Tag: Trump White House

White House readies immigration plan amid uproar over Trump’s ‘go back’ remarks

Washington Post logoAs the uproar over President Trump’s racist remarks demanding four minority Democratic lawmakers “go back [to countries] from which they came” continued to flare Tuesday, the White House prepared to roll out a plan that would detail the type of immigrants the administration wants to admit to the United States.

But the ongoing controversy over Trump’s comments got in the way of the White House’s initial plans, as a late-afternoon meeting with a half-dozen congressional Republican leaders on the administration’s new immigration bill was abruptly postponed amid an unexpectedly drawn-out fight on the floor of the House as lawmakers debated condemning Trump’s racist tweets.

That interruption Tuesday is far from the only obstacle the White House will face this year as it tries to generate momentum for its new immigration plan, which aims to reorient the current legal immigration system to one based primarily on an immigrant’s ability to contribute to the economy, rather than on family ties.

View the complete July 16 article by Seung Min Kim on The Washington Post website here.

Nicolle Wallace: ‘I Would Have Been Fired on the Spot’ If I Asked ‘What’s Your Ethnicity?’ Like Conway Did

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace blasted White House counselor Kellyanne ConwayTuesday for asking a reporter his ethnicity in a strange exchange.

Wallace opened by saying the nation is “waiting to see if Republicans, or even a single Republican, will come out against racism today.”

The House is taking up a resolution to condemn President Donald Trump. Earlier Tuesday afternoon Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s tweets racist, and Republican Rep. Doug Collins objected and said her remarks should be stricken from the record.

View the complete July 16 article with video by Josh Feldman on the Mediaite website here.

House demands to see Trump’s cyberwarfare directive

But senators who oversee the Pentagon are not as concerned

A small but significant quarrel is emerging between a bipartisan team of lawmakers in the House and the Trump administration over how the Pentagon is going about using its newly minted authority to strike back against adversaries in cyberspace.

Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Armed Services Committee and its emerging threats subcommittee — in a rare instance of bipartisan pushback against the White House — have repeatedly asked administration officials for a still-secret memo issued by President Donald Trump that lifted earlier restrictions on U.S. Cyber Command’s operations against adversaries.The White House has thus far refused to provide the memo, and the House last week voted to include an amendment in its version of the 2020 Pentagon policy bill that would force the administration to turn over “all National Security Presidential Memorandums relating to Department of Defense operations in cyberspace.”

View the complete July 16 article by Gopal Ratnam and John M Donnelly on The Roll Call website here.

Pelosi rejects short-term debt ceiling hike as budget talks extend

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Monday night turned aside the notion of a short-term debt ceiling hike as she continues negotiating on a broader budget deal with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

After days of hashing out their positions over the phone, Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Mnuchin spoke again Monday night, with plans to talk on Tuesday, according to a Pelosi aide.

“We shall see,” Pelosi said when asked about the possibility of striking a sweeping two-year agreement before the August recess that lifts the budget caps and the debt limit.

View the complete July 15 article by Caitlin Emma on the Politico website here.

Kellyanne Conway defies congressional subpoena at Trump’s direction

The Hill logoWhite House counselor Kellyanne Conway defied a congressional subpoena demanding her testimony Monday on instructions from President Trump, raising the likelihood the House Oversight and Reform Committee will soon vote to hold her in contempt. 

White House counsel Pat Cipollone notified the committee in a letter Monday that Trump had directed Conway to evade the appearance, arguing that she is immune from mandated congressional testimony about her work in the West Wing.

“The long-standing principle of immunity for senior advisers to the President is firmly rooted in the Constitution’s separation of powers and protects the core functions of the Presidency,” Cipollone wrote to Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on Monday.

View the complete July 15 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Spokesman Says The President Isn’t ‘Going To Be Beholden To Courts Anymore’

A White House spokesman let slip something in a Fox News interview on Friday he probably didn’t mean to say.

Discussing the defeat in the Commerce Department’s effort to put a citizenship question on the 2020 census, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley tried to argue — as President Donald Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr have said — that despite all appearances, the administration was actually vindicated by the Supreme Court.

“The Supreme Court even ruled this question could be on there, but it was impossible to get it on in time for printing,” Gidley said.

Of course, Gidley didn’t mention the fact that the reason it’s “impossible” to put the citizenship question on the Census in time is that the court found that the administration’s first attempt to include the question violated the law. Chief Justice John Roberts struck down the Commerce Department’s plans because it provided an apparently “contrived” justification for including the question. The impossibility only became a factor because the administration was so wildly inept and deceptive; it would have had to start all over again to add the question back to the Census because it is currently legally blocked from including it. And there just isn’t enough time for redo.

View the complete July 13 article by Cody Fenwick on the National Memo website here.

‘His own fiefdom’: Mulvaney builds ‘an empire for the right wing’ as Trump’s chief of staff

Washington Post logoMick Mulvaney’s battles with Alexander Acosta began almost immediately.

Weeks after he was named acting White House chief of staff, Mulvaney summoned the labor secretary for a tense January encounter that became known inside the West Wing as “the woodshed meeting.”

Mulvaney told Acosta in blunt terms that the White House believed he was dragging his feet on regulation rollbacks desired by business interests and that he was on thin ice as a result, according to advisers and a person close to the White House. Soon after, Acosta proposed a spate of business-friendly rules on overtime pay and other policies.

View the complete July 15 article by Seung Min Kim, Lisa Rein, Josh Dawsey and Erica Werner on The Washington Post website here.

Trump weighs ousting Commerce chief Wilbur Ross after census defeat

Some White House officials expect the Cabinet secretary, who has known the president for years, to depart as soon as this summer.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has told aides and allies that he is considering removing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross after a stinging Supreme Court defeat on adding a citizenship question to the census, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations.

While Trump has previously expressed frustration with Ross, 81, in particular over failed trade negotiations, Ross’ long personal relationship with the president has allowed him to keep his job. And after the departure of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, the Cabinet’s only Hispanic who resigned Friday amid questions about his role in a controversial 2008 plea agreement with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Ross may yet receive another reprieve.

But some White House officials expect Ross to be the next Cabinet secretary to depart, possibly as soon as this summer, according to advisers and officials.

View the complete July 15 article by Hans Nichols, Kayla Tausche, CNBC, and Hallie Jackson on the NBC News website here.

Trump Wants To Fire Intel Chief Coats ‘Sooner Rather Than Later’

Trump is reportedly interested in purging Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. Previous public statements from the intelligence chief have undermined Trump’s self-aggrandizing rhetoric.

“President Trump has told confidants he’s eager to remove Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, according to five sources who have discussed the matter directly with the president,” Axios reported on Friday.

Trump has reportedly been plotting Coats’ removal “for months” the outlet noted, quoting a source who said the action will happen “sooner rather than later.”

View the complete July 12 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

Acosta out as Trump Labor secretary

The Hill logoAlex Acosta announced Friday he will resign as Labor secretary amid mounting scrutiny over his role in negotiating a secret plea deal for financier Jeffrey Epstein, who is accused of sexually abusing dozens of young girls.

Standing alongside Acosta on the South Lawn of the White House, President Trump said he “did an unbelievable job as secretary of Labor” and added it was Acosta’s decision to step down.

“This was him not me, because I’m with him,” Trump told reporters before leaving for a trip to Wisconsin and Ohio. “I hate to see this happen.”

View the complete July 12 article by Brett Samuels and Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.