Trump appears to operate** on four broad rules in regards to his actions, in more or less this order:
1) if it makes him personally happy (i.e. he feels vindictive or vindicated by doing an action) he does it.
2) if it makes his followers happy, he does it.
3) if it makes him money, he does it.
4) if his trusted advisors tell him it’s good and he has no personal opinion, he does it.
Amtrak doesn’t make him personally happy or angry. Amtrak doesn’t incite lots of feelings from his base. Amtrak doesn’t make or lose him money*. And, his inner circle doesn’t care about Amtrak either.
If anything, by proposing a zero budget for Amtrak the president is throwing some red meat to his anti-social-program political allies. I’d say they’re for cutting the deficit and debt, but recent budgets have shown that to be false - it’s only some areas of the Federal budget that most self-described fiscal conservatives wish to cut.
*if Trump still owned an airline providing shuttle service NYC-WAS, he absolutely would attack the Amtrak NEC operations. See his commentary on groups and nations that stand in the way of his hotel properties, for instance.
**to the admin: unless the president’s own words are hyperbole, my comments aren’t
