Tag: Reince Priebus

Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics After Stumbles

The following article by Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman was posted on the New York Times website February 5, 2017:

Kellyanne Conway, left, Hope Hicks, Jared Kushner, Stephen K. Bannon, Reince Priebus and Stephen Miller, all members of President Trump’s senior staff, last month at the White House. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

President Trump loves to set the day’s narrative at dawn, but the deeper story of his White House is best told at night.

Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room. Visitors conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit. In a darkened, mostly empty West Wing, Mr. Trump’s provocative chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, finishes another 16-hour day planning new lines of attack.

Usually around 6:30 p.m., or sometimes later, Mr. Trump retires upstairs to the residence to recharge, vent and intermittently use Twitter. With his wife, Melania, and young son, Barron, staying in New York, he is almost always by himself, sometimes in the protective presence of his imposing longtime aide and former security chief, Keith Schiller. When Mr. Trump is not watching television in his bathrobe or on his phone reaching out to old campaign hands and advisers, he will sometimes set off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings of his new home. Continue reading “Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics After Stumbles”

Inside the White House-Cabinet battle over Trump’s immigration order

The following article by Josh Rogin was posted on the Washington Post website February 4, 2017:

Editor’s Note: Prior to publication of this column, The Post sought comment from the Department of Homeland Security but not from the White House. We should have done both. The article has been updated. – Fred Hiatt

UPDATE (Feb. 4, 6:13 p.m.): The article has been updated to reflect comments from White House press secretary Sean Spicer. The article previously stated that Stephen K. Bannon visited Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly’s office on Jan. 28. Spicer said Bannon did not make such a visit. He also said that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Bannon did not participate in a 2 a.m. conference call on Jan. 29. The article also previously stated that President Trump approved a pause in executive orders pending new procedures. According to Spicer, it was White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, rather than the president, who approved the new procedures, but not a pause.

Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly pauses while speaking at a news conference in Washington on Jan. 31. (Andrew Harnik/Associated Press)

Over the weekend of Jan. 28-29, as airport protests raged over President Trump’s executive order on immigration, the man charged with implementing the order, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, had a plan. He would issue a waiver for lawful permanent residents, a.k.a. green-card holders, from the seven majority-Muslim countries whose citizens had been banned from entering the United States.

White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon wanted to stop Kelly in his tracks and told him not to issue the order. Kelly, according to two administration officials familiar with the confrontation, refused to comply. That was the beginning of a weekend of negotiations among senior Trump administration staffers that led, on Sunday, Jan. 29, to a White House decision to change the process for the issuance of executive orders. Continue reading “Inside the White House-Cabinet battle over Trump’s immigration order”