Category Archives: Donald Trump

Yet thats precisely what Trump is doing.

The presidents reelection campaign has spent $1 million in an effort to make inroads with black voters, and more is coming, according to a person with direct knowledge of the planning. The initiative, dubbed Black Voices by the campaign, so far has included ads in black-run newspapers and on radio stations, volunteer training seminars and a kickoff event hosted by Trump in Atlanta last month.

The Trump ads tout low unemployment among African Americans, Trumps support for historically black colleges and universities, and the White House-backed criminal reform legislation that passed earlier this year.

The spots, which encourage voters to sign up for Trump 2020 updates by texting Woke to a campaign phone number, are concentrated in big cities located in battleground states, including Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta.

Supporters of President Donald Trump hold up signs outside a rally. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO

Trump received just 8 percent of the black vote in 2016, and his campaign aides concede hes never going to win more than a narrow slice of African American support. But thats not the point, they argue. If Trump can nudge his way into double digits among black voters and potentially into the low teens, it would eat away at Democratic margins in key swing states and possibly alter the outcome in a close election.

Florida is a case study in how a small shift in the black vote can make a big difference in a key battleground. According to exit polls, black voters made up 14 percent of the electorate in Florida in 2016, and Trump won just 8 percent of them. Had Trump received 12 percent, it would have netted him more than 50,000 votes, roughly half of his total margin of victory in the state.

Its not about whether or not he can change enough minds to get him to 98 percent of the black vote, said Paris Dennard, a Republican strategist who is advising the Trump campaign on the effort. You can move the needle ever so slightly in certain cities and certain counties.

Dennard, who worked in the George W. Bush White House and at the Republican National Committee, said Trump is courting African Americans far more aggressively than previous Republican presidential candidates.

Its historic because this just doesnt happen, he said.

Democrats dismiss the idea that Trump could make serious inroads. Trump's job-approval rating among black voters was 10 percent in the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. And a Quinnipiac University survey released Tuesday showed the Democratic polling leader, former Vice President Joe Biden, leading Trump among black voters, 87 to 7 percent.

Doug Wilson, a Democratic strategist in Charlotte, N.C., where Trump is running radio and newspaper commercials, scoffed at the Trump initiative, calling it half-baked.

Yet some Democrats are concerned. While Trump is unlikely to receive substantial black support, they worry his outreach could dissuade African Americans from turning out in force for the Democratic candidate. For some Democrats, the prospect brings back nightmares of 2016, when Hillary Clinton failed to turn out voters in heavily black Detroit, paving the way for Trumps upset victory in Michigan.

The end goal is to create doubt in the minds of black voters, doubt about the Democratic Party and doubts about the Democratic nominee, said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of Black PAC, a super PAC aimed at mobilizing black voters. It really is about suppressing the black vote more than it is about bringing black voters out to support Trump.

Democrats say theyre on high alert against potential voter suppression. Many in the party remain shaken by Russian-led efforts to dampen black enthusiasm for Clinton, and one Democratic strategist pointed to a brochure that surfaced recently in Virginia describing how modern-day Jim Crow Democrats are keeping Black Americans under heel.

The pamphlet did not identify who paid for it. A Trump 2020 spokesman said the campaign was not behind it.

In response, liberal organizations say theyre reaching out to black voters well before the 2020 political season intensifies. In February, meanwhile, the Congressional Black Caucus will convene African American leaders from around the country to discuss a range of issues, including the upcoming elections.

Justin Myers, CEO of For Our Future, a union-funded super PAC focused on field organizing, called Trump's messaging "empty," but acknowledged: If we are not taking Trumps paid program seriously, it is to our detriment.

Trumps push for the black vote is being encouraged by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner. Trump's son-in-law, who helped to shepherd through criminal justice reform, has privately made the case that the president can expand his base of support from 2016 and potentially grow the Republican Party.

The president's advisers say the new program has enlisted around 2,000 members. After years of virtually ignoring or often antagonizing black voters, party strategists say they are finally making tangible investments that could earn them support.

Republicans say Trump has an opportunity to woo black men in particular, who are seen as more conservative and receptive to the president than black women. A September CNN poll found that 15 percent of black men approved of Trumps job performance, compared with just 3 percent of black women.

"I do believe there is some potential with black men, said Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton, a former deputy chief of staff to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

Katrina Pierson, a Trump 2020 adviser who is helping to spearhead the project, said she was aware of the skepticism. But by reaching out to black voters, she argued, Trump is finding people willing to hear his message.

