump ripped that up in 2018,” and within a year, Iran started enriching uranium.

“What you’re seeing here is Trump really boxed into a corner,” says Richardson. “In the past, there was always someone who could get him out of trouble: his father, the CFO of the Trump organization, the members of his cabinet or staff who would divert him from making stupid mistakes. He’s gotten rid of all those people, and he doesn’t really have anybody else who can save him. It feels like he’s been begging other countries to save him.”

To that end, she explained how the visit of King Charles speaks to this situation. While Trump clearly hopes to flatter the King and win the United Kingdom’s support in the war, when Charles addressed Congress, Richardson noted a few interesting things he mentioned — alliances, NATO, the importance of checks and balances — but especially his references to the fact that the U.S. system draws so much from the Magna Carta, one of the foundational documents on human rights.

“He’s saying the principle that the people run the government is embedded in your history,” says Richardson, “and you ought to be listening to it.”

But in Trump’s follow-up speech, “Trump rejected that. He said we’re not a nation based on ideas, we’re a nation based on white people, basically…Trump rejected what the King was saying and said no, no, no — we’re basically the KKK over here.” This idea has been part of American politics forever, but “it’s never been particularly popular.”

And on the note of Trump and MAGA’s waning popularity, Richardson says that the president should learn from the example of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s far-right strongman, who was recently voted out after 16 years in power, and who along with his allies is now fleeing the country. “The fact that he and his cronies feel obliged to leave Hungary is a warning shot to Trump and his cronies.”

Richardson concludes of Trump’s recent actions, “I do think that what you’re seeing is flailing. That he is weakening. He’s getting fewer and fewer people around him. His unpopularity is increasing.” And as the situation gets worse in Iran, “there’s no way out of that for Trump, and he’s going to behave more and more erratically. It is terrifying, but it’s also a sign that his power is slipping.”

“How Trump is going to get out of this is unclear,” she says. “Trump’s got nowhere to move.”

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