RealClear Originals: Washington’s Calm Before the Storm of Trump’s Return

Washington's Calm Before the Storm of Trump's Return

By Emily Goodin

Washington has been relatively quiet this week compared to when President Trump is in town.

There haven’t been briefings from press secretary Sean Spicer broadcast by the cable news networks and the president’s Twitter account has contained tweets about his official duties instead of tirades that require responses from members of Congress.

Trump is wrapping up the final leg of his eight-day trip abroad before returning to Washington on Sunday. Today he’s in Sicily for meetings with NATO leaders.

At RealClearWorld, the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Jeremy Shapiro previewed the European leg of Trump’s trip: “The visit has a certain NASCAR quality to it: Everybody claims they are interested in the outcome, but most really show up to see the fiery crashes. And at the scheduled meeting of NATO leaders, a volatile Trump could easily careen the car of state into the guardrail and cause an epic 28-car pile-up. But it is more likely that the Europeans will appeal to Trump’s ego, and he will return the favor with effusive charm. Trump will give an ordinary speech, make various extravagant promises, and the meeting will pass with neither incident nor substance. Everyone but the journalists will go home happy.”

Back in Washington, the focus was on Capitol Hill where Congress was finishing up its workload before members left town on Thursday for their Memorial Day recess. The Senate returns on Monday, June 5, and the House on Tuesday, June 6.

The two big items on the agenda this week were the release of the president’s budget and the Congressional Budget Office’s score for the Republicans’ American Health Care Act.

At RealClearPolicy, the American Enterprise Institute’s James Capretta writes of the president’s budget: “The release of the administration’s first full budget this week should lay to rest for good the notion that Trump has an imaginative plan for painless cost-cutting that will help him fulfill his campaign promises. There is no such plan, never was, and never will be.”

At RealClearHealth, Billy Wynne of TRP Health Policy, writes of the CBO score on the AHCA: The “key information” is that “the MacArthur-Meadows amendment, adopted to achieve the votes necessary to pass the House, costs tens of billions of dollars while doing very little to stem coverage losses.”

But while it was relatively quiet in Washington, that wasn’t the case elsewhere. Monday’s bombing at an Ariane Grande concert in Manchester, England, and Wednesday’s alleged assault of a reporter by a congressional candidate in Helena, Mont., dominated the news cycle this week.

Monday’s bombing solidified the Tories’ standing in next month’s British elections, Peter Zeihan argues at RealClearWorld: “Between the rally-round-the-flag effect of terror attacks and the fact that the ruling Tories are the law-and-order party, the UK is now on the cusp of a complete overhaul. Barring some truly unprecedented revelations that bring down [Prime Minister Theresa] May and the entirety of the Conservative leadership, the Tories will walk away from the June elections with the strongest showing of perhaps the last century. In the election’s wake, Labour will not simply be weak, it will be gone and it is unlikely to come back in a meaningful way.”

Reports indicate the bomber had training from the terrorist group ISIS. At RealClearLife, Joseph Adams and R.P. Eddy write in its “Flashpoint” column that now is the time to ask what comes after ISIS, and they offer three groups to watch in the future.

In Montana, Greg Gianforte, the Republican nominee to replace now-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in Congress, has been declared the winner over Democrat Rob Quist, 50% to 44%. Gianforte gained unwelcome attention earlier this week when he was charged with a misdemeanor for allegedly body-slamming Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs to the ground when Jacobs asked him a question about the CBO score of the health care bill.

RealClearPolitics’ Sean Trende notes this special election “illustrates the perils of lengthy early-voting periods. Voting had been going on in Montana for almost a month.”

“While early voters tend to be more partisan – and hence less likely to change their votes in response to new information – there are incidents such as this that could do so (or in primaries, where candidates sometimes drop out before Election Day). There’s probably a happy medium to be found,” Trende writes.

One of the major topics at the NATO meeting in Sicily will be the Paris Climate Agreement. RealClearEnergy editor Bill Murray argues Trump has already won his first battle on that front.

