It’s been awhile since we saw a lame-duck presidency — long enough in politics to maybe forget what one looks like.
In October 2014, President Barack Obama hit his lowest approval rating yet at 40%. The midterm elections were an absolute bloodbath for Democrats — Republicans expanded their majority in the House by 13 seats and took control of the Senate with a gain of nine seats.
The predictions for the second half of Obama’s second term were fatalistic. As early as 2013, analysts were calling his presidency DOA, having seemingly spent all of his political capital on getting the Affordable Care Act passed and implemented, which didn’t go smoothly. He suffered early second-term losses on the Bush-era tax cuts, gun control efforts and immigration reform.
There was just nothing left in the tank. Or so it seemed.
But Obama defied those predictions. In 2015, he got a huge win when the Supreme Court — in a surprise from conservative Chief Justice John Roberts — ruled in favor of keeping Obamacare intact, preserving his signature legislation.
Then, the ambitious Trans Pacific Partnership deal, the world’s biggest ever trade agreement, accounting for two-fifths of trade, got fast-tracked by a highly divided Congress.
He got another win in Cuba, where he secured an agreement to resume diplomatic relations after 54 years of hostilities. And he signed an Iran nuclear deal designed to prevent Iran from developing nukes in exchange for sanction relief.
Whatever you think of Obamacare, the Trans Pacific Partnership, Cuba and Iran deals, it’s hard to argue Obama’s final months in office were very “lame.” In as little as a year, he’d redefined the meaning of the term.
We know how much Obama tends to get in Donald Trump’s head. As the legend goes, after all, it was Obama’s mockery of Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner that provoked him to run for president. Ever since, he’s been fixated on the ex-chief, even blasting his Chicago presidential center with petty jabs in recent months.
Well, Trump only wishes he were having the final few years that Obama did. Instead, it seems, Trump’s lame-duck presidency has arrived early.
Trump’s approval has plummeted since his inauguration, dropping from 52% to 38%, while his disapproval has shot up 15 points.
Thanks in large part to his dumb tariffs and dumb war in Iran, the midterms are looking so bad for Republicans, the party’s resorted to mid-census redistricting schemes that may or may not pay off. Democrats could not only take back the House but win the Senate, with candidates in red states like Texas, Iowa and Ohio in real contention.
Then there are his recent losses. A lot of them.
The $1.8 billion slush fund to pay out MAGA loyalists, including Jan. 6 insurrectionists, was met with such disdain from his own party, he had to dump it.
Four Republicans in the House just voted with Democrats to pass a war powers resolution directing Trump to withdraw military forces from Iran.
Republicans in both chambers have come out to condemn Trump’s utterly absurd pick for director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte.
The fate of his billion-dollar ballroom remains up in the air, as is that of the “Trump battleships” he’s proposed. A judge ruled he cannot put his name on the Kennedy Center, and his Freedom 250 concert series collapsed as musical acts dropped out one by one, leaving Vanilla Ice to headline, if it happens at all.
These are some humiliating losses. And the crazy part is, had Trump pursued “normal” policy wins for Americans instead of the insane, vulgar and self-interested nonsense he has, he’d surely be in a different position.
But he didn’t. Welcome to your lame-duck era, Mr. President.
S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.