Its going to be tough work, said Pierson, who serves as the narrator in the radio ads. "No one thinks its going to be easy."

But Henry, whose Westside Gazette paper received just over $5,000 for the full-page ad, expressed uncertainty. He said he didn't know whether the ad, which prominently featured an image of two black women holding Trump campaign signs, would move the publications readers.

If you asked me from my personal standpoint, he said, I would have to say no.

Steven Shepard contributed to this report.

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Trump shocks black voters by trying to get their votes - POLITICO

US President Donald Trump has hailed Boris Johnson's landslide election success, congratulating the British prime minister on Twitter with a "great WIN" and promising to strike a "massive new Trade Deal" between the US and the UK.

Johnson's Conservative Party in Thursday's general election gained its largest majority in decades and delivered Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party a historic defeat.

The US president weighed in on Twitter in the early hours of Friday morning.

"Congratulations to Boris Johnson on his great WIN!" Trump wrote. "Britain and the United States will now be free to strike a massive new Trade Deal after BREXIT. This deal has the potential to be far bigger and more lucrative than any deal that could be made with the E.U. Celebrate Boris!"

Johnson campaigned hard on a pledge to "get Brexit done," promising to finally steer the UK out of the European Union more than three years after the referendum in which Brits first voted to leave. He is on track to secure the largest majority enjoyed by the Conservative Party since Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

Corbyn, meanwhile, has said he will not lead the Labour Party into any future general election, though he did not give a clear time frame for his departure.

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Trump congratulates Boris Johnson on a 'great WIN' in the UK election - Business Insider

President Trump famously asked, Wheres my Roy Cohn? Demanding a stand-in for his old personal lawyer and fixer, Mr. Trump has actually gotten something better with Bill Barr: a lawyer who like Cohn stops seemingly at nothing in his service to Mr. Trump and conveniently sits atop the nations Justice Department.

Mr. Barr has acted more like a henchman than the leader of an agency charged with exercising independent judgment. The disturbing message that sends does not end at our borders it extends to countries, like those in the former East Bloc, struggling to overcome an illiberal turn in the direction of autocracy.

When Mr. Trump sought to have President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine announce an investigation of his political opponent, he likely expected a positive response. After all, politicized prosecutions had been part of Ukraines corrupt political culture for years.

On Monday, when Michael Horowitz, inspector general for the Justice Department, released a report that affirmed the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was justified, Mr. Barr immediately turned on his own agency in defense of the president.

The F.B.I. launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken, he said.

Similarly, Mr. Barrs response to the report from Robert Mueller on Russian interference and Mr. Trumps purported presidential misconduct was to cast doubt on his own staff, questioning their work product as well as their ethics and legal reasoning. Even before he became attorney general, Mr. Barr questioned Mr. Muellers investigation of the president for obstruction of justice in a 19-page legal memo he volunteered to the administration.

And where he could have neutrally passed Mr. Muellers findings to Congress, he instead took the widely criticized and unusual step of making and announcing his own legal conclusions about Mr. Muellers obstruction inquiry. He followed up this Cohn-like behavior with testimony in the Senate, where he insinuated that the United States government spied on the Trump campaign. Mr. Barr apparently has decided that, like Cohn, he serves Donald Trump and not the Constitution or the United States, flouting his oath of office and corrupting the mission of the Justice Department.

In the past, the United States has, however imperfectly, advanced the rule of law and supported governments committed to an anti-corruption agenda. According to George Kent, a State Department official who testified in the House impeachment inquiry, Russia sees corruption as a tool to advance its interests. So when the United States fights a kleptocratic culture, it serves not only lofty humanitarian goals but also our national security. Mr. Zelensky ran a campaign and was elected on a platform that put fighting corruption at the forefront. He should have received extensive and unmitigated support in that effort.

In the former East Bloc countries, despite the hopes of many for a post-Soviet era where democracy would thrive, the parties and politicians in power have consolidated their control in a manner reminiscent of the Communist era.

Autocrats understand that supposedly independent institutions such as the courts and prosecutors are vital to locking in their power. In Romania, a crusading anti-corruption prosecutor who was investigating top government officials was fired at the same time as the government advanced legislation to cabin the ability of other prosecutors to pursue cases against political officials. Polands right-wing populist Law and Justice Party has attacked the independent judiciary and has sought to remove judges who do not follow the party line. Hungary has followed suit. Bulgarian politicians have persecuted civil society groups that have criticized their abandonment of the rule of law.

