Tag: Trump White House

Women in Donald Trump’s White House earn 69 cents for every $1 paid to male staffers

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During the Republican National Convention, the high-ranking women in Donald Trump’s White House tried to make the case for the president’s commitment to gender equality.

Outgoing adviser Kellyanne Conway called him “a champion for women.” Brooke Rollins, acting director of the Domestic Policy Council, went further, saying Trump has more women in his top team “than any president before.”

A video flashed through images of women who advise the president, including his daughter Ivanka Trump and his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump. A voiceover intoned: “President Trump has proven that when the stakes are highest, he is proud to entrust many of our nation’s most crucial jobs to women.”

The rhetoric, however, belies the reality in the Trump White House, particularly when it comes to the gender pay gap, a key measure of gender parity. Continue reading.

Pompeo to resume ‘Madison Dinners’ despite controversy

Some State Department officials have complained about the dinners, saying they have little to do with diplomacy and will unduly burden the staff amid a pandemic.

They’ve been criticized by Democrats as a questionable use of taxpayer dollars, upset State Department employees skeptical of their diplomatic value, and postponed for months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is bringing back the Madison Dinners anyway.

The gatherings are set to resume with a dinner Monday and at least three more during September and October, two State Department officials told POLITICO. Prior to the pandemic causing them to be shelved this past spring, roughly two dozen such dinners had been held since Pompeo became secretary of State in April 2018. Continue reading.

The White House is trying hard to throw Peter Navarro under the bus — let’s wish them well

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The sheer number of sources on this Washington Post report of abusive behavior by and the belligerent wrongness of Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, who has for some reason inserted himself into a position of prime and unqualified decision-making on the administration’s COVID-19 pandemic responses, sends a clear message: Team Trump is trying very hard to push Peter Navarro under the bus, but Navarro is such a nasty old cuss that nobody can quite get him to stay under there.

That Navarro’s pandemic decisions have been questionable is not news. Navarro’s focus on hydroxychloroquine sent the administration far down a useless path. His push for reforming Eastman Kodak into a drug producer quickly turned into a federal investigation on possible insider trading. His self-lauded contract purchasing ventilators at a near-500% markup from what they might normally go for was met with derision and, eventually, scaled down drastically. Those are all known instances of Navarro screwups.

What we didn’t know, but should have guessed, is that Navarro is a living bloody terror to work with, something akin to putting mittens on a rabid wolverine, giving him his own office, and Just Seeing How That Goes. Navarro was so consistently abusive towards women on his staff, reports the Post, that then-Chief of Staff John Kelly ordered the White House Counsel’s office to launch an investigation. Navarro only kept his job because that investigation concluded Navarro was a raging asshole to absolutely everyone. Continue reading.

Watch: Trump trade adviser loses it when CNN corners him on complaints about his professional conduct

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On CNN Thursday, anchor Alisyn Camerota confronted White House trade adviser Peter Navarro about his reported misconduct allegations — and he lost his temper and accused it of being a fabrication by Amazon and Jeff Bezos to railroad him.

“There’s a few investigations that have come to light about your style and your handling of the procurement, so let’s go through them,” said Camerota. “The House Oversight Committee is looking at your procurement of ventilators, and they say that you were working with Phillips which is a technology company, and that you — they believe, wasted half a billion dollars — $500 million by agreeing to pay Phillips to make ventilators at price five times the amount that the Obama administration paid. So is that true and why?”

“No, it’s not true,” said Navarro. “All that stuff you’re seeing in the fake news — look, Alisyn, let’s be honest here. When somebody from the Democratic-controlled House does an investigation of this administration, that is a partisan witch hunt.” Continue reading.

Tactics of fiery White House trade adviser draw new scrutiny as some of his pandemic moves unravel

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Peter Navarro has faced an internal investigation into his treatment of colleagues, and now two of his coronavirus-related actions are under internal scrutiny

Amid the Trump administration’s troubled response to the coronavirus pandemic, senior White House aide Peter Navarro has refashioned himself as a powerful government purchasing chief, operating far beyond his original role as an adviser on trade policy.

