Month: March 2018

Over the weekend there were articles written about Trump’s chaos management style. Habberman continues the thread of her recent reporting that Trump is feeling comfortable and emboldened in his role, which is leading him to be bullish on Mueller. Some aids are saying “that Mr. Trump does not understand the job the way he believes he does, and that they fear he will become even less inclined to take advice.”

Here is Jonah Goldberg in National Review crowing a bit about how Trump-skeptic-supporters argued last year that Trump would be guided (contained) by the “adults” around him–no more. 

And Coppins in The Atlantic about Trump sowing chaos by applying Reality TV rules to the White House:  “It is about his authority—and there is little Trump loves more than performing authority.”

Shortly after Trump called Putin to congratulate him for his recent election win, the White House leaked that Trump had briefing notes that said in all caps DO NOT CONGRATULATE. 

This David Graham speculation sums up why trying to stay informed about what is really going on is so crazy making in the Trump era. First there is news that Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his election win, and he did not raise concerns over the recent attack in England or 2016 election meddling. Next there are reports about the DO NOT CONGRATULATE briefing notes. Then there are reports that White House aids, Kelly in particular, are rattled and outraged by the leak. Graham speculates that it is convenient that the story was moved from Trump being uncritical of Putin (yet again) to a story about Trump staffing and leaks. Is it possible someone (Kelly, Trump himself?) leaked the cards to change the story? Who knows?

On Thursday Trump replaced national security advisor McMaster with John Bolton. This was a more orderly process than firing Tillerson since he called McMaster hours before the announcement, and McMaster has been planning his exit for some weeks because stories of his relationship with Trump was undercutting his ability to do his job.

Still the move is being characterized as a “snap decision” because aids thought the change would not happen for several weeks. CNN reported that the sudden change was made in part to wrestle news cycle away from two women doing interviews with week about affairs they had with Trump: Karen McDougal and Stephanie Clifford.

Michael Gerson suggests a simpler explanation: “In this case, an aide close to the president is expressing panic. He or she cannot explain the hold that Putin has over Trump. This leak is a cry for help from within the White House itself.”  

Three good pieces about the implications of Bolton and Pompeo joining the team. Peter Baker writes about Bolton’s history as a hawk and how the Bush team soured on him in the second term.

David Sanger writes: “Mr. Bolton’s ascension to national security adviser, replacing Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, creates the most radically aggressive foreign policy team around the American president in modern memory.”

Greg Jaffe has some tidbits about how McMaster was usually rebuffed by Mattis, with the implication that there will be a new dynamic Mattis will have to navigate with Bolton. 

On Friday Trump threw Washington into a few hours of chaos. His White House had worked with Congress to pass a 1.3 trillion spending bill to keep the government funded; he saw push back on FOX news and tweeted a veto threat, taking everyone by surprise. It seems everyone from Paul Ryan to Mattis had to get involved to walk Trump back. He did sign it but only after complaining that it was a terrible bill, that he was forced into it, and that he will never sign a bill like this again.

In Russia news:

Trump assailed Robert Mueller by name in his tweets for the first time. Sunday, several Republicans from McCain to Graham to Paul Ryan went on record urging the investigation to continue “unimpeded.”

Vox has a useful explain of the several powerful factors that is keeping Trump from firing Mueller.

Trump’s lead lawyer John Dowd resigned Thursday because he disagreed with the President’s decision to sit down with the Mueller team for an interview. His replacement “the former United States attorney in Washington, Mr. diGenova has been on television in recent years more than he has been in court.”

There was news about how the Trump campaign did guide Papadopoulos more than previously known.

And the Daily Beast reported that Guccifer 2.0, who hacked the DNC emails, was a Russian intelligence official. If accurate, this takes meddling of 2016 election to Putin’s desk for the first time.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 40.7%

 

Britain publicly accused Russia of attempting to murder via nerve agent one of its spies on British soil last week. The nerve agent was exposed to hundreds of civilians. Teresa May sent a very strong signal on Monday that Britain would retaliate, with a Tuesday night deadline for Russia to respond.

