Tag: Trump White House

White House Chief Of Staff Loved Oversight, Until Trump Hired Him

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is reportedly blocking Trump administration officials from testifying before Congress. But during his tenure as a Republican member of the House of Representatives, he tried to impeach people who stood in the way of congressional oversight.

Politico reported on Sunday that Meadows has implemented a requirement that everyone in the administration must get his permission before they can testify before Congress.

In May, news outlets reported on a similar effort by Meadows to block members of the administration’s coronavirus task force from testifying before Congress without his advance permission. ABC News reported that similar restrictions applied to Cabinet-level officials. Continue reading.

Ivanka Trump’s anger reveals her ‘dissociated princess’ schtick is no longer ‘viable’: family biographer

AlterNet logoOn Tuesday, writing for Vanity Fair, Trump family biographer Emily Jane Fox revealed how first daughter Ivanka Trump’s political strategy of playing the “dissociated princess” has played to her advantage — and how recent events suggest her strategy is reaching its limits.

“Ivanka’s ability to operate on this otherworldly separate track — both from the president and from the everyday realities and rules that surround most Americans — was both an asset to the kind of power she cared about and a contrast from her father,” wrote Fox. “She ignored the harsher realities of the administration she was part of by creating a distinct narrative that she could market to those who were open to buying it as a way to both aid her father and whatever role she would ultimately decide to take on once he leaves the White House. It is a kind of impulse control and compartmentalization that the elder Trump does not possess. Her father is temperamentally unable not to dwell on and rave about exactly what is on his mind or the public consciousness at that precise moment, even when it’s in his obvious political interest to do so.”

“Her dissociative ability played out again over the weekend,” wrote Fox. “The controversy unfolded on Thursday, when Wichita State University Tech decided it would not air a speech that Ivanka had prerecorded for its virtual graduation ceremony on Saturday. The school made the decision after students and staff condemned the White House’s response to the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. Ivanka had been asked to deliver the address in February, and she recorded the address, which largely talked about coronavirus and did not address matters of race, before the protests began.” However, following outrage, the school acknowledged the lineup was insensitive and canceled her engagement. Continue reading.

Trump sides with deranged conspiracy theories over Black Lives Matter protesters

Washington Post logoThe White House communications team has gone to great lengths to present President Trump’s position on the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests as evenhanded and sympathetic. He has twice offered scripted responses to the protests that approximate the expected tone of a president faced with roiling unrest, including his comments from the White House Rose Garden on June 1 when he declared that he was “an ally of all peaceful protesters.”

That federal officials were simultaneously using tear gas, batons and explosive devices to clear a nearby park of peaceful protesters was simply a coincidence.

Efforts to present Trump as understanding of the protests, though, conflict with the president’s obvious and visceral dislike of what is happening and his determined effort to cast the protests as an extension of violent far-left opposition to American ideals. Trump keeps insisting that the worst effects of the early demonstrations were a function of “antifa,” a loosely knit movement that opposes fascism and racism. Antifa is a useful enemy for Trump in the moment, allowing him to avoid criticizing black protesters and to identify the opposing wing of American politics as dangerous. That the role of antifa has been limited has not prevented Trump from blaming it broadly. Continue reading.

White House Has ‘No Regrets’ About Violently Clearing Nearby Protest

Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany says Donald Trump has nothing to be sorry for and repeated his antifa conspiracy theories.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Monday that President Donald Trump’s administration regrets nothing about police using violent force to clear peaceful anti-racism protesters outside the White House last week.

“There’s no regrets on the part of this White House because, look, I’d note that many of those decisions were not made here within the White House,” she said, pointing to Attorney General William Barr as the one who called for law enforcement to enclose on the perimeter of the protest.

McEnany’s defense comes a week after various law enforcement agencies cleared protesters demanding an end to police brutality against Black Americans in Lafayette Square, the park outside the White House, 30 minutes before a curfew went into effect. According to reporters and footage from the protest, police used tear gas, pepper spray, smoke canisters, stun grenades and rubber bullets to clear the largely peaceful crowd ― though Trump’s administration specifically denies the use of tear gas. Continue reading.

Ben Carson belittles George Floyd protests: ‘I grew up at a time when there was real systemic racism’

AlterNet logoSecretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson once again showed the public he is really drinking the president’s Kool-Aid on racism in America. The respected neurosurgeon turned laughable President Donald Trump apologist piled comparison on top of comparison Sunday on CNN in order to paint George Floyd’s death as an exception and not the rule on police brutality. Video shows a white cop kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes before he later died in Minneapolis police custody.

