Trump's legacy is shaped by his narrow interests [View all]

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Oct 31, 2020 - Politics & Policy
Trump's legacy is shaped by his narrow interests


https://www.axios.com/trump-legacy-first-term-c66e777c-6fec-4ccd-827f-eee8065565fc.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=1100

President Trump's policy legacy is as much defined by what he's ignored as by what he's involved himself in.



The big picture: Over the past four years, Trump has interested himself in only a slim slice of the government he leads. Outside of trade, immigration, a personal war against the "Deep State" and the hot foreign policy issue of the moment, Trump has left many of his Cabinet secretaries to work without interruption, let alone direction.

Over lunch in 2017, one of Trump's Cabinet secretaries told me they felt blessed to run an agency that Trump didn't care about. This was the best place to exist, they said.
While the media was distracted by the daily drama and treachery of the West Wing, this cabinet secretary gleefully said that they were racing a ton of controversial conservative policy through the system, largely untroubled by pesky journalists.
One former Cabinet secretary told me Trump's sole instruction to him, upon taking the job, was "I want you to win." Win what? He had no earthly idea. But he took it to mean he could follow his instincts and assumed he would hear from Trump at some point.

As a result of Trump's lack of interest in much of domestic policy, whole swaths of his administration — Education, Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, to name a few — have escaped even the barest presidential attention.......................................................