Since the start of his second term, Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested his control over many congressional Republicans is so complete that he’s serving as both the president and the House speaker simultaneously. Some have told related jokes that he’s the House majority leader, too.
But Trump appears eager to keep expanding his portfolio: Now, he seems to be playing the role of Senate majority leader, as well. The Associated Press reported early Wednesday morning:
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he’s delaying Jay Clayton’s nomination to lead the U.S. intelligence community in a bid to force Congress to act on a voter ID bill that currently lacks enough support for passage.
Trump said in a lengthy post on his social media site that he will keep Bill Pulte, a top U.S. housing official, as acting director of national intelligence.
Even for him, this was weird. Senate GOP leaders were so determined to quickly approve Trump’s own handpicked choice for director of national intelligence that they scheduled a confirmation hearing for midday Wednesday, in the hope that Clayton might even be confirmed as early as Thursday of this week.
The president has apparently decided, however, that this is no longer what he wants, and in an item published to his social media platform at 3:54 a.m. Eastern, he wrote that “we are cancelling the Senate Hearing” for his DNI nominee.
Trump didn’t clarify who “we” are, exactly, though his missive included a curious boast about his willingness to “add a slight bit of intrigue” to the process.
“Intrigue,” however, was clearly the wrong word given the circumstances. “Incoherence” is more like it.
The president’s 258-word online statement was rather bizarre — at one point, it accused Senate Democrats of breaking a deal that never existed — though it did offer some insights into the three things Trump wants (at least for now).
First, he wants to attack the Senate’s “blue slip” process, which empowers senators on the Judiciary Committee to block indefinitely some judicial and prosecutorial nominees to their home states. Trump has railed against the rule for a while now — he expects the Senate to give him power, while weakening itself — and he’s apparently now concerned that if the process remains intact, he might not get James McDonald (the president’s former personal lawyer) confirmed as Clayton’s successor to lead the prosecutor’s office for the Southern District of New York.