Book Promotion

Who Needs a Book Tour: You would think that Trump, who views himself as the master marketer, would understand that nothing sells better than controversy.  His private lawyers’ attempts to block the publication of the controversial Fire and Fury book and his team’s bad mouthing of its author, Michael Wolff, appear to have backfired.  Fire and Fury’s publisher, Henry Holt & Co., moved the book’s release date up from January 9 to today, and while the book is now available you better act fast if you want to start reading it in hard copy, it’s already sold out on the Barnes and Noble and Amazon websites.  Yesterday, in a piece published in the Hollywood Reporter, Wolff detailed the access he was given into the Trump White House debunking the assertions of the various and sundry Trump surrogates, including such notables as Sebastian Gorka, Anthony Scaramucci, Newsmax publisher Christopher Ruddy, and the ever present Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who hit the airwaves to attack his credibility, deny that he had the White House access that everyone knows he had and push back on the notion that he interviewed Trump, even though he did.  While the Trumpkins were out dissing the book, other pundits reported that with a few exceptions, most notably the suggestion that Trump didn’t know who former House Speaker John Boehner was, much of the book rang true, particularly the parts that suggest that Trump’s mental acuity is on a rapid decline.  While the attacks are helping sales they aren’t doing much for Steve Bannon, who may now regret his decision to give his comments on the record.  It turns out that going after Trump’s kids and suggesting that Donald Jr will crack like an egg, turning on his father, to save himself from jail time, is not a good strategy.  Bannon, never all that popular with mainstream Republicans, has now also alienated many of his rightwing supporters, most notably Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire heiress who financed a lot of his activities and is a part owner of Breitbart.  Pressure is building within Breitbart to oust Bannon from his perch.  Senate Majority Leader McConnell, who has been a frequent victim of Bannon’s withering criticism couldn’t be happier. If Bannon were anyone else, he would probably be getting a lot of sympathy and support from those outraged by Trump’s efforts to destroy a guy for telling the truth, but sadly for Bannon being an anti-Semitic, xenophobic creep, and a supporter of a child molester has consequences.

The Meddlesome Priest Problem:   Last night the NY Times reported that Special Counsel Mueller has obtained independent verification of former FBI Director Comey’s assertions that Trump tried to pressure him into dropping the Russia investigation.  Some of this verification comes from private notes provided by former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.  The Times reports that Trump was so upset at the idea that Attorney General Sessions was considering recusing himself from the Russia investigation that he asked White House Counsel Don McGahn to intervene with Sessions to convince him to drop the recusal idea.  Sessions, who had already been advised by experts at the Justice Department that he had no choice but to recuse himself, had already made up his mind and conveyed that to McGahn who faced Trump’s fury when he reported back.  No doubt that is one of the subjects that Mueller has also discussed with McGahn who is not Trump’s lawyer.  Although he didn’t change his recusal decision, Sessions did send one of his aides out on a fishing expedition trying to drum up dirt on Comey once it became clear that Trump was looking for reasons to fire his problematic FBI chief. Although the Justice Department denies it, the Times reports that Sessions wanted to see one smear article a day published on Comey in the run up to his firing.  One of McGahn’s deputies Uttam Dhillon, a former Justice Attorney, was so unnerved about the concept of dismissing Comey and the impact that it would have on Trump’s presidency that he advised Trump that he couldn’t legally fire Comey without cause and didn’t correct his advice even after one of his assistants completed research indicating otherwise.  Trump should have listened to Dhillon, his legal advice might have been off but his instinctual assessment that the firing of Comey would result in the Justice Department opening an investigation into Trump’s efforts to derail the Russian investigation was spot on.  As to Dhillon’s concern that the investigation would also lead to the demise of Trump’s presidency, the jury is still out on that.     

Stirring the Pot:  Attorney General Sessions has problems with marijuana, he still believes that pot is a gateway drug responsible for turning the US into a haven for marauding hordes of drug pushing gangs,  either that or he owns stock in lots of for profit prisons.  In either case he is seeking to clamp down on the legalization of marijuana, particularly recreational use, by rescinding a trio of memos from the Obama administration that had adopted a policy of non-interference with marijuana-friendly state laws.  Response to his plans to instill chaos into the growing legal pot market has been fairly furious, coming from both sides of the aisle.  Colorado’s Governor  Hickenlooper, a possible 2020 candidate for president, and one of its Senators Michael Bennet is a Democrat, but the other Senator Cory Gardner is a Republican and he has vowed to hold up all Justice nominations until Sessions changes his policy.  California plans to defend its newly legalized marketplace and Vermont went ahead with a vote to legalize recreational marijuana just hours after Sessions made his plans known.  Recusing himself from the Russia investigation may now be the least of Sessions’ problems.  Recriminalizing pot wasn’t the only move inspiring some Republican ire yesterday, Trump’s team also announced plans to allow new offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all US coastal waters.  A number of coastal states are pretty unhappy about that move.  Already, Trump’s good buddy Governor Rick Scott of Florida, who he has been encouraging to run for Senator in an effort to displace Florida’s Democratic Senator Nelson who is up for reelection in 2018,  has expressed his objection to the plan.  Scott joins Florida Senator Rubio and Nelson who have also expressed their concern, all want Florida’s coast off of that drillable list.

The International Arena:  Officials from North Korea and South Korea are scheduled to sit down next week, to discuss the participation of North Korean figure skaters in the upcoming South Korea hosted Olympics and maybe, just maybe to talk about some other important issues like peace or at the very least avoiding a ramping up of hostilities.  Although it’s unlikely that that Trump’s red button diplomacy did anything to advance the talks, Trump is now taking full credit for the meet-up.  He has also agreed to push off planned South Korea-US exercises until after the Olympics. On the Pakistan front, literally the front, the administration announced that it plans to suspend security aid to Pakistan, following up on the threat that Trump tweeted earlier to penalize Pakistan for serving as a sanctuary for extremist groups.  The cut sends a strong message to Pakistan but also adds a destabilizing element to the region and could heighten the risk to the lives of the 14,000 American soldiers in nearby Afghanistan by denying them access to key supply routes.  The amount of the aid cut is still up for discussion and negotiation.  Relations with Pakistan is another one of those things that is very complicated.