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.