Following his death and the mass protests it triggered throughout the nation, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Carson, “do you think systemic racism is a problem in law enforcement agencies in the United States.”

Let’s say this. I grew up at a time when there was real systemic racism,” Carson responded. Continue reading.

Top White House official leaving for State Department

Eric Ueland, also a longtime Senate GOP aide, was instrumental in securing bipartisan budget and coronavirus relief deals

Eric Ueland finished a stint as White House legislative affairs director Friday and is headed to the State Department, where he will serve as a senior adviser, a White House official said.

Ueland is reportedly under consideration for undersecretary of State for civilian security, democracy and human rights, a post that has been vacant since Donald Trump became president and that requires Senate confirmation.

Amy Swonger, who’s been a deputy director in the White House legislative affairs office since March 2017, has been named to replace Ueland. Continue reading.

White House almost completely surrounded by more than a mile of fencing

Washington Post logoProtesters arriving in the nation’s capital for the ninth consecutive day of demonstrations found the White House encircled by more than a mile of tall metal fencing.

The previous day, work crews had erected enough fencing — reinforced by white concrete barriers — to bar entry to Lafayette Square and to outline half of the Ellipse, the sloping green lawn that abuts the executive residence. But between Friday night and Saturday afternoon — on a day expected to draw tens of thousands to protest in the District — they added enough fencing to block the rest of the Ellipse.

In total, Google Maps analysis suggests, roughly 1.7 miles of fencing now surrounds the White House, forming a gigantic metal cocoon. There are only two portions of the White House perimeter, on the northeast and northwest corners, that do not have additional fencing and concrete barriers. Continue reading.

‘Vicious dogs’ versus ‘a scared man’: Trump’s feud with Bowser escalates amid police brutality protests

Washington Post logoThe first night of major unrest in Washington had exploded in chaos on May 29, with protesters and Secret Service officers battling outside the White House. At 8:30 the next morning, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and her senior aides huddled on a conference call for an update from the city’s police chief.

Eleven minutes later, they were interrupted — by a number of angry tweets from President Trump. Praising the federal officers, Trump warned protesters of the “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons” at their disposal. Then, as the mayor’s chief of staff read the tweets out loud, Trump lambasted Bowser.

Trump wrote that the Democratic mayor “who is always looking for money & help, wouldn’t let the D.C. police get involved. ‘Not their job.’ Nice!” It was a false accusation. The mayor had never said those words. Continue reading.

Wichita State Cancels Ivanka Trump’s Commencement Speech—And She Blames ‘Cancel Culture,’ ‘Discrimination’

TOPLINE:

Wichita State University Tech nixed a virtual commencement speech from Ivanka Trump because of the George Floyd protests, prompting Trump, a White House senior advisor and the president’s daughter, to decry “cancel culture” and “viewpoint discrimination.”

KEY FACTS

  • Hours after WSU Tech announced that Ivanka Trump’s would give a commencement speech on Saturday, the university abruptly canceled her address.
  • In response to complaints from some students and faculty, the university’s president Sheree Utash said the timing of the announcement was “insensitive” because of “social justice issues brought forth by George Floyd’s death.”

Continue reading.

Fox News Corners White House Spokesman: How Does Trump Unite Anyone by Attacking Mattis?

“He’s the former defense secretary for this president. That’s uniting people, calling him the ‘most overrated’?”

Fox News anchor Ed Henry cornered White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley into a trap of his own making on Thursday when the veteran host repeatedly grilled the flack on President Donald Trump’s attacks on his former Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis.

Mattis, who resigned in late 2018 over Trump’s Syria policy, issued a strong rebuke on Wednesday of the president’s “bizarre photo op” at St. John’s Episcopal Church, calling it “an abuse of executive authority” and an example of Trump’s “deliberate effort” to divide Americans. The president, meanwhile, responded by falsely claiming he fired Mattis, calling him “the most overrated general.”

During an interview on America’s Newsroom, Gidley was asked to weigh in on the “war of words” between Trump and his former cabinet official. The Trump flack claimed the former U.S. Central Command leader had his “head in the sand” over the massive protests amid George Floyd’s death. Continue reading.