Donald Trump just had his best day as president
Dear readers, We cannot fail to note that this happened: Donald Trump had his best day as president. So far, anyway. Which we say in the smallish hope that, fresh from getting something positive and concrete accomplished for Americans, he may wish to repeat this uplifting experience.
Wednesday, September 6 began, as Trump himself put it, with “a very good conversation with President Xi of China. It lasted for about 45 minutes. He’s very much in favor of the denuke of North Korea, and we’re talking about different things.” Now, you may recall that Trump only recently said that talking was not the solution to the very real North Korean nuclear threat. But not talking isn’t, either. Since last weekend’s nuclear test, the president has contacted his counterparts in Japan, Germany, and South Korea on this non-trivial matter. Thumbs up on deconversations about denuke.
Before noon, the president had also “had a very good meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. We agreed to a three-month extension on debt ceiling, which they consider to be sacred — very important — always we’ll agree on debt ceiling automatically because of the importance of it.” The Donald J. Trump of yesterweek was not so agreeable, but let’s not get stuck in the past.
Trump and his new old friends also, he noted, came to an agreement “on the CRs,” which is Washingtonian for “continuing resolutions,” which means funding the government instead of shutting it down unless Congress also funds the border wall, as he’d been threatening as recently as a week ago. It also means the president is learning the patois of the swamp. They agreed, too, on relief funding for victims of Hurricane Harvey, and in sum, the president said, “had a very good meeting.”
All of which really is good news. Not because it empowers congressional Democrats, though it does. Not because it embarrasses congressional Republicans, though it does that, too. No, the renewal of his friendship with his fellow New Yorker, Sen. Chuck Schumer, is a welcome development because with Irma battering Puerto Rico and bearing down on Florida, the last thing we need to worry about is whether the federal government will be open for business, or will default on our debt, or will help Houston.
Then Trump said “Dreamers” have nothing to fear, as “Chuck and Nancy would like to see something happen, and so do I. And I said if we can get something to happen, we’re going to sign it and we’re going to make a lot of happy people.”
Whether the president’s deepest motivation is making a lot of people happy, or sticking his thumb in the naked eyeballs of the also-present House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, or loving the world back because Ivanka had asked, “Daddy, can I go with you?” on his trip to North Dakota with endangered Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, we don’t care. There always were deals — remember those? — to be made that accrue to the common good. So in all seriousness, Mr. President, please keep going.
This story was originally published September 7, 2017 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Donald Trump just had his best day as president."