In a nice write-up by Elise Viebeck on January 6, 2017, the Washington Post has a handy guide to the big names Trump wants in his cabinet, following the format below:
WHO: Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)
NOMINATED FOR: Attorney general
WHEN AND WHERE: 9:30 A.M. on Jan. 10, 11; Senate Judiciary Committee (Russell Senate Office Building, Room 325)
ARGUMENT FOR: Trump has praised Sessions, a longtime adviser and supporter, as a “world-class legal mind.” First elected in 1996, Sessions previously served as a U.S. attorney and attorney general for Alabama. He has earned praise from Democrats who work with him.
ARGUMENT AGAINST: Accusations of racism have dogged Sessions’s career. He was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 after former colleagues testified he used the n-word and said the Ku Klux Klan were “okay” until he realized they smoked marijuana.
You can read the Full Story.
Showing posts with label strategy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strategy. Show all posts
Monday, January 9, 2017
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Think Progress: Why is the Trump Team Requesting Security Clearances for Conspiracy Theorists? Pence Won’t Answer.
By Laurel Raymond:
This morning, Vice President-Elect Mike Pence went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and stated that Michael Flynn Jr., the son of President-Elect Trump’s National Security Advisor, had no role “whatsoever” in the Trump transition.
Flynn Jr. is currently under scrutiny for promoting a conspiracy theory about a Washington DC pizza shop, what has now come to be called “Pizzagate.”
The conspiracy theory contends that the local DC restaurant is a front for a pedophilia trafficking ring with ties to high level Clinton aides. On Sunday, a man who believed the conspiracy theory entered the shop and threatened employees and customers with an assault rifle. Shortly after, Flynn Jr. used his Twitter feed to defend the conspiracy theory.
Flynn Jr. was involved with the transition. On Tuesday afternoon, Pence admitted to CNN host Jake Tapper that he was wrong earlier in the day.
“His son was helping him a bit with scheduling and administrative items,” Pence told Tapper. Trump team spokesmen stated Tuesday that Flynn Jr. is no longer part of the team. Tapper reported this afternoon that Flynn Jr. was asked to leave by President-Elect Trump, according to a source.
After Pence equivocated, Tapper followed up, noting that the transition team asked for security clearance for Flynn Jr.
Pence refused to answer.
Tapper asked again. Still no answer.
Tapper asked if you need a security clearance to do scheduling. Still no answer.
This pattern was repeated five times. Pence never answered the question.
This morning, Vice President-Elect Mike Pence went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and stated that Michael Flynn Jr., the son of President-Elect Trump’s National Security Advisor, had no role “whatsoever” in the Trump transition.
Flynn Jr. is currently under scrutiny for promoting a conspiracy theory about a Washington DC pizza shop, what has now come to be called “Pizzagate.”
The conspiracy theory contends that the local DC restaurant is a front for a pedophilia trafficking ring with ties to high level Clinton aides. On Sunday, a man who believed the conspiracy theory entered the shop and threatened employees and customers with an assault rifle. Shortly after, Flynn Jr. used his Twitter feed to defend the conspiracy theory.
Flynn Jr. was involved with the transition. On Tuesday afternoon, Pence admitted to CNN host Jake Tapper that he was wrong earlier in the day.
“His son was helping him a bit with scheduling and administrative items,” Pence told Tapper. Trump team spokesmen stated Tuesday that Flynn Jr. is no longer part of the team. Tapper reported this afternoon that Flynn Jr. was asked to leave by President-Elect Trump, according to a source.
After Pence equivocated, Tapper followed up, noting that the transition team asked for security clearance for Flynn Jr.
Pence refused to answer.
Tapper asked again. Still no answer.
Tapper asked if you need a security clearance to do scheduling. Still no answer.
This pattern was repeated five times. Pence never answered the question.
Monday, January 2, 2017
[Special] Ben Carson, HUD Secretary Nominee
I'll leave it to the Washington Post to give the rundown...
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development, an unconventional choice that underscores Trump’s willingness to forgo traditional policy expertise in some Cabinet positions to surround himself with allies.
Carson — who ran against Trump in the wide field of Republican presidential primary candidates and has never held political office — is the president-elect’s highest-profile African American supporter and confidant. A conservative political celebrity, the 65-year-old Carson recently cast doubt on his suitability for a Cabinet role, saying he would be “like a fish out of water” as a federal bureaucrat.
“I am thrilled to nominate Dr. Ben Carson as our next Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,” Trump is quoted as saying in a statement released by his transition team Monday. “Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities.”
- Trump Nominates Carson to Lead U.S. Housing, Urban Policy by Elise Viebeck and Karoun Demirjian (December 5, 2016):
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development, an unconventional choice that underscores Trump’s willingness to forgo traditional policy expertise in some Cabinet positions to surround himself with allies.
