The Return of Teleprompter Trump

Tax Reform:  Teleprompter Trump traveled to Missouri on Wednesday to deliver the outlines of his tax reform plan and bash Missouri’s Democratic Senator, Claire McCaskill who is up reelection  in 2018 in the state that Trump won. He began his speech by sending thoughts and prayers to the victims of Hurricane Harvey because he was widely criticized for failing to do that during his Tuesday Texas fly by.  He then provided a less than detailed overview of his tax reform plan, the one that doesn’t really exist yet because his staff, Treasury secretary, economic advisor and congressional leadership can’t agree on details.  For the most part his objectives follow the traditional Republican playbook: reduce corporate taxes, reduce taxes on high income earners,  pretend to reduce taxes on the middle class and assert that economic growth will offset tax cuts, leaving the deficit unchanged or reduced.  Trump proposed incentives to get corporations to repatriate overseas profits and wants to reduce the corporate tax rate to an unrealistic 15%, though his advisors believe he will be lucky to get the rate down to 25%.   He also called for the audience to vote McCaskill out of office if she doesn’t support his tax reform legislation.  He read the McCaskill threat off of the teleprompter which means that his staff wrote those “campaign words” into his speech.  Political campaign threats during official visits, written by White House staff, are violations of the Hatch Act, not that anyone in the White House worries about things like that.  Given the tragedy unfolding in Texas, the speech seemed ill-timed particularly since the huge costs of repairing and restoring Harvey impacted parts of Texas and Louisiana will put further pressure on the deficit and budget negotiations, making tax cuts more difficult to achieve.               

General Rebuke:  Before leaving for Missouri, Trump responded to North Korea’s most recent missile launch by tweet smacking “The US has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years.  Talking is not the answer!”  Hours later when asked about Trump’s tweet eruption during a Pentagon meeting with South Korea’s Defense Minister, Defense Secretary Mattis contradicted Trump by emphatically saying “We are never out of  diplomatic solutions.”  Together with Secretary of State Tillerson, General Mattis has given up trying to tow the Trump line.  Both of them continue to advocate diplomacy and sanctions over force.  What earlier looked like a “carrot and stick approach” to the North Korea problem is looking more and more like a “just ignore what Trump says and listen to us solution.”  Trump can’t be happy that Tillerson and Mattis, who is also doing his best to limit the impact of Trump’s transgender ban, are disregarding his direction but firing Secretaries isn’t easy, especially given when an increasing number of Americans question your competence.  Trump is also stewing over economic advisor Gary Cohn’s criticism about his Charlottesville comments. Cohn, who was part of the Missouri tax reform traveling squad, was excluded from the list of people Trump acknowledged in his teleprompter speech.  At least Trump’s kids are still on board his train.  Yesterday Ivanka, who speaks frequently about the importance of equal pay for women, announced her endorsement of the administration’s decision to  drop an Obama era equal pay initiative that required big corporations to aggregate information about how much they pay employees broken down by race, gender and ethnicity. 

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Last night Politico reported that Special Counsel Mueller is coordinating his investigation into Paul Manfort and his sketchy financial transactions with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. This is bad news for both Manafort and Trump.  Trump’s pardon power applies only to Federal crimes, if he’s hoping to pursuade Manafort to keep quiet with the promise of a pardon, his strategy won’t work if New York charges are filed. For his part Mueller may be using the threat of New York prosecution to box Manafort into a corner.  Schneiderman, who extracted a large settlement from the Trump organization over fraudulent business practices at Trump University, has a long history with Trump and would be more than happy to help Mueller complicate the Manafort investigation. And there is lots to investigate, last night the Wall Street Journal reported that Manafort’s association with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch and friend of Putin, goes back over ten years.  Manafort has represented Deripaska’s interests in Ukraine, Georgia, and Montenegro, countries that Putin considers within his sphere of influence.  For his part Trump made a curious call this week, he let Iowa Senator Grassley, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, know that he is fully supportive of regulations promoting corn ethanol, a product near and dear to Iowa. Not so coincidentally Donny Jr is scheduled to testify about his meeting about “Russian adoptions” in front of Grassley’s committee soon. That “Russian adoption/Hillary dirt” meeting is getting lots of prosecutorial attention.  The Financial Times reports that Rinat Akhmetshin, the Russian American lobbyist and suspected Russian spy and computer hacking specialist, who attended the meeting, has already testified to Mueller’s grand jury.  Then there is that email that  Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen sent to the Kremlin asking for help with the Trump Moscow hotel project. The Kremlin acknowledges that they received the missive, but claim that they didn’t respond.  After saying that his lawyers have advised him to stop talking to the press, Michael Cohen told the Huffington Post that pitching the hotel project while Trump was running for president may have been gross but wasn’t illegal.  Sadly, the gross but illegal defense may have merits.       

When the Sun Came Out: On Wednesday, a federal judge in Texas blocked most of the provisions of SB 4, a Texas law that would punish local officials who didn’t cooperate with federal government deportation efforts. The immigration crackdown was set to go into effect on September 1.  The judge ruled that there is “ample evidence” that the law’s ban on so-called sanctuary cities will “erode public trust and make many communities and neighborhoods less safe.”  Mayors of the state’s biggest cities, including Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas all oppose the law.  To put this into the context of current events, the mayor of Houston felt compelled to reassure illegal immigrants affected by Hurricane Harvey that the city will not be checking immigrantion status at storm shelters.  Even though the rain is stopping in Texas more people will be needing shelter this morning.  Texas is light on zoning restrictions and industrial plant monitoring, the kind of model for government regulation that Trump finds so appealing.  With plants built perilously close to residential communities, the risk of exposure to hazardous chemicals leaking or exploding due to flood conditions is multiplying.  Yesterday, the Arkema group said that there was nothing they could do to prevent one of their plants from burning. They were right, this morning it exploded sending dangerous fumes into the surrounding community.   

Trump Obsession 

Crowd Obsession:  Together with a contingent of Cabinet Secretaries and an oddly spike heeled Melania, Trump traveled to Corpus Christie, Texas to view the Hurricane Harvey disaster.  He didn’t really get to see the extent of the catastrophe because Corpus Christie isn’t as devastated as the Houston area however, his decision to stay away from Houston was wise, there is no point in diverting strained resources for a publicity tour.  He probably should have stayed home all together but since presidents tend to show up in the middle of disasters to lend support, promise help and improve their ratings his visit wasn’t out of the norm. However, Trump’s obsession with crowd size distinguishes him from his predecessors.  Instead of hugging a displaced person or two or expressing any compassion for the suffering, he excitedly described the storm as the biglyest ever, said that the whole world is really impressed with the stellar way that the Trump led Federal government and Texas are dealing with Harvey’s aftermath and then looked around and commented on the size of the boisterous crowd of flag waving Texans that had been trucked in to celebrate his arrival. Trump is really stressing over crowd size these days.  Still smarting from his smaller than Obama inauguration crowd, he had a fit over the anemic attendance and empty seats at last week’s Phoenix campaign rally and fired long term aid George Gigicos, the contractor responsible for failing to fill the room. In addition to Melania, Trump’s traveling squad included HUD Secretary Ben Carson, Small Business Administration Head Linda McMahon, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, and the new FEMA Head Brock Long, who Trump noted “has really become famous on television” due to all the storm coverage.  Long should start watching his back, Trump hates it when his appointees get favorable press.  Trump flew Carson, McMahon, Price and Long out to talk about how each department would contribute to Harvey relief and reconstruction without noting that his budget plan calls for slashes in all of their programs.  Before anyone in Texas receives funding, Trump will have to get an authorization through Congress, just one more thing on his September to do list.  Historically, some Republican legislators have been particularly stingy with regard to disaster relief funding, requiring offsets to other budgetary items.  This time around, the Texas contingent is likely to be more cooperative than usual, but some of the other budget hawks reside outside of the Harvey impact area so despite the extent of the destruction, getting all the promised funding isn’t a slam dunk and could complicate passage of debt ceiling and budget legislation.  Trump’s wall money may end up funding a Houston sewer or two.

