We know that President is undergoing a major, public ego injury tantrum because he has failed to manage any major legislative accomplishments in his first 100 days in office. The scale of the failure is so total one would almost need a Kelvin Scale of fail to capture its full extent. But in addition to all the other panicked flailing, there’s this gambit that seems to have gotten fairly little notice.
President Trump has now at least opened the door to denying he’s not even at 100 days, that people are miscounting and that is in fact at only just over 60 days.
When asked about the situation with Obamacare Repeal and tax reform Trump told the Associated Press this (emphasis added) …
I have great relationships with Congress. I think we’re doing very well and I think we have a great foundation for future things. We’re going to be applying — I shouldn’t tell you this, but we’re going to be announcing, probably on Wednesday, tax reform. … We’ve worked on it long and hard. And you gotta understand, I’ve only been here now 93 days, 92 days. President Obama took 17 months to do “Obamacare.” I’ve been here 92 days, but I’ve only been working on the health care, you know, I had to get like a little bit of grounding, right? Health care started after 30 day(s), so I’ve been working on health care for 60 days. … we’re very close. And it’s a great plan … we have to get it approved.
In this exchange Trump doesn’t go the whole way to demanding a comprehensive new day score. For the moment he’s only creating a new carve out 60 count for repealing Obamacare since “health care started after 30 day”. But clearly he’s preparing a broader sort of 100 day truth movement to claim the measure should be taken from February 21st, 2017 rather than January 21st, 2017.
The same day as the interview, Trump initially claimed that the entire 100 day metric is artificial and stupid.
No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including S.C.), media will kill!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2017
There’s a decent argument that’s true. It’s certainly arbitrary. Maybe also stupid. But Trump more than anyone has made it more central by insisting it was the metric against which he wanted to be judged. The new effort to demand a different count or the “30 day reset/handicap” proposed to the AP is likely a sign that he knows he’s shackled himself to the 100 day mast.