While several United States ambassadors have attempted to support anti-corruption efforts in the region, they have been continuously undercut by the White House. In addition to firing Marie Yovanovitch, who served as ambassador to Ukraine, in part because of her anti-corruption focus, Mr. Trump hosted Viktor Orban of Hungary in Washington over the objections of national security officials who did not want to elevate a corrupt leader with close ties to the Kremlin; furthermore, the president has tried to cut funding for anti-corruption programs.

Mr. Trumps focus on cultivating foreign leaders who can help his re-election has overwhelmed our national interests in the region. That is certainly a shame for the anti-corruption activists in former Communist countries who have depended on our help and leadership since the end of the Soviet era and who have seen their justice system turned to serve political ends.

But for Americans, we must worry that we face a similar domestic situation: a prosecutor who bends to the political needs of the president. Mr. Trump may no longer be able to call on Roy Cohn, but he now has a stronger ally in the United States top law-enforcement official, who thinks that if the president does it, it cant be wrong.

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Donald Trump Wanted Another Roy Cohn. He Got Bill Barr. - The New York Times

If Donald Trump had a problem with Chris Wallace before (he did), then hes really not going to like the Fox News host after his latest critique.

Thats Wallace sharing his thoughts on the presidency at an event on Wednesday night celebrating the First Amendment at Washington, D.C.s Newseum.

Wallace pointed to this Trump tweet, in particular, from back in 2017 that said far more about him than it did about us:

Lets be honest, the presidents attacks have done some damage, the longtime broadcaster and son of journalist icon Mike Wallace said, pointing to a poll that found 77% of Americans believe fake news is a serious threat to our democracy.

Wallace also warned the media that its a big mistake to use the presidents attacks as rationale to push back too hard and cross the line.

I see it all the time on the front page of major newspapers and the lead of the evening news: fact mixed with opinion, buzzwords like bombshell and scandal, he said. The animus of the reporter and the editor as plain to see as the headline.

Heres the clip of Wallaces speech:

Wallace has strayed from the prevailing political bias on Fox News before. Of course, it hasnt gone unnoticed by Trump, the counterpuncher:

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Fox News host delivers a scathing rebuke of Trump? Yes, it happened... again - MarketWatch

Even as it became clear he would become only the fourth president to face impeachment, Donald Trump has argued to White House officials that he is, in fact, winning. Hes feeling positive, a former West Wing official told me. The prevailing view is the Democrats are blowing it. Trumps feeling is his all-out brawl strategy is working. His confidence is buoyed by an uptick in his swing state poll numbers and what he sees as Democrats failure to message impeachment effectively. Its unbelievable. Hes unfazed," another former West Wing official said. I spoke to him the other day and he was going, Can you believe this fucking witch hunt? This is a joke!

So far, Trumps wall of support from House and Senate Republicans appears as solid as ever. But Trump is less certain about the strength of his ultimate line of defense: Fox News. According to multiple sources whove spoken with Trump as impeachment has unfolded in the House, Trump is furious with pockets of Foxs coverage. Hes pissed. He thinks Fox screwed him, a former West Wing official said. The news division carried the impeachment hearings live, a rare instance in which unmediated evidence of Trumps misdeeds could pierce the Fox bubble. The networks legal commentator, Judge Andrew Napolitano, declared Trumps defiance of Congress an impeachable offense, a position that directly contradicted the House Republicans handpicked witness, George Washington University law scholar Jonathan Turley. Trump has also been engaged in a running war with Fox News anchor Chris Wallace; after Trump tweeted last month that Wallace was nasty, fellow Foxer Neil Cavuto rushed to Wallaces defense.

Fox did not respond to a request for comment.

On Sunday, Trump lashed out on Twitter, writing: Dont get why @FoxNews puts losers on like @RepSwalwell (who got ZERO as presidential candidate before quitting), Pramila Jayapal, David Cicilline and others who are Radical Left Haters? The Dems wouldnt let @FoxNews get near their bad ratings debates, yet Fox panders. Pathetic! Also over the weekend, Trump tweeted multiple stories from Fox rival Newsmax run by Trumps friend Chris Ruddy. Having any opposing voices is a problem for Trump, a Republican who spoke with the president told me. He was saying this coverage is bullshit. This was a shot across the bow to all the hosts.