Carson — who ran against Trump in the wide field of Republican presidential primary candidates and has never held political office — is the president-elect’s highest-profile African American supporter and confidant. A conservative political celebrity, the 65-year-old Carson recently cast doubt on his suitability for a Cabinet role, saying he would be “like a fish out of water” as a federal bureaucrat.
“I am thrilled to nominate Dr. Ben Carson as our next Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,” Trump is quoted as saying in a statement released by his transition team Monday. “Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities.”
- Trump’s Pick of Ben Carson is Beyond Baffling by WaPo Editorial Board (December 5, 2016)
It less than a month ago that a spokesman for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson told reporters that the erstwhile GOP presidential candidate would not be serving the Trump administration in anything but an unofficial advisory capacity. “Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience,” Armstrong Williams said, “he’s never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency.” On that basis alone, President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement Monday that Mr. Carson would be his choice to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development was baffling. Add the fact that Mr. Carson has no relevant expertise whatsoever (secretary of health and human services, the previous job for which the highly accomplished physician was mentioned, might have been a different story) and Mr. Trump’s pick goes well beyond baffling.
- HUD Job to Pit Carson Ideology Against Long-Standing Housing Policy by Lisa Rein and Elise Viebeck (December 5, 2016)
The biggest shifts under Carson could come in the area of fair housing, experts said. The Obama administration is just starting to implement a new rule requiring local communities to study and report on patterns of racial and income disparity in housing, with HUD overseeing the strategy. The federal government is giving these communities detailed data on poverty rates, school demographics, where minority groups live and whether they are segregated from white neighborhoods. Where segregation exists, HUD and local officials are supposed to come up with plans to reduce it.
Conservative critics have called the policy government overreach, and Carson wrote last year that requiring cities and towns to publicly report racial disparities in housing would “fundamentally change” communities by requiring affordable housing to be built in wealthier neighborhoods.
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Talking Points Memo: The Calamity of Jeff Sessions
By Josh Marshall:
[T]he single most distinguishing feature of Sessions public career is his hostility to African-American voting and the laws put in place to protect African-American voting rights. That stretches from bringing predatory voter fraud indictments with the fairly obvious aim of discouraging efforts to mobilize black voters in Alabama. You can see it in his long-running hostility to the Voting Rights Act. You can see it in his opposition to laws intended to end or the reduce the practice of permanently disenfranchising felons. Again, read Tierney's article. The list goes on and on.
I would say there is much, much more evidence that Jeff Sessions is a racist than that Steve Bannon is anti-Semite. But it's the same difference in both cases. Their actions are what matter, not their personal feelings and prejudices.
The Justice Department has been the historic ally of minority voting around the country. Much less during Republican administrations than Democratic ones, of course. But the raison d'etre of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division has held up that commitment to a significant degree even under administrations that were generally indifferent to voting rights. Again, the backstory of the Bush-era US Attorney scandal is an instructive one here.
Reducing minority voting has been a major part of the Republican policy agenda at the state level since 2011. I don't think it led to Hillary Clinton's defeat. But I don't think there's any question that it contributed to reduced minority voting in several key states. So it was a contributor to her defeat - in addition to numerous other factors.
Over the last eight years, the Obama Justice Department has been an aggressive defender of voting rights. Under Jeff Sessions, the federal government will unquestionably abandon that battle and join sides with GOP controlled states to further limit voting rights. They will most likely also use the power of the DOJ to attack voting rights in states where Democrats are in power. They will almost certainly reorient the DOJ's focus to trumped up voter fraud investigations.
The Full Story (November 18, 2016)
[T]he single most distinguishing feature of Sessions public career is his hostility to African-American voting and the laws put in place to protect African-American voting rights. That stretches from bringing predatory voter fraud indictments with the fairly obvious aim of discouraging efforts to mobilize black voters in Alabama. You can see it in his long-running hostility to the Voting Rights Act. You can see it in his opposition to laws intended to end or the reduce the practice of permanently disenfranchising felons. Again, read Tierney's article. The list goes on and on.
I would say there is much, much more evidence that Jeff Sessions is a racist than that Steve Bannon is anti-Semite. But it's the same difference in both cases. Their actions are what matter, not their personal feelings and prejudices.
The Justice Department has been the historic ally of minority voting around the country. Much less during Republican administrations than Democratic ones, of course. But the raison d'etre of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division has held up that commitment to a significant degree even under administrations that were generally indifferent to voting rights. Again, the backstory of the Bush-era US Attorney scandal is an instructive one here.
Reducing minority voting has been a major part of the Republican policy agenda at the state level since 2011. I don't think it led to Hillary Clinton's defeat. But I don't think there's any question that it contributed to reduced minority voting in several key states. So it was a contributor to her defeat - in addition to numerous other factors.