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Special Counsel Mueller has subpoenaed former campaign manager Paul Manafort’s public relations person, Jason Maloni and one of his former lawyers, Melissa Laurenza from Akin Gump.  Maloni, the PR guy, has been told to send over all of his Manafort related documents going back as far as 2000, which is excessively comprehensive because he only started working for Manafort in March.  He will also be appearing before Mueller’s grand jury.  The Laurenza subpoena is unusual, going after someone’s lawyer is an aggressive tactic intended to increase pressure and it raises questions about lawyer-client privilege.  It’s fair to say that the noose is tightening around Paul Manafort.  Separately, the Senate Judiciary committee has finally reached a deal with Don Jr, he is now scheduled to testify before a closed meeting of the panel.  He will need the practice, the intelligence committees want to speak with him too.  Not everyone in Congress is happy about Mueller’s methodical investigation.  Florida congressman Ron DeSantis plans to introduce legislation that would halt funding for Mueller’s probe six months after the amendment’s passage.  It would also limit Mueller’s investigation to events that occurred after June 2015, a not so subtle way of trying to keep Mueller away from Trump’s business activities and personal finances.  DeSantis’ legislation won’t go anywhere, but if things don’t work out in Congress, he could consider applying for a position at the White House.  Vanity Fair reports that Jared and Ivanka, also known as Javanka, are planning to return to New York in 2018.  Kushner’s departure would open up a dozen or more positions including Middle East peace negotiator where much remains to be done.  Kushner is just back from his most recent visit to the region and it doesn’t look like he has managed to move either side closer to a resolution.   

Missile Response:  Yesterday morning Trump finally responded to Pyongyang’s most recent missile launch by saying that “all options are on the table,” whatever that means. The reality is that there are few viable options and Trump is still hoping that China will “fix” the North Korea problem, but instead of immediately condemning North Korea for its missile launch, China again called for the removal of the THAAD missile defense system that the US deployed to protect South Korea. China blames the presence of the system for destabilizing the region. To the extent that it matters, the UN did issue a condemnation. Bottom line is that at least for now, the scary stalemate continues.   

Transgender Ban:   Secretary of Defense Mattis has frozen Trump’s transgender ban.  He announced that transgender people currently serving in the military will be allowed to continue while he impanels a committee of experts to conduct a study on the their impact on military preparedness.  After his experts complete their review Mattis will provide his advice to Trump “concerning implementation of his policy direction.”   Mattis may be hoping that Trump is long gone before his panel’s results are in, but sadly that probably wouldn’t put an end to the transgender ban.  VP Pence is hardly enlightened.  For now, the policy of not allowing transgender recruits will stand unless suits already filed by both the Human Rights Campaign and the ACLU prevail.  

More Rain, More Missiles

Harvey Photo Op:  Trump still plans to head to Texas today but he will be avoiding the Houston area instead going to either Corpus Christie or San Antonio where his photo op will be “less” intrusive to critical storm rescue activities.  Once there expect to see him lift an empty sandbag or push a shovel full of air, before climbing back onto a very dry and comfy Air Force One.  Trump promised resources for Harvey related repairs and reconstruction but didn’t acknowledge that to date FEMA hasn’t been fully staffed and that his budget plans call for a substantial $600 million cut to the FEMA budget, a fairly significant decrease for an agency that received $7 billion in 2017.  Ironically, Texas Senators Cruz and Cornyn, who are calling for Congress to authorize funding for Harvey repair as soon as possible, opposed funding for the Superstorm Sandy “boondoggle” in 2013, a fact that led NY Congressman Peter King to tweet “Ted Cruz & Texas cohorts voted vs NY/NJ aid after Sandy but I’ll vote 4 Harvey aid.  NY wont abandon Texas.  1 bad turn doesn’t deserve another.”  Today Trump also noted that Harvey was a record breaking storm but he failed to mention the link that extreme weather events like Harvey have to rising temperatures, because climate change is one of those things he doesn’t understand or acknowledge.

More on Sheriff Joe:  During a press conference that followed a meeting with Finland’s president, Trump responded to a question about his Friday pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio by doubling down.  He said that Arpaio, that great American hero, was treated “unbelievably unfairly by Obama’s people” who hammered him right before he was up for reelection causing him to narrowly lose an election he would have won if it wasn’t for his unfair treatment by Obama. No surprise that Trump had the facts wrong, Arpaio is no hero, the investigation into his activities was initiated during the Bush administration and Arpaio lost that election by double digits.  Trump also denied that he tried to hide the pardon by issuing it late on an August Friday as attention was focused on hurricane Harvey.  Instead he said that he purposely timed the pardon to coordinate with Harvey related hurricane updates, maximizing its exposure.  Finally, Trump justified his pardon by pointing to Bill Clinton’s controversial pardon of the discredited financier Marc Rich and sixties radical Weatherman Susan Rosenberg and Obama’s pardons of drug dealers and infamous leaker Chelsea Manning.  Trump had clearly practiced his response and he has a point, pardons are always subject to criticism.  However the pardons he cited were done at the end of presidential terms and with the exception of Marc Rich, whose pardon was one of those questionable Clinton decisions, they followed more traditional judicial review procedures.  Still just mentioning them seemed to embolden Trump who revels in his Arpaio decision.  Trump was also asked about the funding for the Mexico Wall, and this time he hedged a little.  He insists it will be funded but now, instead of saying that it will be paid for by Mexico, “one of the top three most violent countries in the world,” he’s finally acknowledging that US taxpayers will have to pay up, at least initially.  His new strategy is to tie Mexico reimbursement to the renegotiation of the NAFTA trade agreement, another one of his pipe dreams.    

.

Russia, Russia, Russia:  To date there is no Trump Tower Moscow but not for lack of trying.  Yesterday long term Trump organization lawyer and close family friend, Michael Cohen, turned a series of emails over to Congressional investigators that document how hard Trump was trying to pursue a major deal in Russia while he was running for president, at a time when he repeatedly claimed to have nothing to do with Russia.  Felix Sater, a Russian born Trump business associate, who claimed to have connections in Russia, and who years earlier had arranged for Ivanka Trump to visit Putin’s office and sit in his chair, pushed Cohen to reach out to a close Putin associate to get Putin’s approval and help with the deal.  He also claimed that getting the tower done would get Trump elected which sounds like hyperbole, but then again Trump was elected. Though Cohen initially said that he didn’t run his efforts to reach Putin up the food chain to Trump, he now acknowledges discussing it with Trump at least three times and ABC News reports that Trump personally signed a non-binding letter of intent for the project, a direct contradiction of his repeated assertions that he had no business dealings in Russia.  Pursuing the tower project was not illegal unless questionable financial dealings and promises were involved, but Trump’s denials about his Russian business connections combined with his propensity to compliment Putin whenever he can feed the cloud of suspicion around all things Trump and Russia.  Also on the Russia front, yesterday it was reported that Special Counsel Mueller’s team is focusing on Trump’s involvement in the obfuscation of the facts about  Don Jr’s sketchy Trump Tower meeting with the Russian lawyer, the one purportedly about Russian adoptions but really about getting dirt on Hillary.  Specifically they want to know what Trump knew about the nature of the meeting when he crafted Don Jr’s misleading and incomplete statement aboard that long Air Force One flight home from Europe. 

More Missiles:  Yesterday, residents of Hokkaido Japan woke up to text messages warning them that “A missile was fired from North Korea.  Please evacuate to a sturdy building or basement.”  That text was followed with another that said “A North Korean missile passed over this area.  If you find suspicious things, please never touch them.”  The texts were real, not an emergency system test.  They were issued in response to Pyongyang’s launching of an intermediate ballistic missile over Japan during our afternoon, another reminder that Kim Jong Un continues to ignore UN Sanctions and Trump’s threats.  Japan responded with a quick condemnation of the particularly threatening launch, but so far Trump, for the moment more focused on Harvey and the justification for his Sheriff Joe pardon, than being dissed by Kim Jong Un, has had no response.  The UN plans to hold another one of its emergency security council meetings today.

Also Disturbing:  Trump and Sessions continue to push their law and order agenda, this time by rolling back Obama era policing reforms.  Obama had limited the provision of surplus military equipment such as large caliber weapons and grenade launchers to local police departments.  It does make you wonder why Trump thinks local peace officers need grenade launchers.  Yikes.

Hurricane Harvey Meet Tsunami Trump

Storm Clouds:  As Harvey dumped unprecedented amounts of rain on Texas, Trump tweeted out a plug for a book written by Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, another one of those notoriously abusive law enforcement officers.  He then went on to live tweet the storm, congratulating himself for his storm management skills and noting that “most people say that this is the worst storm/hurricane we’ve ever seen, good news is that we have great talent on the ground.”  In Trump’s eyes that talent is about to become even greater, he plans to head to Texas on Tuesday to assess the situation, take credit for emergency management successes and divert blame for any problems to state officials. To his credit he is taking the storm seriously though it’s not yet clear that he appreciates that it’s not a public relations moment for him, people are suffering and that recovery from Harvey storm damage will take years, cost billions and require more manpower and funding.  Harvey plans to stick around until Wednesday, so Trump will have a chance to personally thank the complicit “guy” who usefully diverted attention from his Friday night pardon and transgender tsunami. If he’s really lucky, he may also run into some of the people that Mexico’s President Pena Nieto sent across the still wall-less border to help Texas cope with the flood. Trump will probably be wearing his usual oversized business suit and extra-long tie so it’s unlikely that he will don waders and spend a day working alongside those “bad hombres.” Hopefully, if he meets them he will resist the urge to ask for Mexican “wall pesos.”   After surveying Texas, Trump plans to head to Springfield, Missouri to launch his tax reform pitch.  He isn’t expected to present any details, because he doesn’t know any details, but will instead seek to drum up support for tax simplification and lower middle class tax rates, by middle class he means the top 1%.  Missouri’s Democratic Senator, Claire McCaskill, faces an uphill reelection campaign in 2018 so no doubt he will also use the visit to brag about his state victory and throw some shade her way.      

