New York Times: “The moderates in Mr. Trump’s midst, Gary Cohn in particular, are somewhat less influential these days, after several expressed their disgust at the president’s response to the racial riots in Charlottesville, Va., last month.”
Daily Archives
September 5, 2017
25 posts · Tuesday
Trump Faces Deal-Making Challenges as Congress Returns
“Donald Trump the deal maker heads into the autumn of his first year in as weak a negotiating position as any president in modern times — desperate for a victory yet hardly near consensus on any major priority, still able to dominate the national conversation but so far incapable of translating that into action,” the New York Times reports.
“A summer of tumult marked by staff shake-ups, legislative failures, intraparty feuds, a racially inflammatory controversy and a nuclear-edged war of words has left him at odds with his own Republican Party and supported by barely a third of the American public. The list of daunting challenges has only grown with little sense of how he plans to tackle them beyond Twitter storms and declarations of determination.”
James Hohmann: “Once again, there is fear among top Republicans on Capitol Hill that Trump is setting them up to be the fall guys. If something doesn’t get done, the president will blame them.”
Spicer Hits the Speaking Circuit
Sean Spicer is cashing in on “candor” by signing with the Worldwide Speakers Group, Politico reports.
From the pitch: “Audiences around the world will benefit from the same candor, wit and insight that Spicer brought to the White House briefing room.”
“Delivering paid speeches – the lucrative and well-trod pasture of former lawmakers and their name-brand aides – will be one of the main components of Spicer’s post-White House life, according to multiple people briefed on his plans. But he is also planning to pitch a book proposal and his agent, Robert Barnett, as of last week was making the rounds to networks to negotiate a possible deal for his client.”
Quote of the Day
“Mitch? Are you there?”
— President Trump, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, on a call with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who had stopped responding to his “chatter about the day’s headlines or what he had seen on TV.”
EPA Requires Political Sign-off for Agency Grants
“The Environmental Protection Agency has taken the unusual step of putting a political operative in charge of vetting the hundreds of millions of dollars in grants the EPA distributes annually, assigning final funding decisions to a former Trump campaign aide with little environmental policy experience,” the Washington Post reports.
“In this role, John Konkus reviews every award the agency gives out, along with every grant solicitation before it is issued. According to both career and political employees, Konkus has told staff that he is on the lookout for ‘the double C-word’ — climate change — and repeatedly has instructed grant officers to eliminate references to the subject in solicitations.”
DACA Fight Will Test Bannon’s Power on the Outside
“Before strategist Steve Bannon’s departure from the White House last month, aides to President Trump quietly worried what kind of damage he would inflict from the outside. Some invoked President Lyndon Johnson, who infamously said he didn’t fire his FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover because ‘it’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out,'” Politico reports.
“The coming fight over the Obama-era immigration program protecting nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children — often referred to as Dreamers — will test that proposition. It’s the latest battle pitting the president’s conservative advisers against moderates in the White House and Congress — but the first in which Bannon is free to engage in open combat with fellow Republicans from the outside.”
Washington Post: Both sides gear up for a political fight as Trump prepares to end immigration protections for “dreamers.”
Key Trump Aide’s Departure Rattles President’s Allies
“President Trump’s allies are worried that the most damaging of the many recent departures from his White House may be that of Keith Schiller, a little-known former bodyguard who’s one of the president’s closest confidants outside his family,” Bloomberg reports.
“Multiple people interviewed described Schiller as an emotional anchor for the president in a White House often marked by turmoil. Schiller has worked for Trump for nearly two decades, and within the West Wing he serves as the president’s protector, gate-keeper and wing man, according to people close to Schiller and Trump.”
“Schiller never planned to stay in the position for long because of its lower pay and longer hours… But his exit may have been accelerated by the appointment in July of retired Marine general John Kelly as Trump’s chief of staff.”
