Archives for May 2017

Mike Allen: “The answers to why Trump canned Comey are becoming clear: The president was filled with grievance about the FBI probe and acted on impulse without clearly thinking through the fallout, numerous sources tell me.”

Playbook: “The past 48 hours has been a political and P.R. disaster for President Trump and the White House. By all accounts, Trump’s decision to dump Comey wasn’t based on a methodical review of the facts. Instead, it appears like many of Trump’s more controversial decisions to be a gut driven response based purely on personal animus in this case — Comey wasn’t loyal enough, didn’t support Trump’s claims that former President Obama wiretapped him and wasn’t moving fast enough to find those responsible for leaks about Trump.”

A new Quinnipiac poll asked respondents for the first word that comes to mind when they think of President Trump. The answer given more times than any other was “idiot,” followed by “incompetent” and “liar.”

Washington Post: “Trump had long questioned Comey’s loyalty and judgment, and was infuriated by what he viewed as the director’s lack of action in recent weeks on leaks from within the federal government. By last weekend, he had made up his mind: Comey had to go.”

“Trump was angry that Comey would not support his baseless claim that President Barack Obama had his campaign offices wiretapped. Trump was frustrated when Comey revealed in Senate testimony the breadth of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s effort to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And he fumed that Comey was giving too much attention to the Russia probe and not enough to investigating leaks to journalists.”

Politico: “Senior aides and other associates who know the president say the firing was triggered not by any one event but rather by the president’s growing frustration with the Russia investigation, negative media coverage and the growing feeling that he couldn’t control Comey, who was a near-constant presence on television in recent days.”

“Press secretary Sean Spicer’s absence from the briefing room on Wednesday comes at a tenuous time, as President Donald Trump has asked senior advisers for weeks if he needs to change the face of his administration,” Politico reports.

“Trump was pleased with deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ performance on Friday, when she first filled in for Spicer on camera during the midday briefing, three White House aides said, adding that he has talked about grooming her for Spicer’s more visible role.”

New York Times: “Agents said they were stunned that Mr. Trump would fire Mr. Comey in the midst of an F.B.I. investigation into whether any of the president’s associates had conspired with Russia to swing the election in favor of Mr. Trump. Some said in interviews that news of the firing felt like a gut punch. Others wondered whether they would be able to continue the inquiry.”

“One senior F.B.I. official said that the president had severely damaged his standing among agents, many of whom are conservative and supported Mr. Trump as a candidate. Agents were angered by the way Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey, who learned of his dismissal from television reports while he was in Los Angeles. They called it disrespectful.”

“And agents flatly rejected the assertion Wednesday by a White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee, during a briefing with reporters, that the F.B.I.’s rank-and-file supported the sudden firing of Mr. Comey.”

A new Quinnipiac poll finds President Trump with a near-record negative 36% to 58% job approval rating.

Said pollster Tim Malloy: “There is no way to spin or sugarcoat these sagging numbers. The erosion of white men, white voters without college degrees and independent voters, the declaration by voters that President Donald Trump’s first 100 days were mainly a failure and deepening concerns about Trump’s honesty, intelligence and level headedness are red flags that the administration simply can’t brush away.”

Jonathan Swan: “Sources at the White House described scenes of confusion in the hours following news of Trump firing Comey. Internally, at least at a fairly senior level, people were scrambling to figure out what happened.”

“The firing was done in such haste that his own comms shop couldn’t catch up, and the vast majority of White House staff learned about it on TV when the news broke, per White House sources. There are reports of a meeting in Spicer’s office after they announced the news, which happened Chuck Schumer was on TV giving his response to the news of the firing.”

Said one official: “It’s insane. The whole thing is just insane.”

Matt Drudge: “Trump advisers leaking to media are now deliberately sabotaging presidency. Major house cleaning needed for survival.”

Washington Post: “In the hours since President Trump sacked James Comey as FBI director, the splashiest headlines have gone to Republican critics of the move… But for most elected Republicans, and on conservative-leaning media, the story last night and today has been a cut-and-dry case of Democratic Party hypocrisy. Despite the White House’s deer-in-headlights PR response to questions, most of the president’s allies have robustly defended him, syncing up with the preferred story line that the president did what most Americans had been craving.”