Steven Mnuchin’s deeply worrying gaffe
By James Downie March 26
It’s no longer surprising when the president of the United States makes a basic factual error. Such is par for the course in the Trump era. But for a long-tenured member of his Cabinet to make the same mistake several days later, as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin did Sunday morning, is worrying on a different level.
On “Fox News Sunday,” Mnuchin was tasked with defending the president’s signing Friday of a $1.3 trillion spending bill, to the scorn of many on the far right. Asked by host Chris Wallace what the president would do if congressional Republicans sent Trump another spending bill of this size later this year, Mnuchin repeated a suggestion that President Trump made Friday: Congress should give him the power of “line-item veto,” i.e. the ability to veto portions of the bill without vetoing the whole.
The problem? As Wallace pointed out, “that’s been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, sir.”
Wallace is correct: The Supreme Court ruled the line-item veto unconstitutional in 1998. But instead of conceding his mistake, Mnuchin dug himself in deeper: “Well, again, Congress could pass a rule, okay, that allows them to do it.” When Wallace pointed out that “No, no, sir, it would be a constitutional amendment,” Mnuchin stammered, “Chris, we don’t need to get into a debate in terms of — there’s different ways of doing this” and moved on.
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That a member of his Cabinet made the same error two days later is far more disturbing. The Sunday talk shows may not be as important as they used to be, but White House officials do not usually go on them unprepared. For Mnuchin to make this mistake days later means two things: 1.) The treasury secretary, more than a year into his tenure, is not aware of basic budget-making procedure; 2.) Either no one else senior enough at the White House to prepare Mnuchin knew those basics, or no one was organized enough to prep the one Cabinet member to appear on any of the Sunday shows this weekend.
In the president’s first 400 days, we’ve seen plenty of government by amateurs. But as “record-setting turnover” in Trump’s White House continues apace, his administration seems determined to mine new levels of incompetence.
Mnuchin would play a critical role in the next economic crisis. If he can’t get something so basic right, what chance does the country have when things get tough?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/03/26/steven-mnuchins-deeply-worrying-gaffe/?utm_term=.f0ff31cdca7f&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
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