Sandra Erwin writes for RealClearDefense that Trump’s defense budget is “politically a nonstarter.” Erwin notes that besides not offering enough for defense hawks and too much for others, the Pentagon lacks the senior staff to go to Capitol Hill and sell it to lawmakers.

At RealClearEducation, Christopher Beach and Ford Carson recount Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ grilling before Congress on Wednesday “about the administration's proposal to cut $9 billion, or 13 percent, from the department's $68 billion budget while spending an unprecedented $1.4 billion to expand school choice.”

In episode 4 of the “Politics is Everything” podcast, RCP’s Caitlin Huey-Burns examines the relationship between politics and food. She speaks with Maura Judkis, food and culture reporter for the Washington Post; Cornell University professor David Sherwyn; and Darren Tristano, restaurant consultant and president of Technomic.

RCP’s Rebecca Berg interviewed Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel about her role in the GOP and her relationship with the White House. “We are an extension of the White House,” McDaniel said. “We work with the White House every day, and President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party.”

McDaniel also dismissed any talk Trump could be impeached because of allegations he asked former FBI director James Comey to back down from investigating Michael Flynn. “I think any talk of impeachment is ridiculous,” she said. “... To go from an investigation with no evidence of any type of smoking gun to now say ‘impeachment’ is just farfetched. It shouldn’t even be being discussed, and it shows how distracted people can get by the media and what’s happening around them.”

In this time of global cybersecurity attacks, the Hudson Intitute’s Idalia Friedson argues at RealClearFuture for the use of “quantum cybersecurity, which employs the properties of quantum physics to secure data” and is unhackable. Friedson notes: “The frontlines of the information age have been vulnerable for too long. Quantum cybersecurity carries the potential to fortify the infrastructure of our institutions, such as electronic polling stations, hospital computers, energy grids, and sensitive government files.”

At RealClearDefense, the Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson undertakes a what-if scenario: What if Vice President Pence becomes president?

The Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan, begins today. At RealClearReligion, Michigan State University Professor Mohammad Hassan Khalil answers six questions about the significance of this religious observance.

Also at RealClearDefense, Kathy Roth-Douquet, CEO of Blue Star Families, writes about the importance of honoring military families: “Military families remain extremely proud to serve our country and work hard to stay strong while facing the added burdens of military life. What keeps them strong is support from their community neighbors – civilians who want to welcome military families into their communities, show appreciation for military service and give back to those who work so hard to protect all Americans.”

At RealClearPolicy, Mississippi state treasurer Lynn Fitch and the State Financial Officers Foundation’s Jon Christensen look at how an obscure “rule governing money market funds” and how that money flows between state governments and the federal government could be used to pay for Trump’s infrastructure plan and the GOP’s proposed health care law.

At RealClearHealth, George Mason University’s Robert Graboyes offers four reasons why keeping coverage of pre-existing conditions is “an expensive, risk-laden proposition.”

Also at RealClearHealth, the RAND Corporation’s Deborah A. Cohen argues that “attempts to roll back public nutrition standards do not bode well for population health,” pointing out that “the lack of standards for meals and portion sizes are one reason most people don’t have a balanced diet, eat too much, and suffer from diet-related chronic diseases.”

At RealClearBooks, Wes Culp talks with Thomas Henriksen, the author of “Eyes, Ears and Daggers,” which examines the critical role that accurate intelligence-gathering plays in accomplishing military goals.

RealClearScience editor Ross Pomeroy looks at whether simpler is better when it comes to physics. “The impetus for this discussion was a nagging question about the nature of the universe,” he writes.

On the 40th anniversary of “Star Wars,” RealClearLife looks at how George Lucas created a Force that upended the film industry.

Also at RealClearLife, editor Ethan Sacks talks to the director of the Netflix movie “War Machine” about its satirical take on the war in Afghanistan and Gen. Stanley McChrystal's fall.

And RealClearSports looks at the Top 10 Baseball Brawls.