US President Donald Trump has seemed immune to the usual rules of politics.
The man who once boasted that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” without losing support from voters regularly shatters political and legal norms at home and abroad, with few obvious consequences.
But every once in a while, Trump runs smack into whatever boundary remains and is forced to pull back, offering a glimpse into the country’s tolerance for his behaviour.
The chaotic White House response to a racist video clip of the Obamas that Trump posted online was one moment where the administration realised that its usual reactions to criticism — laugh it off, double down, move on — would not work. And while Trump does not, as a rule, acknowledge wrongdoing — and did not in this case, either — he deleted the clip in the face of widespread outrage in what amounted to a remarkable climbdown.
“It is surprising, in itself, to ever see him take a step back, to do anything other than, in the moment, double down and triple down, so in that sense it is surprising; it feels significant,” said Jeff Shesol, a historian and former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton who now serves as a partner at West Wing Writers, a speechwriting and strategy firm in Washington.
“President Trump is the unequivocal leader of the Republican Party and anyone who says otherwise is fooling themselves,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement.
It’s undeniable that Trump often skates through controversies that would have sunk any other politician. He continues to lie about having won the 2020 election and even a criminal conviction did not keep him from winning the presidency for a second time. In recent weeks, his administration threatened to shut down a major infrastructure project if it did not have Trump’s name on it.
Still, with the midterm election in November, Trump has been forced to backtrack — even if only by degrees, and even if only temporarily — at key moments, including on Friday when the White House moved to contain a bipartisan backlash over the video clip portraying the Obamas as apes. In another case, after Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents in Minnesota, Trump first justified the killing yet after widespread criticism he toned down some of his language about Pretti’s death.
On Friday, the White House at first dismissed the criticism as “fake outrage” over an Internet meme. But it soon became clear that Trump was facing a rebuke from members of his own party, starting with Senator Tim Scott, the sole Black Republican in the Senate and one of Trump’s close allies, who called the clip "the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House". From there, a chorus of criticism poured in from Republicans.
By midday, the White House had taken the post down and blamed an unknown “staffer” for the mishap. By the evening, Trump said he did not realise the clip of the Obamas had been spliced into the end of the video. Asked if he condemned the racist depiction of the Obamas, he said: “Of course I do.”
But he notably declined to apologise, saying it was not his mistake.
In recent months, Trump also has walked back his positions on the violent crackdown in Minneapolis, which left two US citizens dead, and his threats to take over Greenland "one way or the other". He also clearly feels the heat over the economy as Americans express deep uncertainty about the cost of living.
Republicans, though, may be starting to realise that Trump has eroded support on issues like the economy and immigration, which typically have been strengths for the Republican Party.
New York Times News Service
