The Washington Post via Getty Images Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Trump’s Battered Presidency

Donald Trump has suffered more negative news in the last week than most presidents experience in months, if not longer. But while a chain of woe – from stock slides to staff upheaval – has imperiled the Trump White House, few should feel sorry for an administration that has brought most of its problems on itself.

WASHINGTON, DC – It’s gotten to the point where one might almost feel sorry for Donald Trump. While that “almost” reflects a gap too wide for Trump’s opponents to bridge, it can be said that February has, thus far, been cruel to the US president, though he clearly is no innocent victim.

During the first full week of the month, Trump’s White House faced more trouble than befalls most presidencies in a couple of months, or longer. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,000 points twice, wiping out all the gains that the bull market had racked up for the year so far. No one knew when the markets would steady themselves or whether Trump’s vaunted tax cuts, among other policies, were fueling fears of economic over-heating and higher interest rates.

Trump had made things worse for himself by doing what his predecessors in the Oval Office had wisely avoided. He regularly took credit for stock-market gains. The supposed great businessman had forgotten that what goes up eventually comes down.

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