Trump is trying to blackmail Congress

[BloombergOpinion]( [Early Returns]( [Jonathan Bernstein]( I’ve said it before: I don’t want to be writing about presidential misbehavior. It is, on some level, just not that interesting. And yet … how can anyone ignore the spectacle of President Donald Trump announcing that he’s [unwilling to govern]( unless the House of Representatives lets him do whatever he wants? In a meeting with congressional Democrats on Wednesday, ostensibly about a new infrastructure bill, Trump basically threatened to go “on strike,” as E.J. Dionne [put it](. The president warned that “unless the House stopped investigating him – i.e., gave up on its responsibilities to hold him accountable – Americans would just have to keep driving on crumbling roads, crossing shaky bridges and riding on inadequate public transit systems.” What prompted Trump’s outburst isn’t entirely clear. It may have been House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s earlier accusation that he’s conducting a “cover-up.” Or it may have had to do with his inability to come up with an actual infrastructure plan or to get any support for the idea from his within own party. Pelosi had unsurprisingly out-maneuvered the president by agreeing to a very large bill on the condition that Trump would specify how to pay for it. Since Republicans are unwilling to raise taxes and don’t want to take responsibility for cutting popular programs, that put him in a bind. A functioning White House policy staff might have managed to come up with something anyway, but there’s not much evidence that such a shop exists. Nor is Trump capable of exerting the kind of internal leadership that could get something like that done. But returning to Trump’s rant: He went on to argue that it’s impossible for the House to investigate him and govern at the same time, which is a ridiculous position. For one thing, the House has been [passing major bills at a pretty good clip]( this year. For another, both the impeachment Congress in 1998 and the almost-impeachment Congress in 1973-1974 had no trouble legislating; in fact, the Nixon Congress was an [unusually productive one](, with major new laws being enacted even as the House Judiciary Committee was acting on impeachment. As Dionne correctly notes, the Constitution really wasn’t designed for a president who is willing to blackmail the nation: No effective government unless he’s allowed to flout congressional subpoenas, ignore law and custom to withhold his tax returns, make a mockery of the constitutional prohibition on emoluments, and – unlike every other president – hold himself above congressional oversight. That’s not because James Madison and his partners were stupid. They didn’t design a system for public-spirited politicians. They instead built in healthy incentives. One problem with Trump is that he doesn’t seem to understand that it’s in his self-interest to pass things such as a popular infrastructure bill, as [Jonathan Chait]( and [Greg Sargent]( point out. Another, as I [argued]( a while ago, is that his ambitions remain so private, and so different from those of normal politicians, that he just doesn’t respond to the incentives that the whole constitutional system is based on. 1. Pavielle Haines and Seth Masket on how interpretations of 2016 will affect the [choices Democrats make in 2020](. 2. Emily Baer-Bositis on the [House Freedom Caucus and the old Democratic Study Group](. Very worthwhile, although I’d emphasize the extremely different party contexts the two groups faced. 3. Mark Mellman on what went wrong with the [polling in Australia](. 4. David Cloud on how many [U.S. military leaders are upset]( about possible pardons. 5. And Philip Klein on [Joe Biden and the age issue](. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. [Click here to subscribe](hash=b9b2681361bede0e1069ca238efb1ec2). Also subscribe to [Bloomberg All Access]( and get much, much more. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. Bloomberg L.P. ● 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Web]( ● [Facebook]( ● [Twitter]( [Feedback]( ● [Unsubscribe](