The Practice Pardon:  The Washington Post reports that Trump’s affection for former Maricopa County Sheriff Arpaio goes way back to the beginning of the Obama birther movement and that Trump tried to intercede on behalf of Arpaio even before his case went to court by asking Attorney General Sessions if he could get the charges against Arpaio dropped.  Sessions had the good sense to say it would be inappropriate, which may be one more reason that Sessions has fallen out of favor with Trump.  When Trump issued the Arpaio pardon, he did it without the help of anyone from the Justice Department.  His pardon was unusual in other respects as well.  Typically, people aren’t pardoned until after they’ve been sentenced and Arpaio, who was facing at most six months in jail and probably would have served little if any time, hadn’t even been sentenced yet. Arpaio is also an unusually despicable character, whose horrific actions, some of which resulted in wrongful deaths, have cost Maricopa County more than $80 million in civil settlements and fines, an amount that is expected to grow to around $170 million by next summer.  Emboldened by the pardon, Arpaio, who still faces a number of civil suits, has upped his fundraising efforts to help defray legal costs and, to the extent the 84 year old decides to leverage the pardon and run for another office, future campaign expenditures.  A few of Trump’s surrogates hit the Sunday morning talk shows to defend the pardon decision, depicting Sheriff Joe as an elderly veteran and patriot who had just been doing his job when he profiled Latinos, denied pregnant women medical care, and left prisoners in sweltering tents to die.  Tom Bossert, Trump’s Homeland Security advisor, tried to downplay the pardon by saying that it “was not something that is going to threaten our constitutional order.”  His comments were positively benign in comparison to those of erstwhile Trump friend, Roger Stone, who reacted to ailing Senator John McCain’s criticism of the pardon by tweeting “karma is about to get you @johnmccain and you will burn for all eternity.”  Trump really knows how to pick his friends.         

The Squeaky Cabinet:  Last week, Economic Advisor Cohn shared his gut reaction to Trump’s Charlottesville statements and now a few other senior officials are piling on.  When asked by  Chris Wallace of Fox News whether UN condemnation of Trump’s response to violence in Charlottesville caused him any concern, Secretary of State Tillerson distanced himself from Trump by saying ”he speaks for himself” implying that Trump’s statements are not indicative of US policy  and values.  Speaking to US soldiers from what appeared to be Jordan, Secretary of Defense Mattis was caught on video saying “Our country right now it’s got problems….you just hold the line until the country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.”  Those remarkable comments were made even before Mattis received the directive that he will have to decide whether to kick some of those troops out of the military for being transgender, just one more Trump caused problem he’d rather not have to deal with right now.  House Speaker Ryan also expressed his disapproval of the Arpaio pardon, but in classic Ryan form, he ducked direct confrontation by having his spokesman release a statement.  At a meeting of Kentucky’s GOP,  Senator Majority Leader McConnell just said that governing is frustrating and messy and refrained from making any comments about Arpaio or the transgender ban.  Republican Ohio Governor Kasich, a frequent Trump critic was more outspoken, he discounted rumors that he and Colorado’s Democratic Governor Hickenlooper were considering a 2020 unity ticket but did say that they were working together to solve problems like health care because that’s what two guys who understand the importance of rational policy making and legislation do.  His comment came after he criticized Trump for using the Arpaio pardon as an “out of bounds” “political wedge.”  Despite their denials, Kasich and Hickenlooper probably are running for president, but not together.  

Russia, Russia, Russia:  While running for the Republican nomination for president Trump’s company was pursuing plans to develop a bigly Trump Tower in Moscow.  The project was ultimately abandoned in January 2016 but details about the extent of the arrangement are now being turned over to Congressional investigators.  Remember when Trump said that neither he nor anyone in his family or campaign knew or did business with any Russians, well forget that, it was just another one of those Trump alternative facts. 

Harvey Made Me Do It

Pardon Me:  In an interview that was supposed to be focused on tax reform, Trump’s Economic Advisor Gary Cohn told the Financial Times that he seriously considered resigning over Trump’s comments blaming the events in Charlottesville on “both sides.”  He said that “citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK.”  Adding that the administration “must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning these groups.”  Cohn said that he had expressed his views to Trump at a private meeting in Bedminster but ultimately decided to stay because of a sense of duty.  The official comment from the White House is that Trump knows how Cohn feels, the reality is that he is furious that Cohn so publicly rebuked him and will get even soon.  Late Friday, as Hurricane Harvey beat down on Texas, Trump provided further evidence of his affinity for racists by pardoning former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had been awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of criminal contempt for disregarding a court order in a racial profiling case.  Trump said that he pardoned Arpaio because he “kept Arizona safe.” To be clear, when Arpaio was in office he directed his law enforcement to stop people for the crime of walking while being Latino, he abused prisoners, called his jails concentration camps and sent a deputy to Hawaii in search of Obama’s birth certificate. Trump, who told Suffolk County police that it would be okay if they intentionally banged heads during arrests, just sent the message to law enforcement officials throughout the country that illegal profiling is too. Phoenix’s mayor said that the pardon was a “slap in the face to the people of Maricopa County,” both of Arizona’s Senators, Flake and McCain agreed. No response yet from Gary Cohn, but if he really thinks it’s time to stand up for equality and freedom he’s hanging out with the wrong crowd.  That resignation letter he says he wrote last week, now’s the time to submit it.

Subpoena Time:  Special Counsel Mueller’s Russia investigation is accelerating.  The Wall Street Journal reports that Mueller is looking into whether former National Security Advisor Flynn and his son sought out Russian help in order to obtain Hillary Clinton’s “missing” emails.  Mueller has also started subpoenaing people to testify in front of a grand jury.  According to NBC News he subpoenaed public relations executives who worked with former campaign manager Paul Manafort to learn more about a pro-Russian Ukrainian project that Manafort worked on at a time when he had not registered as a foreign agent. It’s quite possible that the timing of Trump’s Joe Arpaio pardon is intended to send a not so subtle message to Mueller.  If he can so easily pardon a guy like Arpaio, what’s to stop him from pardoning Flynn, Manafort, his whole family and anyone else impacted by the Russia investigation?   

Transgender Ban:  Late Friday Trump signed a directive formalizing his transgender tweets. As expected, the directive calls for transgender individuals to be banned from joining the military but gives the Secretary of Defense wide discretion in determining whether those in the armed forces can continue to serve.  The new rules, which also apply to Homeland Security and the National Guard, ban government financed sex reassignment surgery and any other related treatment.  In anticipation of the directive’s release,  Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth who lost both her legs in Iraq commented that “when I was bleeding to death in my Black Hawk helicopter after I was shot down I didn’t care if the American troops risking their lives to help save me were, gay straight, transgender, black, white or brown and Jennifer Detlefsen, a Navy veteran and daughter of Interior Secretary Zinke commented on Trump’s ban saying “This man is a disgrace.  I’ve tried to keep politics out of my social media feed as much as possible, but this is inexcusable.” Members of the conservative Family Research Council feel much safer knowing that transgender people will no longer be allowed to fight for their democratic principles, they’ve praised Trump’s decision.      

Gorka No More:  Depending on who you ask Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka either resigned on Friday or was fired.  In either case,  Trump’s favorite Nazi sympathizer, who had no official role, never was able to get a high security clearance but appealed to Trump’s baser instincts and helped spread the Trump gospel to various and sundry news outlets, is out.  Gorka says that he stepped down voluntarily because “Trump’s populist agenda has now been hijacked by establishment figures,” adding he can better serve Trump and the make America great again agenda from outside the White House.  Don’t believe it, he was pushed out by Chief of Staff Kelly who has been methodically rooting the crazies out of the White House.  Sadly, Kelly’s authority only goes so far, he can’t boot the most dangerous crazy guy, yet. In all likelihood, Gorka will resurface in a day or two at Breitbart News alongside his mentor, Steve Bannon.         

