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Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

I'll be impressed when he actually issues a pardon. I'd say Trump is notorious for "talking about" things without ever delivering anything. Take the issue of 50 state concealed carry reciprocity. Regardless of what you think about this issue yourself, it seems clear that Trump has tried to pander to gun owners and 2A advocates by constantly talking about this. But last I heard, there had been no meaningful action on it, or any reason to believe he was actually pushing his allies in Congress on the issue.

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It's easy to promise controversial things that require Congressional action and cannot pass Congress. The President -no matter who they are or what Congressional action they promised- can't even push their allies in Congress to do something that can't work because of the filibuster or lack of sufficient majorities. Every candidate, and every President, promises things that they know Congress won't likely deliver -- cheap talk. But there are things they can do and so promises they can keep, so long as either they are sufficiently popular or do not require Congressional action.

Presidential pardon does not require approval from Congress, does it?

I was referring to GP's reference to carry reciprocity.

That's every politician on every issue, though. Relevant Bors: https://thenib.com/the-gay-marriage-rush/

Trump really hasn't taken the lead in much in the way of legislative action, almost ever.

I don't think he understands or has the patience for the process.

Anything beyond what he can try to decree himself, he seems to lose interest / struggle with. Even tripping up his own party members in congress while they try to understand what he wants. He has threatened to veto things he pushed for... then signed them shortly after.

I think he might simply be incapable of anything requiring too many new steps for him.

Or he understands that in this environment, for him to flog a bill makes it less likely to become law. And that embarrassment is a political debit.

The times he has done it his own party has straight up said it isn't helpful and that he was pushing for it earlier.

There's no 3d chess going on.

Trump really hasn't taken the lead in much in the way of legislative action, almost ever.

First major tax reform in decades?

Entirely driven by congressional Republicans.

Umm... it was in his election platform.

And of course he needed help from congress, he can't actually pass a bill without congress.

Presidents typically work with their party to pass something. His own party more often complains about a lack of help or counterproductive behavior that makes it difficult for them to pass things.

Trump's lack of effort to work with his own party was a constant topic, until his partly largely quit talking about it as no help became the status quo.

If you compare its process to the 2012 tax cut, there are big differences. The 2012 bill passed ultimately when Biden and McConnell agreed. The 2017 bill was drafted in secret and presented without the minority party seeing the bill at all. [0]

[0] https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/t...

Senate Rs, IIRC. The boilerplate started with Paul Ryan; House Rs demanded it be revenue neutral. The wonks who drafted Tax Cuts and Jobs noticed a major revenue-melting rewrite down to one page by Mnuchin. Senate Rs had to suppress their deficit hawks, namely Corker, and House Rs “folded like a cheap suit” -- Jim Cramer. The sentiment from waving a single page bill around was that, really, any act would do, and only the corporate tax cut mattered. This is what led to the bill including hand-written changes in the margin.

Was it tax reform or was it tax cuts?

> I'd say Trump is notorious for "talking about" things without ever delivering anything.

He "talked" about doing something about TikTok, then "did" something by signing an executive order on it.

EDIT: Downvotes... OK, so he didn't "talk about" and "do" this? Downvoters care to explain?

It works because he maintains a high approval rating in his party.

Pardoning Snowden is not likely to be popular is his party, most Republicans aren't very big fans of Snowden.

However, it is true that Trump is known for publicly "floating" a lot of ideas that he latter drops if they prove unpopular. But, if everybody cheers him for it it might actually make it more likely to happen.

The "floating" is A/B testing. Chances are, if this passes some formula of (left wing people won over) - (right wing people who hate it) > 0 then he'll do it.

Exactly. It is strange how many people who know what A/B testing is and have done it themselves are surprised when politicians do the same.

I took the video to be more like "This Snowden guy -- how would you (the media) cover it if I pardoned him? How would you cover it if the pardon also came with some dirt I need?" This type of test will serve to settle his direction without having to completely remember his past positions, or even precisely who Edward Snowden is.

This is a bit different than the way we do it -- we expect more statistical power with a saved history of repeated trials. "Floating" has been mentioned here. Perhaps "floating" involves trying two different frames to see how the media covers each, rather than numerous A/B trials for more statistical power.

> Republicans aren't very big fans of Snowden

Republicans have grown far more circumspect regarding their faith in intelligence services and Federal LEOs. Many see them as just players in and tools of the establishment political/media complex. At this point I don't think pardoning Snowden would hurt Trump with most Republicans. Certainly the 'Never Trumper' wing of Republicans would involuntarily soil themselves, but that's neither unusual nor significant.

True, Republicans are now much more sour on FBI and other alphabet agencies than they had been before. I'm not sure they are sour enough yet to embrace Snowden. We'll see.

Trump likes to throw ideas in the wild and see how people react to it. It does that kind of polling all the time. This way you can see how the public is ready or not to have such discussions.

Trump couldn’t do national reciprocity with en EO. Trump can pardon.

As to why national reciprocity didn’t go through, it was because the margins in congress were too low. Republicans in NY IL and CA mostly aren’t into it.

Besides, it’s the same story as ever... “if we give you the thing you want, we can’t campaign on it next time!”.

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