White House Copies Bush’s ‘Red Team’ for Tax Reform

Bloomberg: “A weekly, all-hands-on-deck meeting … usually held around a long wooden table in the Roosevelt Room steps away from the Oval Office, includes representatives of major power centers within the administration: the Office of American Innovation, led by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, the Treasury Department, headed by Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Vice President Mike Pence’s staff and Gary Cohn’s National Economic Council. Inside the White House, the assemblage is known as ‘The Red Team,’ a term used in former President George W. Bush’s administration for similar groups organized for major fights.”

“It’s taken from military and corporate parlance for a team that explicitly tests strategy from an opponent’s perspective. But the Trump team is using the label more broadly to convey a sense of urgency and close coordination.”