Tag: Trump White House

White House Press Secretary Grisham Has (Still) Held No Briefings

The Trump administration has held several press briefings with Cabinet secretaries and key officials while press secretary Stephanie Grisham has continued to avoid speaking in front of cameras.

On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless had a press conference outside of the White House to announce the administration’s plan to ban flavored e-cigarettes.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had a press conference where they mostly fielded questions about Trump’s decision to fire John Bolton.

View the complete September 11 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

Pompeo sees status grow with Bolton exit

The Hill logoSecretary of State Mike Pompeo has solidified his status as President Trump’s most influential adviser on foreign policy with the ouster of former national security adviser John Bolton.

Trump on Wednesday tore into Bolton, mocking him as “Mr. Tough Guy” and blaming him for causing setbacks on North Korea and lamenting that he made “some very big mistakes.”

By comparison, Pompeo has maintained a strong relationship with the president and emerged as one of his most trusted allies by falling in line with Trump’s final decisions.

View the complete September 11 article by Morgan Chalfant and Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

‘You’re a prop in the back’: Advisers struggle to obey Trump’s Kafkaesque rules

Washington Post logoIn President Trump’s renegade orbit, there are unspoken rules he expects his advisers to follow. He tolerates a modicum of dissent, so long as it remains private; expects advisers to fall in line and defend his decisions; and demands absolute fealty at all times.

These rules and more were broken by John Bolton, the national security adviser who left the White House suddenly Tuesday on acrimonious terms.

The rupture between Trump and Bolton, as chronicled in public and in private accounts of administration officials, is a case study of the president’s sometimes Kafkaesque management style — an unusual set of demands and expectations he sets for those in his direct employ.

View the complete September 11 article by Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker on The Washington Post website here.

Trump Pressed Top Aide to Have Weather Service ‘Clarify’ Forecast That Contradicted Trump

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — President Trump, seeking to justify his claim of a hurricane threat to Alabama, pressed aides to intervene with a federal scientific agency, leading to a highly unusual public rebuke of the forecasters who contradicted him, according to people familiar with the events.

In response to the president’s request, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, to have the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publicly correct the forecasters, who had insisted that Alabama was not actually at risk from Hurricane Dorian.

A senior administration official, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters, said Mr. Trump told his staff to have NOAA “clarify” the forecasters’ position. NOAA, which is part of the Commerce Department, then issued an unsigned statementsaying the Birmingham, Ala., office of the National Weather Service was wrong to refute the president’s warning so categorically.

View the complete September 11 article by Peter Baker, Lisa Friedman and Christopher Flavelle on The New York Times website here.

Exclusive: Kushner tells GOP it needs to unify behind immigration plan

The Hill logoSenior White House adviser Jared Kushner told Senate Republicans Wednesday that the party should unite behind a 600-page immigration plan he crafted ahead of the 2020 election so the party can provide a positive vision for reform.

President Trump’s son-in-law received a warm reception from Senate Republicans who attended the lunchtime meeting in the Senate’s historic Mansfield Room. 

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Kushner’s bill would be good for the party because it would define Republicans as the party of legal immigration and draw a contrast with Democrats as the “party of illegal immigration,” according to a person in the room.

View the complete September 11 by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Pence family boondoggle in Ireland cost US taxpayers $600,000 for the limos alone: report

AlterNet logoVice President Mike Pence went to Poland to stand in for Donald Trump, who decided to stay behind in the U.S. for a weekend of monitoring Hurricane Dorian from his golf cart. Pence met with Polish President Andrzej Duda on behalf of Trump in an effort to build support for allowing Russia to be re-admitted to the G-7, something all the other members of the G-7 oppose because of Putin’s aggressive actions in the Crimea region of Ukraine, which he annexed for Russia.

Afterward, the Pence family, which included the vice president’s wife-mother, sister, and mother, loaded up for a trip to Ireland, where the Pence family immigrated from several generations ago. Although he was there to meet with Irish leaders and he was technically there on official United States business, Pence and his family opted to stay on the opposite side of the country, to be near the hometown of Pence’s great-great-grandpappy, which also happened to be conveniently located near the once struggling Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Doonbeg. Oh, what a time they had! They saw a pub! They walked down the main street to the pub, which is owned by a distant cousin of Pence’s, with an entourage of limousines behind them, waving to the roughly half-dozen people who turned out to see them.