Pyongyang:  Earlier in the week, Trump said that his strategy of tweet berating North Korea’s Kim Jong Un was working and told the crowd at his Phoenix rally that “I respect the fact that I believe Kim Jong Un is starting to respect us.”  Secretary of State Tillerson said “I am pleased to see that the regime in Pyongyang has certainly demonstrated some level of restraint that we’ve not seen in the past.  Last night Pyongyang showed some of that respectful restraint by launching three short range missiles.      

Venezuela:  At Friday’s daily news conference, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and national security advisor McMaster announced a new directive intended to restrict the Venezuelan government’s access to the US financial system.  The order bars banks from being involved in new bonds and stocks issued by the government and the state oil company and is intended to further isolate Venezuela President Maduro and to insure that US financial institutions cannot be used to further his efforts to expand undemocratic rule.  At the end of their presentation Treasury Secretary Mnuchin was asked about Gary Cohn’s comments about Trump’s response to the events in Charlottesville, Mnuchin responded by standing by his earlier weaselly comment that everything Trump said had sounded just fine to him, distancing himself from Cohn, his “good” friend and former Goldman Sachs colleague.  Mnuchin and his charming wife, Louise Linton, just earned themselves another government paid flight and stay at Mar a Lago for dinner with the Trumps.  #Deplorable.  

The storm rages on.

The Honeymoon is Over 

Another Divorce:  This morning the Wall Street Journal compared Trump’s relations with the Republican party to one of his failed marriages. Trump notified wife number two, Marla Maples, that he was ditching her by leaking it to the NY Post.  Now he is using twitter to announce that he is separating from main stream Republicans.  He’s been endlessly tweet smacking Senate Majority Leader McConnell for his healthcare failure, he’s gone after Senator McCain for his healthcare vote, he’s been attacking “flake” Senator Flake for his critical remarks and that’s just the tip of a very large ice berg though given what’s happening to ice bergs these days that’s probably not the best analogy.  The Journal goes on to say that GOP leadership should just go on with their plans without Trump, pretending he’s an Independent rather than a Republican.  That way they can shift any failures back to his court.  Trump is also continuing his war of words with former Director of National Security Clapper who has been questioning his mental fitness.  Trump says Clapper’s remarks just reflect petty partisanship and cites a letter of support that Clapper gave him after his election victory as evidence that Clapper really admires his mental acuity.  Clapper asserts that the letter was just his way of passing the torch to the new president.  He had two identical copies one for Hillary and one for Trump and sadly the Hillary one went to the dumpster.  Trump isn’t the only one in government who doesn’t have the mental capability to recognize the severity of Putin’s efforts to disrupt the 2016 election, when he ran the CIA former Director Brennan wrote several letters to his staff telling them though most members of Congress appreciated their Russia investigation, some didn’t understand the “importance and gravity of the issue.”   The CIA is now run by one of those unappreciative members of Congress, Mike Pompeo, a strong Trump supporter, and it’s not clear that his view of the Russian investigation has changed.  He’s made some changes in the CIA’s structure bringing the division most responsible for the Russian investigation more directly under his purview. Some CIA agents are concerned that he may be attempting to politicize their work weakening the overseas investigative work relied upon by the FBI and Special Counsel Mueller.

Debt Ceiling and Government Funding:  The debt ceiling hovers over Washington.  McConnell and Ryan continue to express confidence that the ceiling will be raised, finding the specter of a default on their watch unthinkable,  but Trump vacillates between saying that he will sign a “clean bill” and demanding that any bill, ceiling or funding, include money for his border wall.  Freedom Caucus Republicans will also try to hamper the passage of clean debt ceiling legislation by trying to push reforms onto any bill.  Yesterday, Trump tried to throw the fault for the debt ceiling showdown onto Congress by tweeting he “requested that Mitch M & Paul R tie the Debt Ceiling legislation into the popular VA Bill for easy approval.”  “They didn’t do it so now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up.” Ryan, who is still basking in the glow of his passage of an Obamacare bill has been doing his best to avoid confronting Trump on anything, so he just batted his baby blue eyes and responded that all will be fine.  For their part the “Dems” are doing their best to make it clear that they aren’t the problem.  As to passing a funding bill to avoid a government shutdown, the Wall Street Journal recommends that Republican leadership pass the bill they want, forcing Trump into a game of chicken.  If he decides to veto their bill, throwing the government into a shut down, the blame will then fall squarely on his shoulders.       

Kindergarten Cop:  Chief of Staff Kelly is doing his best to reduce White House mayhem.  He started by limiting unscheduled visits to the Oval Office so that only Melania and Barron are allowed to come and go without a hall pass.  Ivanka is allowed in too, but only if she promises in advance to limit her unscheduled visits to family issues.  Now Kelly has moved on to editing Trump’s press clippings. Though Trump still has access to all his favorite cable TV programs, Kelly is only permitting articles from mainstream organizations into his daily news summaries; no more stories from Breitbart, Daily Caller, and Infowars.  Unfortunately, Melania and Donny Jr, who still has phone privileges, are both avid readers of all those fine publications and Breitbart’s newest Chairman,  Steve Bannon still has Trump’s personal phone number on speed dial which may explain why one of Trump’s most recent tweets showing him eclipsing a disappearing Obama was a cut and paste from a neo-Nazi site. The Trump tweeter remains off limits to Kelly’s prying eyes.

Obamacare Lives On:  Despite Trump’s claims that Obamacare is imploding,  Bloomberg News reports that Obamacare plans will be sold in every part of the US next year after an insurer agreed to do business in the last Ohio county that had remained uncovered.  A day doesn’t go by without Trump haranguing Majority Leader McConnell about his “one vote” failure to pass repeal legislation and he  continues to call upon the Senate to take another stab at passing some form of no care legislation.  No doubt, Trump is eyeing New Jersey’s Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and his upcoming corruption trial, hoping that a guilty verdict will force Menendez out of the  Senate while Republican Governor Christie is still around to appoint a Republican replacement, giving him another critical vote.  If found guilty, there is precedent for Menendez to stall his departure from the Senate long enough for Christie’s likely Democratic replacement to appoint his successor, but the timing will be a squeaker. The Menendez trial adds more drama to the ongoing Obamacare epic.          

Honey I Shrunk the Monuments:  Interior Secretary Zinke has completed his study of more than two dozen national “monuments,” and by monuments think national parks and nature sanctuaries. Although he loudly proclaimed that no monuments will be completely eliminated, he will recommend that several including, Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase- Escante Monuments and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou Monument undergo significant shrinkage and even that is an unprecedented outcome.  In addition Zinke’s report will call for the resumption of some exploitive activities that previously had been banned.  Sadly, the outcome of his study isn’t much of a surprise since the whole purpose of opening the analysis to so many monuments was to justify the “limited” outcome.  Zinke’s recommendations will be challenged in court so his shrink attack will not be implemented any time soon.  

Dreamer Kids:  The clock is ticking for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program.  Even though Trump says that he has a heart when it comes to the Dreamer kids and young adults, he appears to be succumbing to the pressures to kill the program coming from his more anti-immigrant Governors and his xenophobic Attorney General Sessions.  Sadly he is creeping closer to rounding the Dreamers up, sending them back to their countries of origin, even if they have nowhere to go and don’t speak anything other than English. This is just another one of those things that may happen in what is expected to be a rough September.  Heartless.

Am blaming today’s late delivery on Dear Evan Hansen!

Whiplash

Cyclone Trump:  Monday night, presidential Trump. Tuesday night, crazy Trump. Wednesday afternoon, back to presidential Trump. Whiplash anyone? After attacking all of the usual suspects at Tuesday night’s Phoenix rally, Trump normative showed up to the National Convention of the American Legion in Reno, Nevada on Wednesday to sign the Veterans Appeal Improvement and Modernization Act.  His spoke to a crowd that included friendly veterans, Veteran Affairs Secretary Shulkin, a very whiplashed Senator Heller, a skeptical Governor Sandoval and HUD Secretary Ben Carson, who, if he had any sense, would refuse being dragged around the country in order to “prove” that Trump isn’t the bigot he seems to be.  Sticking to the teleprompter Trump said that “it was time to heal the wounds that divide us.” He thanked the veterans for keeping history alive because “history and culture are so important,” a dog whistle reference to the important of leaving Confederate statues in place. While Trump was speaking, 2500 miles away, the Mayor of Charlottesville shrouded his Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues in black crepe in a show of mourning for the death of Heather Heyer, the woman killed when a White supremacist weaponized his car at the demonstration that had “fine people on both sides.”  In a related story, that really shouldn’t be related, ESPN reassigned a sports announcer named Robert Lee who was supposed to call the University of Virginia opening football game to a game in another city “because it felt like it was the right thing to do.” Really.     

