Storms Everywhere

Campaign Mode: Candidate Trump is back with a vengeance.  Yesterday during a visit to West Virginia where he was supposed to tout the illusory benefits of his tax reform plan, Trump tossed his prepared remarks into the air, literally, and went into candidate mode.  He recycled some of those racist, inflammatory remarks that helped him win the election.  He again referred to immigrants coming up from Mexico as rapists claiming that women traveling through Central America en route to the United States were "raped at levels that nobody's ever seen before."  Of course there is no evidence of that. He then went on to claim that millions of people had voted illegally in the 2016 election only this time the so-called millions were Californians instead of busloads of Massachusetts residents illegally casting their votes in New Hampshire.  There’s no evidence of illegal voting either, so Trump added “they always like to say, Oh that’s a conspiracy theory, Not a conspiracy theory folks, Millions and Millions of people.”  Trump’s stated purpose for visiting West Virginia was to throw his support to the Republicans trying to unseat Democratic Senator Joe Manchin who is up for reelection in the 2018 midterms.   To that end he was joined by two of the three candidates planning to run for the Republican nomination, he didn’t invite the third candidate, Don Blankenship,  the former mining company executive who was convicted of failing to follow mine safety rules, a failure that resulted in a deadly explosion at his company’s mines.  Blankenship is doing frightening well in the polls and could well snare the Republican slot.  Despite his party affiliation in a state than went overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016, Joe Manchin, the moderate, former governor is relatively well liked and remains a slight favorite in the general election.  Trump may want to consider a trip to Tennessee next.  Though it’s early, his favored Republican candidate Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn in trailing the expected Democratic candidate, former governor Phil Bredesen, by ten points in the race to succeed retiring Senator Bob Corker.  Until now, few thought that Tennessee would be a major battleground, but given Bredesen’s early lead, it’s looking more and more like the Tennessee seat may be up for grabs.   Even Senator Majority Leader McConnell is concerned, speaking about the midterm elections in his home state of Kentucky he told a local paper’s editorial board that he was concerned about a hurricane rocking the GOP. “We know the wind is going to be in our face. We don’t know whether it’s going to be a Category 3, 4 or 5."  He went on to say that he hopes that the Republicans can hold the Senate, something that had looked easy but with states like Tennessee turning into battlegrounds might be more difficult than previously thought.  He sounded like he’d given up on holding the House.   

The Pruitt Problem:  The Pruitt problem continues to fester.  Trump described him as a “good man” who’d done a “fantastic job” but also said that he was aware that there were some problems with his EPA head and said that they were looking into it.  Some problems would be an understatement.  Yesterday, the New York Times reported that at least six former or current EPA employees, one of them a senior political appointee who shared his extreme anti-regulatory views, had complained about Pruitt’s unethical behavior specifically citing his profligate spending habits and outrageous requests.  Pruitt reassigned a member of his very bloated security staff for refusing to turn on the sirens during routine trips to dinner at a particularly chic Washington hotspot.  Others got into trouble for refusing to sign off on Pruitt’s expenses including a request for a subscription to a $100,000 per month private plane service that would have made it easier for Pruitt to fly home to Oklahoma every weekend, something he’s still does, mostly flying first class.  The White House has known about the complaints and concerns for a while because the political appointee, Kevin Chmielewski, was well known, respected and an  early member of Trump’s campaign team.  He’s been put on administrative leave as a result of his “whistleblowing.”  On top of all of this, more color has come out about Pruitt’s $50 per night sweetheart rental deal with a Washington lobbyist.  Despite Pruitt’s assertion that the lobbyist never pitched business at the EPA, he did, and despite the low cost of his arrangement, Pruitt was routinely delinquent in paying his bill.  Despite all of these red flags, as recently as this week, Trump was still considering solving his Attorney General Sessions problem by replacing him with Pruitt.  As a former state Attorney General Pruitt has the right legal credentials, as an already confirmed cabinet member he wouldn’t have required a Senate confirmation process and given his questionable ethics and long term ambitions, the delusional Pruitt wants to be president someday, he would have had no qualms about firing Special Counsel Mueller.  Now despite the support of the energy lobby and deregulation advocates, Pruitt is probably on his way out.  For his part, Trump denies that he has any plans to replace Sessions or fire Mueller, for now.    

The Stormy Chronicles:  The Stormy story is back from its brief hiatus.  Yesterday, on his flight back from West Virginia, Trump forgot that he had promised his lawyers and Melania to stay mum when asked questions about his relationship with adult film star Stormy Daniels so when asked, instead of staying silent, he denied that he had anything to do with her “hush” agreement.  He asserted that he didn’t know anything about it and didn’t even know about or authorize the $130,000 payment that his lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen made on his behalf.  He told the assembled press corps that they “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen, Michael is my attorney.” He did go silent when asked whether he had set up a fund for Cohen to use for “hush” payments.  In all likelihood, Trump wasn’t being all that truthful, to put it lightly, but his newest lie is just part of his problem.  It’s possible that the hush agreement, which wasn’t working all that well anyway, will now be declared invalid because if Trump didn’t know about, he can’t be considered a party to it making neither party legally bound by its terms.  He also threw Cohen under the bus since it is an ethical no-no for lawyers to enter agreements on behalf of their clients without their client’s knowledge.  As to that $130,000 payment it’s looking more and more like an undeclared in-kind campaign contribution, another problem for Cohen and Trump.  For his part, Michael Avenatti, Stormy’s outspoken, publicity loving lawyer, is positively thrilled that Trump had finally spoken up.       

The Trade Wars:  Earlier in the week Larry Kudlow’s calmed the markets, assuring all that Trump’s tariffs were nothing to worry about.  He may have to redouble his efforts today.  Last night Trump announced that he was considering the imposition of another $100 billion of tariffs in response to China’s “unfair retaliation” to his earlier tariffs. Apparently Trump expected that the Chinese would have rolled over by now.  Senator Ben Sasse, no fan of Trump’s heavy handed tariff tactics, responded by saying “hopefully the president is just blowing off steam again, but if he’s even half-serious, this is nuts.”  So far, the Chinese aren’t blinking.  Their response is that “the Chinese position has been made very clear.  We do not want to fight, but we are not afraid to fight a trade war.”   Stock futures are down, we are in for another bumpy day.