'Presidencies rocked by events': Conservative flags unlikely source of Trump problems

Reacting to Donald Trump's plunging approval numbers reported by Fox News earlier in the week, National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry suggested the embattled president need only look in the mirror if he's looking for the culprit who is crippling his administration.

In a column on Friday for the conservative NRO, Lowry took a dark view of Trump's disruptive trade war which, he claimed, has led to an "economic dislocation" that appears to be the main administration misstep that has turned voters against him.

Getting quickly to the point, Lowry wrote, "It’s hard to think of another example of a president changing the momentum of his administration from positive to negative so quickly and decisively. Trump did it literally in a matter of days," before adding, "Usually, presidencies are rocked by events — a hostage crisis, a war gone wrong, uncontrolled inflation. Here, nothing was done to Trump; he did it to himself. He was the event."

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Noting the president can't blame his latest setback on the "deep state," the conservative columnist suggested the tariff-plagued economy isn't Trump's only problem as he approaches the 100-day mark of his second administration.

"The Fox News poll has him at 40 percent approve and 54 percent disapprove on foreign policy. Here, too, he’s been the master of his own fate. Canada, Mexico, and Denmark didn’t pick fights with him; he created them out of nothing. The overpromising on a Ukraine peace deal — and retaking the Panama Canal — can’t be helping, either," he wrote.

With that in mind, he took a jab at Trump's promise of a "golden age."

"Listening to him during the campaign and his Inaugural Address, you’d have thought the promised Golden Age started on Day One. Instead, his message has shifted to the notion that the sunny uplands are off somewhere in the future, after we work through all the gut-wrenching turmoil. In other words, the Golden Age is coming, but, in the meantime, stock up on toilet paper," he proposed.

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