Summer 2019 Recap

Posted on: September 2, 2019 at 12:13:22 CT

When President Trump presided over the battle tanks and fighter jets, the fireworks and adoring fans on July 4, he couldn’t have known that the militaristic “Salute to America” — as well as to himself — would end up as the apparent pinnacle of the season.

What followed was what some Trump advisers and allies characterize as a lost summer defined by self-inflicted controversies and squandered opportunities. Trump leveled racist attacks against four congresswomen of color dubbed “the Squad.” He derided the majority-black city of Baltimore as “rat and rodent infested.” His anti-immigrant rhetoric was echoed in a missive that authorities believe a mass shooting suspect posted. His visits to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso after the gun massacres in those cities served to divide rather than heal.

Trump’s economy also began to falter, with the markets ping-ponging based on the president’s erratic behavior. His trade war with China grew more acrimonious. His whipsaw diplomacy at the Group of Seven summit left allies uncertain about American leadership. The president returned from his visit to France in a sour mood, frustrated by what he felt was unfairly negative news coverage of his trip.

The two months between Independence Day and Labor Day offered a fresh and vivid portrait of the president as seen by Trump’s critics — incompetent, indecisive, intolerant and ineffective.

White House officials promote the summer of 2019 as one of historic achievement for Trump, offering up a list of more than two dozen accomplishments. But privately, many of the president’s advisers and outside allies bemoan what they consider to be a period of missed opportunity and self-sabotage.

In the final lull before the 2020 campaign starts to intensify this fall, Trump could have worked strategically to solidify his position and broaden his appeal. Instead, his words and actions this summer served to further divide the country and to harden public opinion about the ever-polarizing president.

“You can’t fall off the floor,” said Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. “Everybody knows who Donald Trump is. Before he was elected, we knew he grabbed women by the p-word and he was this political hand grenade. If you hate Trump, you hate Trump; if you love Trump, you love Trump.”


Castellanos said that some of the chaos of the summer is mere Washington “kerfuffle,” but what could have lasting impact “is not just the trade war, but a cold war with China and the uncertainty that may well impair economic growth going into November 2020.”

“That’s what we’ll remember from the long, hot summer of 2019,” Castellanos concluded.

But some White House aides and outside Trump allies offer a grimmer view, describing an administration in which the president has crashed through the remaining guard rails. The chief of staff is still in an “acting” role and jobs that multiple aides once handled are now being filled by fewer staffers, and the president and his team failed to drive a sustained message or capitalize on what they view as winnable fights on the economy and immigration.


A Republican operative in frequent touch with the White House described the mood from the “staff guys and gals” as one of weariness. “Exhaustion, fatigue, wake us when it’s over,” said the operative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to summarize the sentiment of private conversations. “They’re just tired.”

Deere rejected the suggestion that the White House staff is flagging. “Yes, the days are long, but we are doing an incredible amount of work benefiting the American people under the leadership of this president,” Deere said. “I just don’t see people who are exhausted or not able to get the job done.”

Summer, when Congress adjourns for the month of August, traditionally has been a period in which presidents try to take advantage of the relative quiet to set an agenda and drive a favorable media narrative. Some of Trump’s allies lament that he did not seize this opportunity to lay a foundation for his 2020 campaign.


“Trump squandered a summer of opportunity to enhance his reelection campaign,” Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor and chief executive of Canary, a drilling services company, wrote in an email. “While Democrats are divided and focused on their own primary, President Trump could have focused on solving the trade war, a genuine infrastructure plan or a decisive foreign policy victory. Instead, he fanned the flames of the trade war, attacked Baltimore, ‘the squad’ and the Federal Reserve, and failed to add a cornerstone achievement to his 2020 election credentials.”

Eberhart concluded: “As a Republican, all you can do is hope it doesn’t end in a wreck.”

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