With stocks tumbling, the Supreme Court rebelling and his DOGE prince overreaching, Donald Trump was left with little choice.
In public, he denied watching the stock market, thanked the chief justice, and demanded a round of applause for Elon Musk.
Like a character in a Shakespeare play, Trump on Tuesday milked the acclaim of his court, celebrating his achievements and his right to rule.
Then he called in his courtiers to pivot in plain sight.
The cracks were beginning to show, and the master showman was all too aware that no amount of front could overcome bad ratings in the economy. It was, after all, the reason many people voted for him.
Those close to him say Trump has an uncanny ability to sense impending unpopularity and switch on a dime. He’s not just a political attack dog. He’s a survivor.
In his first term, Trump blamed the economic downturn on the pandemic, with some justification.
But not this time. The state of the nation after six weeks and Trump’s pivot was as much carnage as it was change.
And now reality is beginning to bite.
The only surprise inside his Cabinet over the president’s response was the stealth with which he carried it out.
As popular as it remains with Trump’s base and, indeed, with many Republicans in Congress, Elon Musk’s cavalier chainsaw antics were beginning to backfire. Town hall protests were building, at least before the GOP leadership banned them, and the mistakes, always inevitable with things moving so quickly, were becoming embarrassing.
DOGE memos were fast being dismissed as junk mail rather than sinister messages of intent.
There was pushback from Congress, with Republicans wanting some involvement, if not control, in which federal services were being cut.
Musk was never going to be Polonius to Trump’s Hamlet; the president still needed his dirty work done.
Musk let fly at Marco Rubio and transportation chief Sean Duffy at the Cabinet meeting, according to The New York Times. Doug Collins, head of veteran affairs, also complained about the DOGE approach. In past weeks, perhaps the president would let it go. This time, he stood up to show everyone who the real boss was.
Musk reportedly told Rubio he had fired “nobody” and the secretary of state hit back to ask sarcastically whether 1,500 state staffers who took the buy-out package counted.
It was a telltale moment for everyone in the room—and the president came down on Rubio’s side.
Trump left his Cabinet in no doubt during their behind-doors meeting. Musk’s wings were clipped. The First Bromance wasn’t dead, but Big Brother had asserted his authority.
On Wednesday, the morning after Trump offered his self-satisfied speech to a joint session of Congress, there was another setback that could have lasting consequences for his ambitions. The Supreme Court, carefully assembled to reflect Trump’s conservatism, voted against the administration by 5-4 in a key case questioning whether Musk had ridden roughshod over democratic controls to freeze $2 billion in foreign aid payments.
With court challenges to DOGE decisions arriving thick and fast at the White House door, the decision couldn’t have come at a worse time for a president who had already said publicly he would abide by the decisions of the judiciary.
This was a problem he couldn’t fix with a hard stare or a thump of the fist. It would take more time.
The next morning would come the coup de grâce. While denying to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that he had seen the plunging stock market—he’s ALWAYS watching the markets—the president also moved swiftly to calm his jittery pals on Wall Street by delaying his punitive tariffs on both Mexico and Canada.
Insiders say he had no intention of making the reversal until hours earlier when he could see the way the markets were dropping.
Trump has already signed more than half the number of executive orders (87) that Joe Biden did in the four years of his presidency (162).
But signs are that the shock and awe period of Trump’s second term may be over as his administration gets down to the serious business of making at least some of his signature statements stick.
The demolition ball has given way to the surgeon’s scalpel.
Trump is taking the chainsaw to his chaotic first 45 days in the Oval Office to see where the chips may lie.
While the jobs report on Friday was marginally below expectations, he could reasonably expect the unemployment figures to sour once the federal lay-offs he has ordered kick in.
The Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell helped do what Trump could barely manage and calm the markets on Friday, saying that the economy was in “good shape” during a period of elevated “uncertainty”. Hardly a roaring endorsement.
While Trump’s Cabinet may be empowered for now, free from Musk’s yoke, they must know they could yet be the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the story, sacrificed for the greater glory of the president who would be king.
