I worded it that way because I think that even if he had done everything right, his re-election would still be in trouble because of factors outside of his control.
The job is literally to be prepared for the future on behalf of the country. If you take active steps that make us less prepared for something and we therefore suffer greater consequences when it happens, I have a really hard time describing that as being something outside of your control.
Under normal circumstances, an exigent crisis such as war would make a President significantly more likely to be re-elected. He tried to start a war with Iran not long ago for this very reason.
If you want to argue about Trump, please find someone else to do it with (or somewhere else to do it).
My comment was not about Trump's response, and I regret even including mention of him, since that one offhand comment has generated uninteresting political arguments, without anybody engaging with what I was actually writing about.
