Increasingly, Trump stands alone. The generals are gone, much of his  experienced and competent senior staffers have resigned or been fired.  This week, in a tantrum over his decision to shut down the government,  Trump stewed and tweeted and blamed and attacked from the White House,  while the rest of Congress was home for the Christmas holiday. At one  point on Christmas Eve day, as the stock market was plummeting, Trump  bemoaned his self-imposed status, tweeting, “I am all alone (poor me) in  the White House.” Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley called it, “a  sad and pathetic moment.” As the week came to a close, Trump again  complained: “I am in the White House waiting for the Democrats.”

This week the stock market continued wild gyrations, as Trump again  publicly lashed out at his Federal Reserve Chair, and privately  threatened to fire his Treasury Secretary. Parts of the government were  shuttered during the holiday week, and the effects of the shutdown  started to be felt. Trump took a surprise visit — his first — to a  combat zone, but even that backfired and led to further criticism as he  held a campaign rally-style event with U.S. troops at a military base in  Iraq, and continued his partisan criticisms of Democrats and  demagoguery about his wall and the shutdown while abroad. Iraqi  politicians denounced Trump’s visit and demanded U.S. troops leave their  country.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-111/