The Transgender Ban: The Wall Street Journal reported last night that the White House that claims it wants to unite the country will be sending guidelines to the Pentagon to put backbone behind the transgender ban that Trump impulsively tweeted out last month without first consulting any of his military leaders.  It’s expected that the guidance will ban new transgender soldiers from enlisting and will ban payment for related medical treatment for existing transgender soldiers.  The policy will allow Secretary of Defense Mattis, who would rather focus on real security issues like Afghanistan and North Korea, to consider current service members’ ability to deploy in deciding whether to kick them out of the military. To put this in context, eighteen countries including Australia, Israel, Britain, Sweden and Canada allow transgender personnel to serve openly in their militaries. Presumably they’ve all concluded that transgender soldiers are deployable.  Expect a number of lawsuits to be filed shortly. 

Time to Pull the Emergency Cord:  Citing Trump’s irrational statements and erratic behavior, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has publicly expressed his worries about his fitness for office and questioned whether he should be allowed access to the nuclear codes.  It’s looks like a number of Republican Senators share some, if not all, of Clapper’s concerns.   Despite Trump’s contentious efforts to persuade him otherwise,  Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Corker exerted his independence by pushing ahead with the now passed legislation that limits Trump’s flexibility to lift the Russian sanctions that impede his ability to enhance his bromance with Putin.  Trump was also overheard having a loud argument with Republican Senator Tillis who is working with Democratic Senator Chris Coons on a bill to prevent Special Counsel Mueller from being fired in the event that Trump decides he wants to derail the Russia investigation. Trump, who has a hard time staying focused on legislative objectives, doesn’t seem to understand the nuance of health care and goes back and forth on whether he will hold up raising the debt ceiling, is consistent on one thing and one thing only, Russia.  To that end he can’t be happy that congressional investigators have uncovered another problematic email, this one evidencing an attempt by Rick Dearborn, a senior campaign aide who is now Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff, to schedule a meeting with some high level Russians, and he is probably completely ballistic about the likelihood that ten hours of Senate Judiciary Committee testimony about the Steele Dossier, the opposition research document that details some salacious activities and ongoing Trump – Russian relations is likely to be publicly released by Committee Chairman Grassley, another one of his uncontrollable Republicans, very soon.   

Another Resignation:  Daniel Kammen, one of the State Department’s science envoys has resigned citing Trump’s failure to condemn neo-Nazis and White supremacists.  Professor Kammen also criticized Trump’s decision to leave the Paris climate accords. Taking a page from the resignation letter that actor Kal Penn sent last week when he left Trump’s now disbanded Arts Committee, the first letters of each of the paragraphs in Kammen’s resignation letter spell out the word IMPEACH.  It’s not clear that Trump appreciated the subtlety. It’s not just actors, scientists and a few intrepid Republican Senators distancing themselves from Trump, a coalition of Rabbis representing a total of 4000 additional Rabbis and congregations across different movements of Judaism have decided that they will not participate in the traditional pre Rosh Ha Shanah presidential phone call this year in protest against Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville. They’ve accused Trump of giving “succor to those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia.”   Ivanka and Jared, who is currently floating around the Middle East on one of his peacekeeping missions, may want to explain the book of life thing to Trump, his opportunity to be written down and inscribed for a good year is rapidly diminishing.     

Phoenix Rising?

Arizona or Bust:  On Monday night when he delivered his Afghan “strategy” speech, Trump had a rare presidential moment.  He stuck to the teleprompter and talked about uniting the country. His Afghan strategy wasn’t very strategic or satisfying but as speeches go, his wasn’t all that unusual and could have been given by a number of prior presidents.  Last night he traveled to Phoenix and returned to true Trump form.  In anticipation of his speech, protesters gathered to express their discontent while many MAGA hat wearing Trump supporters showed up at the convention center for Trump’s 2020 campaign rally. Arizona’s Senators McCain and Flake stayed away as did Doug Ducey, Arizona’s Republican Governor and Greg Stanton, Phoenix’s Democratic Mayor, who would have been much happier if Trump had stayed away too.  Vice President Pence and HUD Secretary Ben Carson were in attendance.  Wonder if Trump’s only African American cabinet member realizes why his presence was mandated?  Trump spent much of the perverse pep speech attacking the lying press, especially CNN, for failing to accurately report the “fair minded” statements that he made following the Charlottesville tragedy, for sowing discontent and for discounting our “heritage,” a code word for taking down Confederate statues. He made it clear that his approved news outlet, Fox News, especially Sean Hannity, was excluded from his false news accusations.  He dramatically pulled a copy of his original post Charlottesville remarks out of his pocket, read them out loud and then duplicitously misquoted himself by leaving out his controversial, impromptu “on many sides” statement, the one that got him into so much hot water. When a few people in the audience yelled out unflattering comments he suggested that they go join the mere “handful” of “Antifa” protesters outside.  Despite Trump’s assertions, there were more than a few protesters outside and they weren’t antifascist revolutionaries, just disgruntled, overheated Americans.  Unfortunately by the end of a long hot night things did get a little out of hand, his supporters’ Nazi salutes did nothing to ratchet down the tension.  Earlier in the day the White House announced that Trump would not pardon former Sheriff Arpaio at the rally. Trump upheld that promise but did imply that he will pardon the oh so charming, racial profiler very soon by predicting “wink, wink” that Arpaio will be just fine.”

Hotspot:  Trump is at war with Senate Majority Leader McConnell who has privately expressed doubt that he will be able to salvage his presidency.  The two haven’t spoken to each other in weeks and the last time they did they had a contentious high decibel  conversation in which Trump hammered away at McConnell for his inability to get Obamacare repeal legislation passed and totally freaked out about, and suggested there would be ramifications for, McConnell’s failure to protect him from Senate investigations into Russian collusion.  By threatening McConnell about the investigation, Trump may have again committed obstruction of justice. Making good on his threat to be disruptive, Trump is now supporting far right, conspiracy theorist Kelly Ward, who previously ran against Senator McCain and now plans to run against Trump’s long-time critic Senator Flake in the 2018 Arizona Senate primary.  McConnell is throwing his full support and the money he controls behind Flake.  Trump and McConnell are expected to have a similar fight in Nevada, with Trump going after Senator Heller who ultimately did vote for the Obamacare repeal but not before infuriating Trump with a no vote on one of the early versions.  Trump’s attacks against vulnerable Senators are vindictive, threaten the Republican party’s hold on both the Arizona and Nevada seats, and are a gift to Democrats, but he is far more interested in punishing McConnell, Flake and Heller than maintaining the Republican seats.  Last night, Trump also threatened to shut the government down if he doesn’t get money for his wall, the one that Mexico was supposed to finance.  He’s not going to get much, if any, wall money and the government will probably not be shut down but his threats will make life more difficult for McConnell and the other Republicans in the House and Senate.     

More Hotspots:  Yesterday, Secretary Tillerson answered some questions about Trump’s new, not so improved Afghanistan strategy.  He discussed a willingness to meet with more “moderate” Taliban leaders.  He also ramped up the possibility of further discord with Pakistan by asserting that the US military has the right to engage in unilateral missions targeting terrorists in Pakistan territory. Switching gears, Tillerson complimented North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for not sending any missiles our way this week and attributed Pyongyang’s recent “good“ behavior to the new UN sanctions.  While Tillerson was speaking, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin announced the placement of sanctions on Chinese and Russian individuals and firms for “conducting business with North Korea in ways that advanced the country’s missile and nuclear weapons program.”  Mnuchin’s newest wife got herself into a little bit of trouble yesterday, she posted a picture of herself on Instagram, deplaning from an official US aircraft after a trip to Kentucky with all the components of her very expensive designer outfit tagged. Who doesn’t wear Hermes, Roland Mouret, Tom Ford and Valentino? When a “normal” housewife criticized her #deplorable post she ripped into her with a tone deaf, sarcastic and demeaning response.  Not clear what she was thinking, but later in the day she left it to her publicist to say that she was very sorry.  It’s time for Mnuchin to leave Washington and start shopping for wife number four.  

The Russian Beat Goes On:  Glen Simpson who heads Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that retained former British spy, Christopher Steele, to prepare the infamous Trump dossier spent ten hours testifying in front of a closed door session of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  As part of his testimony he handed 40,000 pages of back-up documents to the committee.  He stood by the contents of the dossier suggesting that it provides a good roadmap for investigating Trump.  Last night he released a letter to the NY Times authorizing the Senate to release the transcripts of his testimony.  FBI investigators are already following that roadmap, ABC news reports that they’ve met with the elusive Christopher Steele and that he provided them with the names of his sources. Trump is right, McConnell should have tried harder to put the kibosh on the collusion investigation.  

