Eighteen Years

Bolton Bolts:  On the same day that Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security advisor, appeared in court for still another rescheduling of his long awaited sentencing, John Bolton, his third one, quit or was fired depending on who you ask.  Bolton’s departure, whatever the reason, isn’t all that surprising.  It’s become increasingly clear that he and Trump weren’t on the same page with regard to national security.  Bolton, a neocon and a hawk, disagreed with Trump’s approach to North Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan and has been hed responsible for Trump’s ill-fated effort to achieve regime change in Venezuela.  Notably Bolton also considers Russia a hostile player and doesn’t buy into Trump’s efforts to “woo” Putin.  Ultimately it was Bolton’s very vocal disapproval of Trump’s negotiations with the Taliban and his plans to bring them to Camp David that led to his demise.  Though it was well known within the White House that Bolton, a former and probably future, Fox News contributor, had a habit of leaking items to the press and reaching out to like minded members of Congress in an attempt to rally support for his views, part of his effort to derail Trump policies that he was opposed to, it was his leak that VP Pence also disagreed with the idea of bringing the Taliban to Washington around September 11 that doomed his tenure.  As to his departure, Bolton claims that he offered up his resignation to Trump on Monday night and that the two agreed to talk again in the morning.  Not wanting to be upstaged, Trump jumped ahead and tweeted “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.” Though Bolton’s hawkish positions concerned many in Washington, even some of his critics are worried about his departure, because despite their concern that he could have pushed Trump into a war or two, they still viewed his presence as a needed counter balance to Trump’s frequently irrational positions and impetuous actions.  In any case unlike Trump’s other departed senior advisors and cabinet members, Bolton, who immediately called into a few networks to contradict Trump’s assertion that he’d been fired, isn’t expected to remain silent.  For now Trump, who has started calling Lt. General McMaster, his second national security advisor, the one he did fire, for behind the scenes advice has appointed John Kupperman, whose views actually align with Bolton, as his acting security advisor.  Yesterday, Secretary of State Pompeo, who had butted heads with Bolton so often that the two had stopped speaking, was seen smiling from ear to ear leading some to suggest that he is pushing to have the national security role folded into his Secretary of State portfolio and who knows, Trump, who trusts Pompeo might buy into that approach especially if it stops Pompeo from jumping ship and running for the open Kansas Senate seat.

Guns, Guns, Guns:  With both houses of Congress back in session, Senate Majority Leader Moscow/NRA/Mitch is back in Washington.  Unfortunately he continues to insist that nothing, nada, nunca will happen on gun control until he gets Trump’s unqualified assurance that he is fully on board and since pinning Trump down on gun legislation is akin to nailing down jello, moving forward with any form of gun legislation remains elusive reportedly because Trump’s polling experts have advised him that his base continues to be very opposed to any gun restrictions and keeping his base and his NRA handlers happy is all Trump cares about.  Yesterday, when a member of the press asked Speaker Pelosi if she had any regrets about not bringing the House back to Washington in August to “light a fire” on gun legislation, she stopped cold, glared at the reporter and said we did our job, we passed legislation adding “I am getting very angry about the silliness of these questions,” ask Mitch McConnell why he didn’t bring the Senate back and if “he has any regrets for all the people who have died due to his inaction.” So far all McConnell has done is blame Democrats for their “theatrics,” saying that they know that no bill will get signed unless Trump is onboard so he has no plans to move forward until he’s sure of that because what’s the benefit to him of showing initiative especially since he’s up for reelection this cycle and he too relies on the beneficence of the NRA.  New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who is fed up with Washington’s inability to act, has decided to move forward with his own plan. Under his direction, New Jersey plans to “stop doing business with gun manufacturers and retailers that fail to adopt policies that go beyond federal laws, like conducting expanded background checks, to stop guns from falling into the wrong hands.  New Jersey will also apply pressure on major financial institutions, seeking information from banks that do business with the state “about their relationships and policies involving gunmakers and sellers” with the intent of using those disclosures to decide whether to continue doing business with financial firms.  New Jersey is a big purchaser of guns for its various police forces and is also a large payer of financial fees so this could be bigly.     

Elections: Republicans are breathing a sigh of relief over their candidate, Dan Bishop’s, narrow victory over Democrat Dan McReady in yesterday’s North Carolina District 9 special election but they shouldn’t be all that relieved about the results.  Bishop’s margin of victory was only 2% in a district that Trump and Romney both won by 12% in 2016 and 2012 respectively.  Moreover, according to the Cook Political Report there are 35 other districts where the Republicans won by a much smaller margin that now appear vulnerable.  Although Trump’s North Carolina rally and his ability to drum up support in some of the redder more rural parts of the district may have tipped the election to the Republican candidate, with it looking more and more likely that Democrats will remain in control of the House after the 2020 elections, it’s highly likely that more Republican members of Congress will announce plans to retire, putting more red seats at risk, largely because being in the minority is just not as much fun as being in control.  Though I don’t share Trump’s tweet view that  “One of the greatest and most powerful weapons used by the Fake and Corrupt News Media is the phony Polling Information they put out. Many of these polls are fixed, or worked in such a way that a certain candidate will look good or bad. Internal polling looks great, the best ever!” I try not to get too excited about poll trends that show his approval ratings declining. However, it is worth noting that recent polls from Washington Post/ABC and CNN show that Trump’s approval has fallen from the low to mid 40s to 38-39%, those are the concerning polls that inspired Trump’s poll bashing tweet.  

September 11, never forgotten.