CNN: 6 months in, Trump's presidency is teetering on the brink of disaster
(CNN)The collapse of health care reform in the Senate on Monday night is a fitting coda to President Donald Trump's first six months in office, a tenure that has lurched from controversy to controversy and now appears to be on the verge of tilting directly into the political abyss.
Consider the following facts:
1. Trump's job approval rating at the 6-month mark is lower than eight of the past nine presidents'. He's tied with Gerald Ford, who had taken over from Richard Nixon, who had fled Washington in the wake of the Watergate scandal and whom Ford, very controversially, pardoned.
2. Despite his braggadocio, Trump has a pittance of legislative accomplishments to tout. Health care appears to be dead in the water -- and even Trump can't seem to decide what the right next step should be. There is currently zero new funding for Trump's much-touted border wall. Tax reform still in its infant stage, with few details added to the first, basic proposal. Infrastructure proposals are in limbo. There is no announced strategy on the raising of the debt ceiling. And on and on and on.
3. A special counsel was appointed and is investigating Russia's attempts to meddle in the 2016 election and the possibility that members of the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to aid his campaign. That investigation has triggered a major lawyering-up of all the major players -- including several Trump family members -- and a series of ever-changing stories about who said what and when.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/18/politics/trump-president-6-months/index.html