Ethics:  Before the Obamacare vote, Interior Secretary Zinke called both of Alaska’s Senators, threatening to withdraw funding for Alaska’s Interior Department projects if Senate Murkowski failed to vote for the Obamacare legislation.  Murkowski wasn’t cowed by the threats, voted against the repeal and both Senators made sure that everyone knew about Zinke’s inappropriate call.  It turns out that those calls were more than inappropriate, the Interior Department Inspector General has now initiated an ethics investigation into Zinke’s actions. Zinke may have some serious explaining to do.  

Oh Afghanistan

The Endless War:  The Brits fought three short Afghan wars, the Russians one long one and we’ve now been there for seventeen years, longer than all their years combined and it doesn’t look like we will be leaving anytime soon. Sticking to the text on a teleprompter that he could still see even though he foolishly looked directly into the sun during yesterday’s eclipse, Trump, who ran on a pledge to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible, announced a commitment to fight as long as necessary to achieve victory and an “enduring and honorable outcome” whatever that means.  He didn’t specifically mention the size of his intended troop increase, a number that is probably around 4000, bringing the total number of US troops in Afghanistan to around 12,000.  His argument for changing his mind about staying is to avoid a hasty retreat that would likely result in a full takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and an increase in ISIS and Al Qaeda terrorism.  Following a usual theme, he is putting pressure on regional allies to help out. This time the pressured ally is Pakistan who should “step up and cooperate” or he’ll call for India to get involved too, a new approach that won’t make Pakistan very happy but could push the testy neighbors towards another confrontation.  He also called for our NATO allies, the ones that he harasses for more money but was reluctant to promise to protect, to step up and assume their obligation to help out.  He emphasized the importance of eventually working out a negotiated settlement that will include the Taliban, but seems to have forgotten that he has disbanded the State Department office responsible for covering Afghanistan and dispersed all of the experts with regional expertise. By kicking the Afghanistan problem down the road, he makes it likely that withdrawing from Afghanistan will be his successor’s problem.  There is a reason that Afghanistan is known as a grave yard for foreign armies. At least for a brief moment, he diverted attention away from White House drama, Nazis, Russia, Charlottesville, and North Korea.

Next Up:  Trump started his Afghanistan speech by saying that there was no place for bigotry or prejudice and no tolerance for hate and that we should heal our differences. That was last night’s message, today he is off to Phoenix, Arizona for a campaign rally where he will exploit those differences, talking about illegal immigration and the importance of his big beautiful wall.  There is also a chance that he will further fan the flames of bigotry by pardoning former Sheriff Joe Arpaio who he greatly admires for the hardline anti-immigrant policies that got him into trouble in the first place.  Arpaio is due to be sentenced soon for violating a court order to end one of those practices, the targeting of Latino drivers.  Concerned about demonstrations, the Mayor of Phoenix  asked Trump to stay home.  Today could get ugly.

September Looms:  Unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, the country will run out of money by September 29 so when Congress returns from summer vacation the debt ceiling dance will begin.  Raising the debt ceiling is all about insuring there is enough money to pay for previously incurred bills but the right wing Freedom Caucus members typically vote against it in an attempt to force the government to reduce future spending so raising the ceiling requires bipartisan support.  Senate Majority Leader McConnell promises that there is “zero chance – no chance” Congress would fail to raise the debt ceiling in time to avoid a Treasury default. He’s assuming that he will be able to pass a “clean bill,” one that doesn’t including funding for Trump’s favorite beautiful wall, because if wall money is included, he will have a hard time getting the Democratic votes he needs. Hopefully, he is right. Congress also needs to help out the Secret Service, they are running out of money.  Given the size of the Trump family and their propensity for travel, agents have been working overtime and many have bumped up against annual compensation caps.  Without additional funding Trump will have to spend more time at the White House, Donny Jr and Eric will have to cancel their hunting vacations and business trips abroad and Ivanka and Jared won’t be able distance themselves whenever Trump does something they claim not to like.   

That Russian Guy:  When Donny Jr hosted his now infamous meeting with the Russian lawyer to ostensibly talk about “Russian adoptions” no one remembered to mention that Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American with a shady cover story, was in attendance. It’s looking more and more likely that Akhmetshin really is a Russian spy with extensive expertise in cyber hacking.  In two different cases Akhmetshin hacked into the servers of someone one of his Putin related Russian oligarch clients was opposing.  In one of those cases Scotland Yard experts found that messages concealed in email he sent contained spyware meant to infiltrate  computers.  The spyware fed “traceable documents” that were then opened by computers in the Moscow office park of one of his client’s companies.  Kind of interesting that Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and Donny Jr all forgot that they ever met Akhmetshin.  

Mar a Lago Keeps Bleeding:   The number of organizations that have cancelled Mar a Lago galas and fundraising luncheons is up to fifteen.  The Autism Project of Palm Beach County and the Raymond F Kravis Center for the Performing Arts have just cancelled their plans.  Mar a Lago will be calm and quiet when Trump and Melania leave Washington to avoid December’s annual Kennedy Center Honors presentation.  With a number of the honorees declining to attend if Trump is present, Trump has decided skip town, treating the few members of his beleaguered Secret Service contingent who haven’t hit their compensation caps to a weekend of fun in the sun.   

The Day the Clown Cried

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World:  Despite the misleading name, the “Free Speech” marchers who went to Boston on Saturday were not the good guys.  They were marching for the right to say and do the things that White supremacists do, like espouse racism and hatred and threaten Blacks and Jews and anyone else not up to their less than lofty standards.  Only a hundred of them turned out and they were drowned out by 40,000 counter protesters who showed up to fight bigotry.  Despite the large crowd the boisterous event which was strictly controlled by the wary Boston Police was fairly uneventful with few incidents, thirty arrests and no significant injuries.  In reference to the large crowd of counter protesters,  Trump initially tweeted that there were “many anti-police agitators in Boston” before someone in the White House told him to stop watching Fox and try one of those “fake new” stations with the real story.  At that point he tweeted “Our great country has been divided for decades.  Sometimes you need protest in order to heel, & we will heel, & be stronger than ever before!”  He then corrected his homophone problem and got the heal part right before adding another tweet applauding the many protestors who “are speaking out against bigotry and hate.”  As to the heel/heal problem, I can relate, but then as Trump likes to say, he’s president and we’re not.  Shouldn’t Hope Hicks, communications guru extraordinaire, be checking this stuff?    

Who’s Minding the Store:  Bannon may be gone from the White House but Trump’s still the big cheese so his critics remain more than a wee bit concerned.  Peggy Noonan, the conservative speech writer turned Pulitzer Prize winning commentator, articulated the point well by saying, the “president hasn’t lost his moral authority because he never had it….in a crisis you need a stable center, not one who tears things apart.” Republican Senator Tim Scott, one of only two sitting African American Senators, called into question Trump’s moral authority to lead. Representative Adam Schiff said that it was great that Bannon who never should have been in the White House in the first place was gone and then called for Nazi sympathizer, cocky expert of nothing Sebastian Gorka and xenophobic speechwriter Stephen Miller to follow him out the door.  Schiff wouldn’t go as far as Representative Jackie Speier who said that its time to invoke the 25^th Amendment, the one that lays out how to get rid of whack-a-doodle presidents, but he did say that Trump is “incapable of introspection” and “needs constraints” though he likely was thinking restraints.  The White House had a hard time finding a surrogate willing to defend Trump’s Charlottesville statements but finally tracked down Evangelical Christian leader and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr who justified Trump’s much maligned claim that there were “very fine people on both sides” in the Charlottesville protest by insisting that the president “had information I didn’t have.” Falwell’s defense of Trump isn’t going over well with a group of Liberty University alumni.  They are returning their diplomas in protest because defending Nazis and White supremacists “is incompatible with Liberty University’s stated values, and incompatible with a Christian witness.” Sadly, most other Evangelicals still have no problem justifying their support for all things Trump. It’s way too early to know if it really means anything, but polls indicate that Trump’s popularity in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the states that threw him over the top, is wavering.  His favorability ratings are running 34-36%, down 12-14% since the election and 60% of voters find him embarrassing.

Which Way to the Front:  Tonight in a Nationally televised prime time speech Trump is expected to reveal plans for dealing with Afghanistan.  Expectations are that he will announce his decision to dispatch an additional 4000 troops, real American soldiers not Erik Prince mercenaries, bringing the total US presence to 12,000.  Trump talked a lot about a rapid wind down of the Afghanistan mess during the election but his Generals have convinced him that additional forces will help regain some territory recently lost to the Taliban and will facilitate the eradication of the terrorist strongholds that serve as launching pads to the west. Expect Trump to talk about better coordination with Pakistan and having secured commitments from NATO allies.  He will also say that US soldiers will be training and advising the Afghans so that they can assume more responsibility for their own destiny and that the additional US commitment hinges on their cooperation squashing local corruption.  Not much is new or remarkable about this strategy but Trump has dithered a lot about Afghanistan so it’s notable that a decision is finally being announced, however it’s questionable whether the announcement warrants a prime time TV slot.  Assuming he isn’t planning another surprise, it’s likely that diverting attention from last week’s miserable events is the real reason you’ll miss America Ninja Warrior San Antonio Qualifiers.              