May then responded by kicking some Russians out of England. And there is talk of seising  Russian oligarch assets in London. Nikki Haley did strongly condemn the attack: “We take no pleasure in having to constantly criticize Russia,” she said, “but we need Russia to stop giving us so many reasons to do so.”

After first showing reticence, the Trump Administration made three anti-Russia moves this week. They make a joint statement with the UK against Russia attacks on British soil. They levied sanctions against Russians for the 2016 Russian election interference. And they accused Russia of cyberattacks on US power plants.

David Frum lists all the things a normal US administration would do to help Britain, which Trump did not do. In the first few days, the Trump White House refused to stand with Britain against Russia. By the end of the week, Frum was still not impressed: It’s progress but not strong enough.

On Tuesday, Trump fired Tillerson via tweet. He called him three hours later.

The State Department through the undersecretary of of public diplomacy released an official statement that read in part: “The secretary did not speak to the president, and is unaware of the reason.” This person was then fired by the White House contradicting them.

Frum continues to think it is highly suspicious that Tillerson was fired after expressing support for May’s announcement.

Pompeo replaces Tillerson at State, if he is confirmed by the Senate. Gina Haspel is in line to replace Pompeo: “As a clandestine officer at the Central Intelligence Agency in 2002, Gina Haspel oversaw the torture of two terrorism suspects and later took part in an order to destroy videotapes documenting their brutal interrogations at a secret prison in Thailand.”

Pro-Publica soon retracted some of its reporting that Haspel was Chief of Base in Thailand, and that she was present for a high number of water boarding sessions. She was present for at least three, and she still had a role in destroying the tapes. Democrats may support her nomination because she is not a Trump loyalist.

TV host Larry Kudlow has been hired to replace Gary Cohn. By the end of the week there were rumors that McMaster, Sessions and Kelly would be fired by Friday afternoon. Axios reports that Kelly admitted that Trump is sowing rumors about staff firings by dropping names to people he knows will then tell reporters.

This week the sense of a shift is very real. Douthat explains: “But if it eventually does get worse, a week like this one, with a president chafing against his bonds and snapping some of them, is how a descent from farce to tragedy might begin.”

A Democratic won a House race in a deep red Pennsylvania district that Trump won by 20 points last year.

In a recording of Trump at a fundraiser, he made many strange claims, including that he admitted he did not know that the US had a trade deficit with Canada but he told Trudeau that we did: “I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. … I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’” He also boasted that he will end NAFTA and pull troops out of South Korea if they don’t end our trade deficit with them. A reporter on Twitter later pointed out that Canadian officials do not know what meeting Trump is referring to, and suspect Trump is creating a composite of several phone calls and in-person meetings.

For the first time Trump personally put his name to the legal case against Stephanie Clifford. He and his lawyers moved to have the case put in federal court, and said Clifford owes up to $20 million for breaking her nondisclosure agreement.

In Russia News:

The House Intelligence Committee ended its investigation of Russia’s involvement with the 2016 election. They found no wrong doing by the Trump campaign, and disagreed with the intelligence community that Russia tried to help Trump win.

Meuller has subpoenaed the Trump organization for documents related to Russian business deals. It is notable that Meuller’s team skipped over the step of requesting the documents and went right to a subpoena.

Sessions fired Andrew McCabe Friday night, just a few days before his retirement from the FBI. In a statement McCabe said the firing was to discredit him as a witness in the Meuller investigation.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 40.2%

On Monday, Congressional Republicans led by Paul Ryan are pushing back hard on Trump’s tariff idea. As of Monday they are optimistically thinking that Trump will back down or soften his tariff plan.

The Washington Post detailed how some in the Trump Administration worked for and against the tariffs, with Trump only digging in harder, and Gary Cohn announcing his resignation.

There is a common assumption, even expressed in the New York Time’s story of Cohn’s exit, that many of the people in the Trump Administration who have a “steady hand” and act as a moderating force are leaving (ie Porter, Hicks, Cohn). The only thing that will prove this assumption correct is if the Administration becomes more erratic and chaotic in the weeks ahead. It’s possible they will carry on like they have all along, or things might get worse. Time will tell.

