New Week, Same Trump

Sore Loser:  Trump isn’t taking last week’s health plan debacle well.  He’s embarked on a two pronged strategy, neither of which bodes well for people who rely on Obamacare.  First, he is pushing the Senate to go back and pass anything that remotely looks like a health plan.  To that end Senators Graham and Cassidy, who briefly mentioned the broad outlines of their plan last Thursday, met with Trump.   The Graham-Cassidy fantasy plan which has not yet been scored or reviewed by the parliamentarian involves giving states block grants, letting each one make its own decision about how best to deliver, or not deliver health care.  Trump doesn’t care about details or how many people would lose insurance so he will support their plan as long as it results in enough service reductions to free up money for his tax cuts.  Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, best known for dissing after school meals and meals on wheels for the elderly as programs with no discernable benefit, wants the Senate to put everything on hold until they get a health care plan passed.  Majority Leader McConnell just wants to move on to other business and it’s not clear that his wayward Senators Murkowski, Collins or McCain would buy into anything that doesn’t involve a “regular” process of getting input from experts, insurance providers, hospitals, doctor groups and Senator Schumer and his eager band of Democrats.  As to McCain, even if he could be swayed to vote yes on the Graham-Cassidy plan, it’s not clear that he will be available any time soon, he’s gone home to begin chemo and radiation.  Trump’s second strategy, involves doing what he can to hasten Obamacare’s demise and sadly he has the power to cause great damage by refusing to make the payments to insurance companies that are used to subsidize premiums for lower income people, by failing to publicize enrollee sign-up periods and by making more people exempt from the individual mandate.  Without an assurance that subsidy payments will be made and faced with “sicker” pools, insurance companies will hike rates.  Sunday morning, when asked if Trump would support the law or do his best to sabotage it, Health and Human Services Secretary Price did his best to avoid giving a clear answer.  Instead he went into his usual canned speech about the horrors of Obamacare.  The disconnect between the Trump administration and the millions of people with Obamacare plans who want to see fixes, not destruction remains. Talking head Kellyanne Conway reports that Trump will announce whether he will make subsidy payments this week.  Judging by his tweets he is leaning towards sabotage.  We should know more soon.  On a more positive note, a few in Congress have been holding discrete bi-partisan meetings planning for the day they actually get to do their jobs.   

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Kelly Monday:  General Kelly starts as Trump’s chief of Staff today and he has his work cut out for him.  Trump’s incessant tweeting was in full force this weekend so it doesn’t look like Kelly made tweet cessation a condition for taking the thankless job.  It’s also not clear that Kelly will be able to impose a traditional hierarchy on the White House Trumpettes.  When asked if she will be reporting to the General, Kellyanne Conway coyly smiled and said she will do whatever Trump wants, in other words not if she can help it.  So far Smoochy Scaramucci, who missed the birth of his newest baby because he was at the Boy Scout Jamboree, still reports directly into Trump and no one is stopping Jared and Ivanka from hanging in the Oval Office whenever they feel the need for some Trump time.  As to General Kelly, the jury is out on whether he will be an independent thinker who speaks up when he thinks Trump is out of line or whether he will be a “good” soldier who does as told.  As Homeland Secretary, the General efficiently carried out Trump’s deportation plans but did question the need for the “Wall.” Earlier in the year, General Kelly towed the Trump line when he responded to a question about whether or not he believed that Obama had taped Trump’s calls, by saying if “Trump says there are tapes, there must be tapes.”  No replacement has been named for the now vacant Homeland Security role though a few names have been mentioned.  The Trump team has floated the concept of moving Attorney General Sessions to Homeland, a move that would get Trump the new Attorney General he wants without having to actually fire Sessions.  Though that option appeals to Trump, it would be challenged in the Senate.   Another suggestion has been Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the king of voter suppression, another guy who wouldn’t receive widespread support.        

The War on Diversity:  While Trump tweeted uncertainty into the careers of thousands of transgender soldiers last week, his Sessions led Judiciary Department took a swipe at all LGBT Americans.  They filed a brief contending that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which bans sex discrimination in the workplace does not covers sexual orientation.  Their assertion contradicts the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s argument that the ban on sexual discrimination does include gender identity but is consistent with the Sessions, Pence, Bannon anti-gay agenda.  Once again, Trump who trumpeted his support for LGBT rights during the campaign is showing that he isn’t all that into rainbows.  

     

North Korea:  All’s not quiet on the Korean Peninsula.  North Korea’s most recent intercontinental ballistic missile was more advanced and went further than earlier missiles, making it likely that Kim Jong Un’s reach is getting further and further into the US mainland.  A frenzied and frustrated Trump tweet smacked “I am very disappointed in China.  They do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk.  We will no longer allow this to continue.  China could easily solve this problem!”  Trump’s criticism of China is valid, but his use of tweet diplomacy is insane. Instead of tweeting he should try more coalition building with regional and European allies.  In response to the North Korean launch the US conducted another missile defense exercise in the Pacific, further inflaming Kim Jong Un and unsettling the Chinese who aren’t happy that we have missile defenses employed so close to their border.  Despite Kim Jong Un’s bluster and nuclear progrerss, experts believe that he would negotiate some concessions as long as he gets to keep much of his nuclear capability, his insurance that he won’t be toppled anytime soon.  The concept of two insecure irrational guys going nuclear head to nuclear head remains very unsettling.        

Buyer’s Remorse:  Secretary of State Tillerson’s been directed to shrink the State Department Budget and it looks like he’s getting a big assist from the guy who gave him a Freedom of Russia Medal a few years ago.  Yesterday in response to the passage of new US sanction legislation, Putin finally acknowledged that Trump, and all the bots and false news stories that money can buy, won’t get him back his US Dachas and, more critically, won’t lift the Magnitsky Act sanctions that make it difficult for Putin and his oligarchs to stash their huge wealth abroad.  He announced that 755 US embassy employees, many of whom are Russian nationals, should “pack their bags,” bringing the US contingent down to about 450 or so.