Inside Fox, the message was received. Hes clearly worried were really going to cover this fairly, and hes starting to freak. This is about keeping us in line, a Fox staffer told me.

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He Thinks Fox Screwed Him: Trump Enraged At Fox, His Impeachment Bulwark - Vanity Fair

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A look at some key numbers for the 120thArmy-Navy game on Saturday:

2,527:Total yards amassed by Navy senior quarterback Malcolm Perry, recently named the offensive player of the year in the American Athletic Conference. With just 68 yards in Saturday's game, he'll break Will Worth's single-season program record for total offense.

672.5: Combined rushing yards per game recorded by Navy and Army this season. They rank first and second in the Football Bowl Subdivision, respectively, in that category.

253.8: Combined rushing yards allowed by Army and Navy. The Midshipmen boast a top-20 rushing defense, while Army ranks 52nd.

119:Games played between Army and Navy, dating to the inaugural meeting in West Point, New York in 1890. The Midshipmen lead the series 60-52-7.

Army players and cadets celebrate last season's 17-10 to win over Navy.(Photo: Danny Wild, USA TODAY Sports)

In their words: Army-Navy game: NFL player will remember 'for the rest of my life,' when Cadets broke losing streak

In their words: Former Navy player recalls thrill of winning Army game 'all four years'

88:Army-Navy games played in Philadelphia. Lincoln Financial Field, home of the NFL's Eagles, will host three of the next four Army-Navy games including Saturday's contest; The two teams will face off at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey in 2021 following the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in nearby New York.

47.7%:Army's third-down conversion rate since 2010, which leads the country over that span.

21:Career pass breakups by Army cornerback Elijah Riley, second in program history. Riley, a semifinalist for this year's Jim Thorpe Award, has played a role in six of his team's 17 forced turnovers in 2019, intercepting three passes and forcing three fumbles.

14:The length of Navy's winning streak over Army from 2002 through 2015, the longest streak in the history of the series.

3:Consecutive wins for Army since ending its skid in 2016. Another win over Navy on Saturday would give the Black Knights their first four-game winning streak in the rivalry since 1993 to 1996.

10: Sitting presidents who have attended the game, including Donald Trump, who will be there for the third time on Saturday, twice while in office and once while president-elect.

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Army Navy game by the numbers includes President Donald Trump attending for the third time - USA TODAY

Back to the question of what makes U.S. Jews politically different. Much of the answer is historical memory. Most of us, I think, know that whenever bigotry runs free, were likely to be among its victims.

The Trump administration is, beyond any reasonable doubt, an anti-democratic, white nationalist regime. And while it is not (yet) explicitly anti-Semitic, many of its allies are: Jews will not replace us chanted the very fine people carrying torches in Charlottesville, Va. You have to be willfully ignorant of the past not to know where all this leads. Indeed, its happening already: anti-Semitic incidents have soared (and my hate mail has gotten interesting).

Jews arent the only people who have figured this out. Many Asian-American voters used to support Republicans, but the group is now overwhelmingly Democratic. Indian-Americans, in particular, are like American Jews: a high-income, high-education group that votes Democratic by large margins, presumably because many of its members also realize where white nationalism will take us.

In all of this, Republicans not just Trump, but his whole party are reaping what they sowed. Their strategy for decades has been to win votes from working-class whites, despite an anti-worker agenda, by appealing to racial resentment. Trump has just made that racial appeal cruder and louder. And one has to admit that this strategy has been quite successful.

But it takes, well, chutzpah, a truly striking level of contempt for your audience, to foment hatred-laced identity politics, then turn to members of minority groups and say, in effect, Ignore the bigotry and look at the taxes youre saving!

And some of the audience deserves that contempt. As I said, people are pretty much the same whatever their background. There are wealthy Jews who are sufficiently shortsighted, ignorant or arrogant enough to imagine that they can continue to prosper under a white nationalist government.

