Trump Has No Clue About A Second Term

Ted Kennedy couldn't say why he wanted to be president and it sank his campaign. Donald Trump can't say why he wants a second term and nobody even notices.

That time Roger Mudd stumped Ted Kennedy.

In the fall of 1979, as Ted Kennedy was preparing to challenge incumbent President Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primaries, CBS News reporter Roger Mudd asked Kennedy why he wanted to be president. It was a softball question, but it befuddled Kennedy; he gave every impression of never having given the question any thought. After a painfully long pause, Kennedy offered up the following. His campaign never recovered:

Well, I’m ... uh … were I to make the announcement to run, the reasons that I would run is because I have a great belief in this country, that it is—there’s more natural resources than any nation in the world, there’s the greatest educated population in the world, the greatest technology of any country in the world, the greatest capacity for innovation in the world, and the greatest political system in the world. And yet I see at the current time that most of the industrial nations of the world are exceeding us in terms of productivity, are doing better than us in terms of meeting the problems of inflation, that they’re dealing with their problems of energy, and their problems of unemployment, and it just seems to me, that this nation can cope and deal with its problems in a way that it has in the past. We’re facing complex issues and problems in this nation at this time, but we have faced similar challenges at other times. And the energies and the resourcefulness of this nation, I think, should be focused on these problems in a way that brings a sense of restoration in this country by its people in dealing with the problems we face, primarily the issues on the economy, the problems of inflation, and the problems of energy. And, I would basically feel that it’s imperative for this country, either move forward, that it can’t stand still, or otherwise it moves backward.

Now it’s the spring of 2024, and Donald Trump has given an interview to Time magazine’s Eric Cortellessa about what he would do if re-elected president. Trump can’t plead, as Kennedy did, that he was blindsided; he’s already the presumptive nominee, and Time notified Trump in advance that this would be the topic of their interview. But Trump appears to have little more of an idea why he wants to be president than Kennedy did four decades ago. Yes, Trump would perform a mass deportation with the aid of the National Guard and the U.S. military (even though, as Cortellessa points out, the latter would be illegal). Trump would issue blanket pardons to January 6 insurrectionists. Trump would slap a 10 percent tariff on all foreign goods. He would direct prosecutions from the Oval Office and fire any prosecutor who didn’t play ball. He would fire uncooperative civil servants.

But that’s about it, and even there Trump hedges. The tariff might be 10 percent, or it might be more, or it might be less. Asked whether he’d fire any U.S. attorneys, he says “It would depend on the situation.” When asked about his staff’s plans to revive his Schedule F executive order stripping civil servants of job protections, Trump says: “We’re looking at a lot of different things.” Trump proposes not a single piece of legislation. Trump fudges on aid to Ukraine. Trump fudges on Israel. Trump ignores a question about Taiwan. It’s clear Trump wishes to abuse executive power, but what he would do with that power is not clear at all. Trump is an improvisational authoritarian. He won’t spell out what he would do not because he’s cagey but because he doesn’t know. Like Kennedy in 1980, he doesn’t appear to have given the matter much thought. Only this time, neither his supporters nor his opponents nor the press really cares. That’s the topic of my latest New Republic piece. You can read it here.