By Quin Hillyer at the Washington Examiner;
Just resign, President Trump. Just resign.
You can claim you are going out on top. Every showman knows that’s the way to leave the stage.
Your exit message (whether true or not) is that you have accomplished more in 16 months than anybody else could have dreamed of, that you will leave America already great again, that you will leave a superlative team in place to run the show from here on — and that by leaving office now, you free yourself to attack all the “fake news” outlets and the deep state without it looking like you are doing it to save your own skin, but only for the benefit of the country.
In stepping down, you would effectively cut the legs out from under special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation by making it look (if it continues) even more a Javert-like persecution. You would save your family from the constant nastiness of the Washington press corps. And when the economy takes a hit sometime in the next few years (as it surely will), or North Korea does something to renege on whatever deal emerges (as certainly will happen), or China overruns Taiwan while Russia annexes Transnistria, well, nobody will be able to lay blame on you.
It will all be your successor’s fault! It will be President Pence, not you, dealing with the fallout, while you and your pal Putin can be frolicking at your new Black Sea dacha.
Here are the super-duper-awesome successes for which you would (rightly or wrongly) claim credit: the lowest unemployment rate in 17 years and the second-lowest in 50 years; continuing low inflation and interest rates (if you stay any longer, you’ll be blamed for both going up, because they will, like rockets); a (temporarily) narrowing trade deficit; and a ton of new business investment….
[The full column is here.]