David Frum takes an unconventional take that Cohn did a public service by resigning, in part because it will illuminate the economic direction of the Trump Administration when Trump selects a replacement.

Trump officially authorized the tariffs on Thursday, with some wiggle room for allies to negotiate. This news was overtaken a few hours later when Trump said he was going to meet with Kim Jong Un. 

In North Korea news, reading about how the meeting between Trump and Kim was hatched it is hard not to feel like this is all for show (on both sides) and won’t amount to much change in actual policy. Some suspect the meeting will never actually take place. But considering the stakes, it is impossible to downplay the possibilities for good or ill.

Here is a good blow-by-blow about how North and South Korea brought the plan to Trump. He called the South Korean delegation into the Oval Office and accepted the offer without hesitation and without consulting with key players like Tillerson.

Finally, Stephanie Clifford sued Trump this week to get out of her nondisclosure agreement. It could open Trump up to Bill Clinton-style depositions.

In Russia News:

The Times reports this week that George Nader is cooperating with Meuller. He was present for meetings between Trump and Putin representatives.

Jane Mayer in the New Yorker has a profile of Michael Steele, which is a good timeline of the dossier, Russian interference before and after the 2016 election. One new piece of news is that Steele briefed Meuller on a Kremlin source that claimed Putin influenced Trump to not pick Romney as his secretary of state.

Lawfare has some legal speculation about what theory of the law Meuller may be using to prosecute Russian interference. This may be useful as events develop.

There was a report about Russia’s role in Syria this week that illustrates one reason why Putin benefits from not having Hillary Clinton in the White House: “By sticking around, Russia expects to eventually hammer out some peace agreement with Washington that will cement the Kremlin’s enhanced role in the Middle East.”

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Trump’s Job Approval: 40.7%

Politico and the New York Times reported on Tuesday that on Friday the White House notified a number of staff who are on interim security clearances had their access downgraded from Top Secret to Secret information. Kushner was included in this.

The Washington Post reports that Kushner’s clearance is being held up in part because four countries have tried to manipulate him to gain access, and he held rogue meetings that the National Security Council was not aware of until after the fact.

Two business groups gave Kushner’s family company millions of dollars after White House meetings. 

A New York Times analysis makes that astute comparison between Trump’s Apprentice TV show and how he runs these table meetings with lawmakers where he appears to go against GOP orthodoxy on immigration and guns, like he did this week. Trump enjoys these sessions and will probably do more of them, even though they will have no impact on actual policy making. Like with immigration a few weeks ago, he erased his gun control comments when he met behind closed doors with the NRA.

Reporters are writing that they are witnessing a more chaotic than usual White House.

The New York Time’s chaos story suggests that Trump has sent mixed signals about Kushner and Ivanka remaining in the White House, and that he has privately asked Kelly to push them out.

Yuval Levin in National Review writes “a White House dealing with an intense crisis needs to rely on established patterns of mutual trust and respect and familiar procedures for handling and channeling information, putting options before the president, and keeping things calm and organized. More than a year in, this White House lacks almost all of that. Confronted with a serious crisis, their system could easily crumple.”

The Washington Post interviewed 22 people close to Trump in the latter part of the week and into Saturday about the recent chaos. Many of them are worried about his emotional state, and that fact he is becoming more isolated. Some of this may be exacerbated by communication director Hope Hick’s announcement that she will resign. 

In Russia News:

Two reports came out this week with information from people who have been interviewed by Mueller. The reporting has focused on when Trump began his ties with Russia, and how much Trump and Roger Stone knew about the stolen Podesta emails before it became public that they had been stolen.

And here is a WaPo story that says Mueller is investigating Trump’s efforts to push Sessions to resign in July and August 2017. Trump also tweeted criticism of Sessions on Wednesday.

Bob Baur on Lawfare explains why Sessions’s response to Trump is astounding and historic. Here is what Session replied: “As long as I am the attorney general, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.”

Speaking of guns, NPR reports that a Kremlin-backed politician has been cultivating ties with the NRA for years, and that Russia may have used the NRA to funnel money into American politics.

David French argues that the Schiff memo undercuts the Nunes memo’s main argument. And here is Andy McCarthy saying the opposite.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 40.4%