Trump unbound

His first post-poll press conference presaged only disruption

The American people and the world were given an unsettling inkling of the future under Donald Trump at his first post-election press conference and the first since July 2016. Coming just hours after outgoing President Barack Obama’s virtuoso farewell speech in Chicago, recording a solid legacy of verifiable achievement, the shambolic affair at Trump Tower, New York, could not have been a starker indication of the style and substance – or the lack of it – of the upcoming presidency. With just a week to go before he takes the oath of the world’s most powerful office, Mr Trump was stuck in campaign mode — aggressive, weak on substantive agenda, prone to grandiose claims bordering on the delusional, and wholly untroubled by the need for consistency, veracity or, indeed, dignity. 

The problems began with the lengthy and unconvincing explanation by his lawyer on the tricky issue of ring-fencing his business from conflict-of-interest issues. The plan centres on handing over management to his sons, employing an “ethics manager” to vet decisions, but is largely contingent on his resolution to resign from all positions and abstain from interference. Such abstinence may have been more credible had he subjected key companies to the transparency of market listing, and met a long-standing demand to release his tax returns, which he steadfastly declines to do. Meanwhile, he retreaded the old rhetoric. He talked of replacing Mr Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act with a “fantastic” plan that he nevertheless did not spell out — even as Republicans have begun to express doubts about having a workable replacement to minimise disruption once the law is repealed. The old favourite of building a wall on the Mexican border found mention with a variation that the Mexican government would reimburse the cost through some mysterious mechanism that did not involve “a payment”. Mr Trump also repeated his extravagant claims to bring back jobs by raising tariff walls on imports. He made characteristically excessive claims about the unprecedented greatness of his untested, mostly white, male Cabinet comprising businessmen and former generals. 

Things quickly went downhill when it came to the question of Russia and its role in the US elections. Having staunchly denied that country’s influence in the hacking scandal, openly denigrating his own intelligence agencies, Mr Trump now appears to have accepted the fact, though he did not fail to repeat the caveat the China could also have been responsible. His explosive response to the unsubstantiated report on the existence of compromising material amassed by Russian intelligence on him revealed the worst-kept secret about the 45th president: His notoriously thin skin. Mr Trump is fully entitled to defend himself from these prurient allegations and criticise the media groups that chose to publish them, but his crude berating of those media outlets as “fake news” – the same issue of which his supporters were culpable during the campaign – did him no favours. His defensiveness may be the result of latest poll ratings that have plunged from 44 per cent after November 8 to 37 per cent — this before he has even begun his term. The 45th presidency looks set to plunge America and the world into the kind of interesting times we can ill afford.