Trump left his Mexico critics stunned, speechless and other commentary

From the right: Trump Stuns His Critics on Mexico
In The Washington Post, Hugh Hewitt writes: “Because President Trump emerges as a clear winner from his week-long confrontation with Mexico over our neighbor’s lax enforcement of its southern border, reflexive Trump critics will scramble to find some way of containing what is a clear Trump triumph.” The warnings over permanent damage to bilateral relations and investor freak-outs didn’t pan out, which left the president’s opponents “flailing about” and denying the obvious. But, says Hewitt: Such antics say “nothing about Trump and much about those critics.”

2020 watch: Trump’s African-American Bet

President Trump won a decent 8 percent of the black vote in 2016 by urging African-Americans to take a gamble on him. Now he is telling them they have “a lot” to lose by voting against him in 2020, given the criminal-justice reforms and historic jobless rates he’s delivered, notes Philip Wegmann at RealClearPolitics. “The campaign knows that gaining majority support is impossible,” but Trump needs only to garner a little more black support than he did last time — or prevent the Democratic nominee from rallying the community. Democrats hope the black community believes accusations of racism against Trump, but the president’s team is working to win black voters who deride him publicly but secretly appreciate his policies. Wegmann concludes: “A second term for Trump hinges on this silent black majority.”

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