Scared Stiff:  Kim Jong Un has ramped up his threats in anticipation of the routine US – South Korea “exercises” that began last night.  The war games which consist mostly of computer stimulations run through August 31.  North Korea hates them and Kim always acts out when they occur.  Taking advantage of the uptick in heated rhetoric between the US and North Korea, the Russians and Chinese had called for the exercises, which they routinely oppose, to be cutback or cancelled to help lower the temperature on the Korean Penninsula.  However, any change in plans would have looked like like a concession to Pyongyang so the games go on.  Kim has threatened harsh reprisals at any sign that the exercises are the beginning of a “preventive” war.  Hopefully, he doesn’t intentionally or accidentally misinterpret anything and is just posturing.   

It’s Only Money:  A few more charities have cancelled plans to hold fundraising events at Mar a Lago.  The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach and The Palm Beach Zoo and Conservation Society have joined the others looking for alternative venues. It’s not entirely clear why the Zoo and Conservation Society would even considered having an event at a Trump property given Eric and Donny Jr’s hunting hobby but that’s a subject for another day.  Nine cancellations, a few hundred thousand dollars a pop, it’s adding up.  

Enjoy the Eclipse but keep those glasses on, or if you’re like me and forgot to get a pair of super special eclipse specs, stay inside!    

RIP Jerry Lewis

Breitbart Bannon is Back

Bye Bye Bannon:  Another Friday, another bigly staff departure. Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon is out and so are a few of his acolytes.  No final word yet whether faux expert and Nazi sympathizer Sebastian Gorka is among them.  After completing a review of staff roles and responsibilities,  Chief of Staff Kelly couldn’t figure out what Bannon and his cast of misfits really did beyond constant leaking and fighting with the rest of the White House staff.  And Trump, hugely annoyed that the bestselling book “Devil’s Bargain” attributed his election victory to Bannon finally agreed that it was time for him to go.   Bannon was notified of his resignation on August 7^th, well before Trump mishandled the Charlottesville tragedy, but was allowed to stick around until Friday, his one year anniversary on the Trump team. He made good use of his time, supporting Trump’s decision to equate Nazis with counter protestors and giving a few interviews that criticized his globalist co-workers and disrupted foreign policy.  Yesterday evening, Breitbart News announced that Bannon has already rejoined as Executive Chairman.  Eager to get back to work, he chaired the evening’s editorial meeting and gave an interview to the Weekly Standard, saying the “Trump presidency we fought for and won is already over,” adding “I’ve got my hands back on my weapons.” “I’m leaving the White House and going to war.”  His former colleagues should get ready for an onslaught of negative press.  Bannon had no problem leaking nasty stories about them when they worked together at the White House, imagine the dirt that he’ll let fly now.  Don’t be surprised if stories about Kushner’s business entanglements start going viral.  The ambitious Bannon may be planning to grow Breitbart into a bigger force.  He had dinner with the likeminded ultra conservative Mercer billionaires this week, they may bankroll his efforts to take on the Murdoch owned Fox News empire.   

But Trump is Still There:  Bannon is out but White House chaos isn’t going anywhere because Trump is still Trump. It isn’t clear that Trump shares Bannon’s commitment to the total deconstruction of the administrative state but he is committed to tax cuts for the rich so shrinking government expenditures will remain in the forefront.  And travel bans, protective trade policies, immigration control, civil rights bashing and over the top tweets, like Friday’s tweets which blamed Democrats for the terrorist attacks in Spain, aren’t going anywhere.  However, with Pence getting more involved in policy and decision making, traditional conservatism may give Trump’s populist philosophy a run for its money, unless Bannon succeeds in holding Trump’s feet to the fire with a combination of soothing midnight phone calls and threatening articles.     

No Thank You:  A few more councils are saying ciao to the Trump administration.  All of the members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resigned at once on Friday morning because they no longer “felt comfortable serving the president in the wake of his inflammatory remarks about the Charlottesville tragedy.”  The first letter of each of the paragraphs in their resignation letter spelled out the word RESIST.  There was no indication that the White House caught on to the not so hidden message but they did say that Trump had decided not to renew the executive order authorizing the committee in order to save money because who needs art anyway.  Kal Penn, the author of the letter tweeted “Lol @realDonaldTrump you can’t break up with us after we broke up with you.”  Half of the business executives on the Commerce Department’s Digital Economy Advisory board have also departed, most citing Trump’s response to Charlottesville. Carl Icahn, one of Trump’s early supporters also bailed on him this week, ending his relationship as an unpaid advisor to the White House. It doesn’t appear that he left due to any outrage about Charlottesville, instead the reason for his departure may have something to do with the inappropriate us of his White House connections and conflicts of interest.  Democratic Senator Manchin, who never confirmed that he had spoken with the administration about becoming Energy Secretary admitted there had been conversations when he told the crowd at a townhall meeting in Lewisburg, West Virginia  that he has taken his name out of the running. Joining the Trump cabinet may be more of a career killer than being a Democrat running for reelection in overwhelmingly Republican West Virginia.  Trump’s Charlottesville misstep may have cost him the Obamacare repeal vote he so desperately craves.  The list of charities cancelling fundraisers at Mar a Lago continues to grow.  On Friday, the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, the Susan B Komen Foundation, the Lois Pope Foundation, Big Dog Rescue, whose event is co-chaired by Eric Trump’s wife Lara, and several other smaller groups announced that they are each moving their annual galas elsewhere.  A few others are in the process of reconsidering their plans.  In all cases the stated reason for cancelling was a concern that an event at Mar A Lago conflicted with their missions, would cause emotional pain to their staff and beneficiaries and would cause donors to stay home.  No comment yet from Trump who may also be feeling some emotional pain about the loss of revenues.

Afghanistan on Tap:  Afghanistan, our longest war is now Trump’s problem, he’s not happy and has been suffering from an acute case of policy constipation since taking office. It turns out that licensing the Trump name to real estate developers is a lot easier than figuring out military strategy. In exchange for more manpower and an increase in funding Trump’s Generals are promising elusive regional stability.  Bannon’s preference was to outsource the soldiering business to Erik Prince of Blackwater fame.  To that end he had arranged for Prince to attend Friday’s Afghanistan strategy session at Camp David.  With Bannon gone, Prince’s invitation was revoked.  However, VP Pence was still on the invitation list and after weeks of cultivation by security advisor McMaster, is now on team “Generals.”  Trump may be on the verge of committing more resources in Afghanistan. Getting into Afghanistan is so much easier than getting out. 

General Pershing's Bullets

Another Weaponized Vehicle: Yesterday was a very sad and lethal day in Spain.  At least thirteen people were killed and up to one hundred others were injured when a car was intentionally driven into a crowded pedestrian area in Barcelona and more were hurt and five attackers were shot dead 125 miles south of the city in Cambrils.  All this after what is believed to be a related bomb factory exploded earlier in the day.  ISIS has taken credit for the attacks.  Trump, who took his time waiting for all the “facts” to come in before commenting on last weekend’s tiki torch “party” and murder in Charlottesville responded quickly to events in Barcelona, initially with a sympathetic tweet offering help and love to the victims.  For a few minutes, he sounded almost presidential, but then he returned to Trump normal tweeting out “Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught.  There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years.” If you had the pleasure of attending a Trump campaign rally, you would have heard him tell this bizarre story before. For the rest of us, the explanation is that his tweet refers to a widely debunked claim that General Pershing killed 49 Muslims with bullets dipped in pigs blood during the Philippine-American War, sparing the fiftieth person to tell the rest of the Muslim population what happened. This is one of those four Pinocchio stories, it never happened and even if it had, sending that tweet would have been woefully inappropriate.  It should come as no surprise that Trump knows he is lying but since the White Nationalist crowd eats stories like this up he repeats this myth whenever he can.    

Infrastructure Week:  You aren’t alone if you missed that this was supposed to be Trump’s much anticipated infrastructure week. Instead of going off on a deranged tangent during Tuesday’s press conference Trump was supposed to turn the presentation over to his Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao aka Mrs. Majority Leader McConnell and Economic Advisor Gary Cohn, AKA the disgusted Jewish guy who is now teetering on the edge. Rumors that Cohn was calling it quits in response to Trump’s inability to acknowledge that the KKK and neo-Nazis are evil, pushed the stock market down Thursday fueling fears that if Cohn goes so goes tax reform.  As of now Cohn is remaining on board the sinking Trump ship; my guess is that he will try to stick it out through September to get the debt ceiling raised, after that it’s anyone’s guess.  Trump’s planned infrastructure advisory panel has been cancelled for lack of interest, no corporate leaders will sign on.  The outlook for new roads and bridges looks bad but there will be plenty of free time for improvements and repairs at Mar a Lago.  In the wake of Trump’s failure to condemn the KKK, neo-Nazis and the other White supremacists, three major charities have cancelled planned fundraising galas.  The Cleveland Clinic, the American Cancer Society and the American Friends of Magen David (the Israeli Red Cross) have all decided to hold their annual funding raising events somewhere else.  