Now we learn that the travel back and forth from Dublin to Doonbeg, where the Pence family spent two nights at Trump’s hotel, were quite costly for American taxpayers. CREW obtained the contracts from the State Department and learned that taxpayers ponied up $599,454.36 just for the limousines used to ferry the Pence family back and forth across Ireland.

View the complete September 10 article by Jen Hayden from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.

With Bolton Firing, White House Turmoil Erupts In Public

On Monday, President Donald Trump insisted on Twitter that there was no “turmoil” in the White House and that any suggestion otherwise was just more misinformation from the “Dishonest Media.”

And then on Tuesday, that internal chaos of the administration poured out into public.

It began, as it so often does, with a Trump tweet. He revealed that National Security Adviser John Bolton, a controversial figure for decades, is no longer a part of the administration:

View the complete September 10 article by Cody Fenwick of AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

Something is fishy about Trump’s John Bolton announcement

President Trump announced Tuesday that he had effectively fired national security adviser John Bolton. But two key things call into question his version of how it went down — including Bolton’s own comment.

Washington Post logoTrump tweeted around noon: “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore … I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.”

Donald J. Trump

✔

 ·

I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore….

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

….I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.

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But just an hour before the announcement, the White House announced that Bolton would be appearing at a 1:30 p.m. news conference alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. If Bolton was on his way out as of Monday night, why did the White House press office not seem to know about it at 11 a.m. Tuesday?

View the complete September 10 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.

White House Budget Office Hires Anti-Gay Zealot

Breitbart.com writer Ken Klukowski has joined the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. The right-wing pundit and lawyer has a history of pushing anti-LGBTQ commentary, including telling readers there’s a “homosexual agenda” moving forward in the courts and falsely claiming that research proves that same-sex parents are bad for children.

Klukowski has worked for a variety of right-wing organizations, including Breitbart.com, the American Civil Rights Union, First Liberty Institute, Liberty University School of Law, and Family Research Council. As a lawyer, Klukowski has filed numerous briefs supporting right-wing causes. He joined the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as a special counsel in late August. OMB, which is under the direction of Mick Mulvaney, “oversees the performance of federal agencies, and administers the federal budget.”

Klukowksi was previously the director of the Center for Religious Liberty at the Family Research Council. Family Research Council is an influential and extreme anti-LGBTQ group with high levels of access to the Trump-Pence administration. The organization has compared LGBTQ people to pedophiles and advocated for the discredited and harmful practice of conversion therapy. It also  states on its website: “Family Research Council believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed.”

View the complete September 4 article by Eric Hananoki from Media Matters on the National Memo website here.

Ivanka Trump is acting as if everything is normal

Washington Post logoIvanka Trump descended upon Bogota, Colombia, this week to talk about women’s empowerment and left us talking about her sleeves. They were voluminous, bell-shaped swaths of green fabric. As the first daughter stood in solemn formation with the Colombian vice president, the sleeves caught a draft and attempted to launch themselves away from her body. Midair, they formed into perfect circles, and this became the hallmark photograph of the trip. Ivanka Trump from the neck up was on a mission of benign diplomacy. From the neck down, flying saucers.

It’s shallow to call attention to a minor clothing malfunction, but this viral sleeve image is what alerted many people to the fact that Ivanka Trump — who, after all, is not an elected official with a dedicated press corps — was in Latin America at all.

To understand exactly what she was doing there, your best hope was to follow the itinerary she unspooled on Instagram: She launched the Academy of Women Entrepreneurs, which, she said, was “designed to equip women with the practical skills they need to create sustainable businesses and to participate more fully in the global economy.” She participated in a wreath-laying ceremony. She met with Colombia’s president and vice president, and then she prepared to head to Argentina and Paraguay for more of the same.

View the complete September 5 article by Monica Hesse on The Washington Post website here.