Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

Trump’s Weak Presidency Just Got Weaker

He helped push criminal justice reform through Congress. Then it withered. Blame Oval Office confusion and inattention.

November 8, 2019 at 12:00 PM UTC

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

Losing by winning.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images

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Just how weak a president has Donald Trump become? Some great reporting from the Washington Post’s Neena Satija, Wesley Lowery and Josh Dawsey demonstrates how little influence Trump has, even when it comes to one of his biggest legislative successes: Criminal justice reform.

By their account, Trump’s decision to champion the First Step Act, which shortened many prison sentences and expanded prison job-training programs and other measures intended to reduce recidivism, was mainly a response to manipulation by celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. With Trump’s support, the bill passed and became law last year.