But most of my ethnic group, I believe, understands that Trump is bad for the Jews, whatever tax bracket we happen to be in.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

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Donald Trump Is Bad for the Jews - The New York Times

I agree and I cannot wait to take that out of context for the next 100 years. SAMANTHA BEE

O.K., will the last vertebrae to leave Lindsey Grahams spine please remember to turn off the lights? STEPHEN COLBERT

Lindsey Grahams point was, I guess that the parties involved in the investigation were biased against Donald Trump. They didnt want him to be president, which is a crazy point to make, because I can think of someone else back then who didnt want him to be president, too. JIMMY KIMMEL

I guess he had a change of heart, because Lindsey Graham was one of the most outspoken critics of Trump; now he suckles at his teat like a baby goat. JIMMY KIMMEL

Those messages dont prove anything. You cant go anywhere in the world without hearing opinions about Trump. Im pretty sure there are people stranded on deserted islands in the Bermuda Triangle putting rocks together that say, Trump is a douche. SETH MEYERS

Meanwhile, every Democrat was like, I allot my time to Lindsey Graham. Just keep going. JIMMY FALLON

A damning chain of texts. Ill tell you what: I can understand why Graham is furious. Not only is that overt bias by F.B.I. agents, theyre stealing Grahams best material. STEPHEN COLBERT

Time magazine today unveiled their person of the year for 2019 and that person is Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old activist, the youngest woman, youngest human ever to be named person of the year. And to honor this young woman whos dedicated her life thus far to saving the environment, Time will cut down thousands of trees to print 2 million copies of the magazine. JIMMY KIMMEL

When asked what she thought about Time, Thunberg said, We probably have about five, six years left. SETH MEYERS

It was like, Great news, Greta. Were going to cut down a million trees and print your face on them, and then were going to put them on airplanes and send them all over the world! TREVOR NOAH

"Its so cool to be named the person of the year while youre still in high school, all right? All the other kids are like, I was voted most likely to succeed. And Greta is slapping her magazine like, I already did, bitch. TREVOR NOAH

Plus she doesnt have to fill out a college application she can show them this. But it will be awkward when she presents it to Harvard: Wait a second Aunt Becky told us her daughter was person of the year. TREVOR NOAH

After being told, the 16-year-old girl asked, Whats a magazine? CONAN OBRIEN

Greta famously sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on a boat with no kitchen, no showers and no toilets. And anyone whos ever been on a carnival cruise was, like Hey, I did that. Where is my award? JIMMY FALLON

Jon Hamm and Keri Russell play Mad Lib Theater on Wednesday's The Tonight Show.

Excerpt from:

Late Night Takes a Swig of Trumps Impeachment Light - The New York Times

Editors note (December 11th): This article has been updated.

UNION LEADERS and Democratic lawmakers were cool at first towards the USMCA, a replacement for the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which was signed by American, Canadian and Mexican trade negotiators over a year ago. But on December 10th, after months of further talks, they swung behind a reworked version. Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, Americas largest trade-union group, proclaimed a new standard for future trade negotiations. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, called it a victory for Americas workers.

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The reversal may seem surprising. The AFL-CIO has not endorsed an American trade deal in nearly two decades, and Ms Pelosi is trying to get President Donald Trump, whose deal this is, impeached. According to polling data provided to The Economist by YouGov and published on December 11th, though 79% of Americans say that trade and globalisation are important to them, only 37% say the same of replacing NAFTA with the USMCA.

But both the politics and the content of the deal have led to unexpected alliances. Supporting the USMCA lets Democrats claim that they are not obstructing Mr Trumps agenda for the sake of it. And on trade, Mr Trump has more in common with the left wing of the Democratic Party than with his own Republicans. Many Democrats agree that previous deals made trade too free, with too few of the benefits going to American workers. And several of the changes secured by the Democrats are meaningful. Some are sure to be to Mr Trumps taste, too.

Among the revisions are an end to intellectual-property protections for biologics, a specific class of drug, and weaker patents for pharmaceuticals in general. Democrats say such protections stifle competition from generics and raise drug prices. Unsurprisingly, those changes went down badly with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry lobby. Its president said they amounted to an abandonment of protections for American companies.

Enforcement has been beefed up. Improvements to NAFTAs dispute-settlement system are probably the most important thing in the whole treaty, says Jess Seade, Mexicos chief negotiator. Under NAFTA, countries could block the appointment of arbiters to hear awkward disputes. This should no longer be possible.

The shared vision of the Trump administration and Democratic lawmakers is clearest when it comes to labour standards. The aim was to make it less attractive to move jobs from America to Mexico than had been the case under NAFTA by supporting Mexican workers employment rights. But in the first version of the USMCA, the AFL-CIO complained, the bar for proving a breach of the rules was too high and enforcement mechanisms were too onerous. Critics pointed to the only labour complaint ever to make it as far as a formal dispute as part of an American trade deal: a case against Guatemala in which arbiters agreed that the rules had been broken, but not that any harm to trade or investment had been demonstrated.