The Big Red Wall:  The bigly red Republican wall is starting to spring a few leaks.  Speaking at an event in his home state, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker told local press that “we need some radical changes because the president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability or some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.  He doesn’t understand the character of the nation or what it is that makes the nation great.  Without this the nation will go through a great peril.”  Basically, he voiced what more timid Republican are saying in private, Trump is bat sh-t crazy.  Corker’s comments are particularly notable because he is widely respected, is the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and is a former Trump ally who was considered for a cabinet position.  Though he hasn’t voiced his full views in public, Senate Majority Leader McConnell is a man on the verge of a Trump induced breakdown.  In order to maintain the Republican Majority and his majority leader position, McConnell needs all of his Senators to keep their seats in the upcoming 2018 election so he is furious that Trump continues to threaten Arizona Senator Flake who faces a close election in an increasingly purple state.  While Trump called Flake toxic and tweeted support for Kelli Ward, Flake’s primary opponent, McConnell tweeted that “Jeff Flake is an excellent Senator and a tireless advocate for Arizona and our nation.  He has my full support.”  For what it’s worth, Democrats are boiling too. Though it probably  won’t go very far, in response to Trump’s remarks about the violence in Charlottesville, a growing number of Democratic Representatives are planning to introduce a formal censure resolution when the House gets back in session.  

Camp David:  VP Pence is on his way home to attend this weekend’s Camp David strategy session.  In addition to addressing North Korea and other world hotspots, now including Spain, the primary focus of the meeting will be Afghanistan.  To date Trump has refused to sign off on his Generals’ request for additional resources and may even be considering outsourcing the Afghanistan war to mercenaries, an idea being pushed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ billionaire brother, Erik Prince who founded the discredited Blackwater firm that did some really sadistic things in Iraq.  The Generals, including security advisor McMaster, are adamantly opposed to this solution but Trump is intrigued at the idea of a “cheaper” solution, even one that will likely lead to even more horrific outcomes.  Pence’s involvement is a bit of a mystery. To date, his exclusion from meetings and decision making has kept him out of the way of many of the accusations levied against Trump.  Possibly, the Generals have requested his presence because they need a sane, influence in the room.  It’s a sad commentary on the state of the union that the complicit Pence wind-up doll is a better alternative than the Donald.  Or maybe, Trump is starting to shift his responsibilities off to Pence in anticipation of an early departure.  Okay, I know that’s delusional but these are crazy times and Tina Fey has eaten all the sheet cake.             

Make it Count

Make it Count:  Instead of heading to Charlottesville to attend Heather Heyer’s memorial service, Trump slithered off to Bedminster so he missed it when Susan Bro, Hoyer’s mother spoke eloquently and proudly about her daughter, describing her as an independent minded spitfire who knew wrong when she saw it.  Bro called for the rest of us to honor her daughter by paying attention, finding what’s wrong, and saying to yourself “how can I make a difference” and went on to say “I’d rather have my child but by golly, if I’ve got to give her up, we’re going to make it count.”  Bro’s description of her beautiful daughter hasn’t led any KKK members to express remorse for her death.  Several went on TV alleging Hoyer’s death was her own fault because she should have known better than to hang out with those “anti-fascist” demonstrators.  Hoyer was run over on Saturday but the violence started on Friday night when the White supremacists and neo-Nazis described by Trump as nice guys staged an unpermitted practice march through the streets of Charlottesville, carrying tiki torches, chanting “Jews will not replace us” and invoking the Nazi “blood and soil” mantra. A local man was badly injured by one of the marauding Nazis when he was slammed in the neck with a Tiki torch; it’s not clear that he will survive the damage to his carotid artery.  Is this the additional evidence that Trump referenced on Tuesday when he doubled down on his outrageous assertion that the Nazi and KKK marchers were mostly good guys and “morally” equivalent to the counter protesters and innocent bystanders”? Or is the comment by the Unite the Right spokesman Christopher Cantwell that he’d like Trump if only he hadn’t “given his daughter to a Jew?”           

The Business Man President:  Trump’s defense of White supremacists isn’t going over well with corporate America. Yesterday, moments before Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum went public with its decision to disband and condemn Trump’s claims that “both sides” were responsible for the violence in Charlottesville, and as Trump’s separate Manufacturing Council, which had already lost eight members, was preparing to follow suit, Trump tweeted that he was ending the two business councils.  Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s CEO, later stated that “There is no room for equivocation here:  the evil on display by these perpetrators of hate should be condemned and has no place in a country that draws strength from our diversity and humanity.” During an appearance on MSNBC economist Larry Kudlow, a frequent Trump whisperer, said that losing the support of the major corporations didn’t matter much because Trump who has never done anything for small business except stiff them on payment for services, is really a small business guy.  He then went on to promise 4% growth, an impossibility under a best case scenario, and Trump is far removed from any best case.  Getting tax reform passed is looking more and more remote.  Trump will be lucky to see 2% growth, particularly as the uncertainty around his presidency grows.

Fewer Statues:  Late Tuesday night, the Mayor of Baltimore had four Confederate monuments removed saying “it was in the best interest of my city.”  The removal had already been approved though finally details had not been arranged. Mayor Pugh said that given the “climate of the nation,” it was “very important that we move quickly and quietly.”   A number of other cities plan to follow her lead including Lexington, Kentucky whose mayor said he is taking steps to remove two statues from the lawn of the former County Courthouse.  Kentucky’s Senator, Majority Leader McConnell, was too livid to speak sooner but has finally spoken out about Trump’s comments on Charlottesville. He challenged Trump’s position that not everyone who came to the White nationalist rally had hateful beliefs by saying there “are no good neo-Nazis.”  McConnell, who started his career working for one of the few pro-Civil Rights Republican senators, was particularly infuriated that his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who stood by Trump when he made his allegations about the Charlottesville demonstration, was tainted by Trump’s statement.   

Bannon Doubles Down: While Trump was publicly ruminating about Bannon’s longevity at the White House, Bannon gave an interview where he contradicted Trump’s position on North Korea, called for the firing of Susan Thornton, the acting director of the East Asian and Pacific Affairs division at the State Department and mocked Economic Advisor Gary Cohn for fearing the consequences of radically changing trade policies, saying he was “wetting” himself over it.  Though his comments were coarse at least with regard to North Korea he was on target when he said “there’s no military solution,”  “until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first thirty minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bannon also said that the fight over Confederate statues is a good thing because Democrats will lose support if they get caught up in more identity politics battles.  He claims that he made his comments off the record, but the former (and future?) head of Breitbart news is far too sophisticated to hide behind that excuse, it’s hard to believe that he didn’t want his statements on the record.  The next move is in Trump’s court.   

Communications: For now Hope Hick’s, Trump’s trusted assistant and enabler, is stepping into the role of Acting Communications Director.  Since Trump, the reality star, makes his own communication decisions no one from the outside is all that interested in competing for the slot and the Stephen Miller balloon went nowhere.  Hicks is the person who arranged and sat in on last month’s NY Times interview, the one where he showed how little he understood about health care and asserted that he only discussed adoptions during his hour long unreported conversation with Putin.  At least for now Hicks is off to a good start, Trump’s communications office announced that the administration will be making this month’s Obamacare insurance payments.  They’ve made no commitments about future payments so the program remains in limbo.  Senator Lamar Alexander still plans to introduce legislation to continue the payments when lawmakers return from recess in September.

Travel Plans:  Vice President Pence, who finally made a statement condemning White Supremacists but did not directly address Trump’s “both sides” assertion, is returning from Latin America early to join Trump and the national security team for a South Asia strategy meeting at Camp David.  Trump plans to head west early next week for a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona where he may or may not grant his good friend and fellow bigot former Sheriff Arpaio a pardon. He’s expected to bash Arizona’s Senators focusing mostly on his frequent critic Senator Flake, who is up for reelection in 2018, with a few sharp words thrown in for the ailing Senator McCain, the “killer of healthcare.”  Trump is supporting Flake’s primary opponent, Kelli Ward. Democrats are thrilled that Flake will be bruised by a Trump supported primary fight. The Mayor of Phoenix wants Trump to stay home.