Donald Trump came into office hell-bent on besting Barack Obama. When the House health bill was first introduced, onlookers eagerly watched for signs from the White House to see how invested Trump would be in the legislation. Very invested, it turned out. And not because he cared one twitch about the policy—he just craved a win, any win, that would help him secure a foothold in the pantheon of winning presidencies. So what if he was known for stripping health care from tens of millions of Americans—he wasn't going to be outdone by a guy he had falsely claimed for years wasn't even eligible to be president.
But now, despite laughably declaring Monday that he's signed more legislation than any president in history, Trump went 0 for 2 this week while Obama notched a 2 for 2 record without lifting a finger. Obama’s greatest domestic achievement, health care reform, and arguably his greatest foreign policy achievement, the Iran nuclear deal, both appear to have triumphed this week despite Trump’s most fervent desires. The New York Times’ Peter Baker writes:
As Tuesday dawned, [Trump] faced the reality that Mr. Obama’s most prominent domestic and international accomplishments both remained intact.
In neither case has Mr. Trump given up. He instructed his national security team to keep rethinking the approach to Iran with a view toward either revising or scrapping the nuclear agreement. And he publicly called on Congress to simply repeal Mr. Obama’s health care program without trying to immediately pass a replacement.
“We will return!” Mr. Trump tweeted Tuesday morning about the collapse of his health care effort.
He probably meant, "I'll be back," but either forgot the quip or tried to one up Arnold's signature saying.
As with most things foreign policy, Trump could have unilaterally pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, but his advisers urged him not to because renegotiating the terms without any allies at his side would be very difficult, if not impossible. So while Trump reneged on the Paris climate accord and TPP trade deal, he appears to have been hamstrung on the Iran deal by the clear-eyed analysis of his aides. Who knows how long that will last. But renegotiating the Iran agreement would actually require a coalition-building effort among multiple entities with competing interests, much like passing a bill to dismantle Obamacare would.
And bottom line: Trump just hasn't proven to be skilled at any type of negotiation that doesn't involve him holding a hammer over the single party sitting across the table from him. Two-plus negotiations are simply too complex for Trump.
Trump's limited skill set in the "art of the deal" is perhaps a product of both his temperament and his intellect. But more than anything, this week's defeats reveal the smallness of Trump's thinking, and even his entire being. For if he cannot demolish the guideposts Obama left behind on the path to creating a better nation and world, then what does he stand for? As Peter Baker noted:
Few, if any [presidents], have spent as much of their early months focused on undoing what the last president did rather than promoting their own proactive ideas as Mr. Trump has.
Trump is a petty man driven by petty impulses who is now reducing America to being a petty nation pursuing petty policies, both domestically and on the world stage.
But who knows, perhaps Trump will still manage to succeed in the one place Obama didn't: Being an illegitimately elected president.
That's one coup we can wholeheartedly hope Trump is proven to have achieved just before he is shown the door—and hopefully sooner rather than later.