The new deal shifts the burden of proof regarding such harm. To avoid penalties, defendants will have to show that it did not happen. Moreover, accusations that manufacturers are breaking Mexican laws covering freedom of association and collective bargaining will be sent for speedy consideration to panels of independent labour experts. Rule-breaking will lead to penalties on exports. Overall, the revised labour provisions are good for Mexico, Mr Seade says, and will reinforce its governments own labour reforms.

The revised USMCA will restrict trade a bit more than NAFTA did. It will probably not live up to the hype. Even if greater use of collective bargaining raises Mexican wages, the USMCAs official impact assessment suggests that American wages would rise by just 0.27% in response. But for Mr Trump, his Democratic foes and their neighbours in Mexico, it counts as a win.

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Why the revised USMCA pleases both Democrats and Donald Trump - The Economist

A Trump campaign Twitter account on Tuesday blasted out a doctored video featuring the Marvel super villain Thanos proclaiming, "I am inevitable."

Only, Thanos' purple, CGI'd version of Josh Brolin's chin-heavy mug is courtesy of some cheesy graphic effects overlaid with President Donald Trump's smirking face. And when Thanos-Trump snaps his fingers, the video cuts to House Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, fading into mere dust.

The tweet, put out by the official Trump War Room account, tied the meme to the Trump impeachment inquiry in the House, which kicked into a new phase on Tuesday as the leaders announced they would seek two articles of impeachment against the president. The message: Impeachment can't stop Trump's reelection next year.

Critics were puzzled and aghast by the choice to depict Trump as literally laying his political opponents to waste. Thanos is a villain, after all. Not just any villain, either. The biggest villain in the biggest series of global blockbuster films ever. When Thanos snaps his fingers at the end of "Avengers: Infinity War," he wipes out half of all life in the universe.

The creator of the Thanos character, comic book artist and writer Jim Starlin, weighed in, too.

"After my initial feeling of being violated, seeing that pompous fool using my creation to stroke his infantile ego, it finally struck me that the leader of my country and the free world actually enjoys comparing himself to a mass murderer," he said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "How sick is that? These are sad and strange times we are going through. Fortunately, all things, even national nightmares, eventually come to an end."

Doesn't the Trump campaign realize they were likening their candidate to a super villain?

Don't be naive. Of course they do.

They know that to liberals and Democrats especially, Trump is a villain. And they love it. Remember that Trump and his followers embraced the "deplorable" label gifted to them by Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.

Even before running for office, Trump himself thrived as a pop culture villain. This is the guy who turned "you're fired" into a catchphrase. He is in the WWE Hall of Fame. He only likes to watch the violent scenes in Van Damme movies. Sure, Trump also thrives on the adulation of his followers and memes depicting him as heroic and strong. Remember the doctored "Rocky III" image from just a few weeks ago. But make no mistake, being a larger-than-life heavy is integral to the Trump persona, and his success.

So in this context, the Trump campaign's meme masters were consistent and on brand. But they also messed up. Villains, after all, are often victims of their own hubris. This is certainly the case for Thanos.

The "I am inevitable" scene is from "Avengers: Endgame," and, well, things don't actually go so well for Thanos after he issues his doom-laden quip. Bear with me as I get into some nerdy detail. (This is also a big spoiler for the end of "Avengers: Endgame." But, let's face it, it's the highest-grossing movie of all time, so you've either seen it, or, if you haven't seen it by now, you don't care whether it's spoiled for you.) In that moment, he is actually outsmarted by Iron Man, who has snatched all the Infinity Stones. So after Thanos' big line, Iron Man offers a rebuttal -- "I am Iron Man" -- and snaps his fingers to make Thanos disappear.

Trump's reelection is anything but inevitable. He is likely going to be impeached by the Democratic-led House, although he probably won't be removed from office by the Republican-led Senate. He'll continue running for reelection. And even though his Democratic rival is a long way from being determined, the president will likely be in for the fight of his life leading up to November's election. He's the incumbent, and he has a strong economy behind him, at least for the time being. But his approval rating has remained consistently underwater.

All signs point to another tight contest. And, honestly, no one can predict the outcome. It would be good for Trump and his campaign to understand that, with a snap of their fingers, a handful of American voters in swing states could well make Trump's hope for a second term fade away in a cloud of dust.

Mike Calia is the politics editor for CNBC.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @Michael_Calia

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Trump is in the endgame now, but he is far from inevitable - CNBC