But U.S. officials say the abrasive figure’s shortcomings as a manager could influence how well prepared the United States is for a second wave of coronavirus infections expected this fall.

Navarro’s harsh manner and disregard for protocol have alienated numerous colleagues, corporate executives and prominent Republicans. In a previously undisclosed incident, the White House Counsel’s Office in 2018 investigated Navarro’s behavior in response to repeated complaints and found he routinely had been verbally abusive toward others. Navarro narrowly avoided losing his job, but the abuse has continued as the White House has grappled with the pandemic, multiple administration officials said. Continue reading.

Betsy DeVos actually says the pandemic has been a ‘good thing’ for American schools

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On the heels of two federal judges halting a controversial rule that allows private schools to get more Covid-19 relief funding than Congress intended, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said Friday that she believes the viral pandemic has been a “good thing” for the nation’s education system, a comment that quickly drew criticism from Democrats and public education advocates.

“Betsy DeVos calling Covid-19 a ‘good thing’ for our schools just goes to show you how divorced this administration is from reality,” the Michigan State Democratic Party—of Devos’ home state—tweeted. “Let’s not forget: Millions of kids are forced to stay home from school because Trump failed to handle the virus.”

DeVos made the comment in a Friday interview aired on SiriusXM while discussing how the pandemic has affected the nation’s schools. She claimed the pandemic—which caused teachers nationwide to switch to emergency remote learning plans—has shown that the U.S. education system is “static” and unable to adjust to changing circumstances. Continue reading.

Appeals court rejects Flynn’s effort to dismiss charges

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A federal appeals court rejected Michael Flynn‘s effort to force a judge to immediately dismiss the charges against him, overturning an earlier decision that would have allowed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to drop its case against the former national security adviser.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 8-2 against Flynn’s petition for it to step in and force a district judge to grant the Justice Department’s motion to drop charges without holding a hearing on the issue.

The appeals court had agreed to rehear the case after a three-judge panel ordered the district court in June to dismiss the charges. Continue reading.

Former Trump chief of staff John Kelly says telling the president that things he wanted to do were illegal was like ‘French kissing a chainsaw’

The former White House chief of staff John Kelly has said that having to refuse President Donald Trump’s requests “was like ‘French kissing a chainsaw,'” according to a new book.

“Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President” by the New York Times correspondent Michael Schmidt is due to be released on Tuesday. The book’s synopsis describes it as the story of Trump “and the officials of his own government who tried to stop him.”

The chainsaw simile was included in an Axios report on the book. Continue reading.

Trump’s Sister Bashes Callous Ivanka Over Separated Migrant Children In New Recordings

Maryanne Trump Barry also calls Eric Trump “the moron” in the latest audios released by the president’s niece Mary Trump.

New audio recordings reveal Donald Trump’s sister criticizing Ivanka Trump after the president ordered that migrant children be separated from their families at the border.

Maryanne Trump Barry also calls the president’s second son, Eric, “the moron” in the recording released to MSNBC by Mary L. Trump, the niece of Barry and President Trump.

Barry said she couldn’t fault comedian Samantha Bee for her stinging attack on the first daughter as “oblivious” — and worse — after Ivanka, who is also a White House adviser, posted a photo on Instagram in May 2018 of her hugging one of her kids while migrant families were suffering in detention facilities. Continue reading.

As Trump appointees flout the Hatch Act, civil servants who get caught get punished

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A Defense Logistics Agency employee was suspended for 30 days without pay last fall after giving his office colleagues a PowerPoint presentation that displayed the words, “Vote Republican.”

An Energy Department worker was forced to resign in January after admitting she gave a woman running for Congress a tour of a federal waste treatment plant so the candidate could show her expertise to potential voters.

Another civil servant began a 120-day suspension without pay from the Food and Drug Administration in July after creating a Facebook page with his name and photograph to solicit political donations and then co-hosting a fundraiser. Continue reading.