Cal Thomas: The president’s self-inflicted wounds

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, May 8th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from member-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: There’s been a wall of protection around President Trump, built and maintained by a lot of conservative media. Don’t look now, but it’s starting to crumble.

REICHARD: Commentary now from WORLD Radio’s Cal Thomas.

THOMAS: Fox News Channel’s opinion programs have been staunch defenders of the president. Sean Hannity often comes off as a Trump mouthpiece.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page is frequently supportive of presidential policies.

But both Fox and the Journal last week went off the attack.

For four full minutes, Fox anchor Neil Cavuto blistered President Trump.

He did praise some of Trump’s policies. But then suggested he’s putting them at risk by making it impossible for would-be supporters to defend him.

Cavuto laid down a litany of presidential half-truths and full-on contradictions — of which the Stormy Daniels saga was the latest:

CAVUTO: So let me be clear, Mr. President. How can you drain the swamp if you’re the one who keeps muddying the waters?

You didn’t know about that 130,000-dollar payment to a porn star, until you did.

Said you knew nothing about how your former lawyer Michael Cohen handled this, until acknowledging today you were the guy behind the retainer payment that took care of this.

Now, I’m not saying you’re a liar, I’m just having a devil of a time figuring out which news is fake.

Let’s just say your own words on lots of stuff give me, shall I say, lots of pause.

None of this makes me a never-Trumper, just always confused.

The Wall Street Journal addressed those who say they don’t care about the president’s personal life, but only his policies.

In a lead editorial last Friday, the Journal emphasized the danger President Trump is creating for himself with what the editorial called his “public deceptions.”

I’ll quote here: “Mr. Trump is compiling a record that increases the likelihood that few will believe him during a genuine crisis — say, a dispute over speaking with special counsel Robert Mueller or a nuclear showdown with Kim Jong Un. Mr. Trump should worry that Americans will stop believing anything he says.” End of quote.

This is all so unnecessary.

So many good things are happening: record low unemployment, rising consumer confidence, the possibility of peace with North Korea, even a new Rasmussen poll showing the president’s approval rating at 47 percent.

Conservatives aren’t wrong when they say that the media and the rest of the establishment hate the president and want to see him impeached.

But why does the president give his opponents the rope with which to hang him?

The question is whether any of this will matter to hardcore Trump supporters? And what about the evangelicals who so strongly supported — and mostly continue to support — the president?

These were the ones who said character matters.

I’m not sure it does anymore. Why do I think this?

Because whenever I have criticized them for their blanket pardon of anything and everything the president has done, I hear from them in droves.

Anytime I comment that their unqualified support runs antithetical to their core religious beliefs, they write to criticize me.

Those are the activists. For the folks in the pews, I wonder if the exhaustion factor may be setting in. The Wall Street Journal can’t defend him. Even Fox News can’t defend him.

The coming midterm elections are going to tell us a lot.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Cal Thomas.

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Saturday, May 5, 2018.

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