Over the last eight years, the Obama Justice Department has been an aggressive defender of voting rights. Under Jeff Sessions, the federal government will unquestionably abandon that battle and join sides with GOP controlled states to further limit voting rights. They will most likely also use the power of the DOJ to attack voting rights in states where Democrats are in power. They will almost certainly reorient the DOJ's focus to trumped up voter fraud investigations.
The Full Story (November 18, 2016)
CNN: Trump Picks Sessions For Attorney General
By Phil Mattingly, Eric Bradner and Tal Kopan
The former US attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and Alabama attorney general isn't without controversy. His appointment to a federal district court by then-President Ronald Reagan sank when a former Justice Department employee testified that Sessions had made racially tinged remarks.
He had denounced the 1965 Voting Rights Act and had labeled the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP "un-American" and said the organizations "forced civil rights down the throats of people."
A black Justice Department staffer said Sessions had called him "boy" and claimed he had thought the Ku Klux Klan "were OK until I found out they smoked pot."
Sessions was mentioned as a potential running mate for Trump and advised him on his selection of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who is now helming Trump's transition effort.
* * *
Sessions has also defended one of Trump's most controversial policy proposals: His ban on Muslims traveling into the United States.
The former US attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and Alabama attorney general isn't without controversy. His appointment to a federal district court by then-President Ronald Reagan sank when a former Justice Department employee testified that Sessions had made racially tinged remarks.
He had denounced the 1965 Voting Rights Act and had labeled the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP "un-American" and said the organizations "forced civil rights down the throats of people."
A black Justice Department staffer said Sessions had called him "boy" and claimed he had thought the Ku Klux Klan "were OK until I found out they smoked pot."
Sessions was mentioned as a potential running mate for Trump and advised him on his selection of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who is now helming Trump's transition effort.
* * *
Sessions has also defended one of Trump's most controversial policy proposals: His ban on Muslims traveling into the United States.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
[Special] Fortune: Donald Trump's Social Media Ties to White Supremists
Trump is “giving us the old wink-wink,” wrote Andrew Anglin, editor of a white supremacist website called The Daily Stormer, after Trump retweeted two other “white genocide” theorists within a single minute. “Whereas the odd White genocide tweet could be a random occurrence, it isn’t statistically possible that two of them back to back could be a random occurrence. It could only be deliberate…Today in America the air is cold and it tastes like victory.”
It is possible that Trump ― who, according to the campaign, does almost all of his own tweeting ― is unfamiliar with the term “white genocide” and doesn’t do even basic vetting of those whose tweets he amplifies to his seven million followers. But the reality is that there are dozens of tweets mentioning @realDonaldTrump each minute, and he has an uncanny ability to surface ones that come from accounts that proudly proclaim their white supremacist leanings.
* * *
The Little Bird software analyzed Twitter content to generate a ranked list of just under 2,000 #WhiteGenocide “influencers” as of February 8. The more impactful, the higher up on the list (which, understandably, ebbs and flows a bit over time).
Since the start of his campaign, Donald Trump has retweeted at least 75 users who follow at least three of the top 50 #WhiteGenocide influencers. Moreover, a majority of these retweeted accounts are themselves followed by more than 100 #WhiteGenocide influencers.
But the relationship isn’t limited to retweets. For example, Trump national campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson (who is black), follows the most influential #WhiteGenocide account, @Genophilia, which is best known for helping to launch a Star Wars boycott after it became known that the new film’s lead character was black.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Washington Post: Inside the Collapse of Trump’s D.C. Policy Shop
In April, when the policy office was stood up, the campaign was bracing for a long primary fight that many inside Trump World thought would last through the convention. But after Trump secured the nomination and the convention ended, the enthusiasm for policy details waned.
[...]
The last straw for some came in early August, when the Washington policy shop held two marathon work sessions designed to plan out how to get Trump ready for the policy portions of the upcoming presidential debates. The Washington policy team came up with detailed plans about who would brief Trump on specific policy topics over the course of several weeks.
But after Dearborn worked his staff overtime to get the recommendations, the campaign leadership decided to go in a different direction. “The New York office realized that their candidate would not be receptive to that level of intense preparation,” one former adviser said.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
NBC News: A Full List of Donald Trump's Rapidly Changing Policy Positions
By Jane C. Timm:
After a year of campaigning, hundreds of interviews, stadium rallies, and press conferences, it is still difficult to glean a platform from the Republican nominee's powerfully incoherent rhetoric and constantly evolving views.
Donald Trump changes his mind so frequently and so dramatically that a compilation of his current policies would not tell the whole story, nor would it be up to date for very long — he once offered up three different views on abortion in eight hours. By mixing facts with exaggerations and outright falsehoods in hundreds of interviews while simultaneously refusing to offer specifics — insisting that unpredictability is an advantage he'll use to cut better deals — Trump and the Republican Party that's nominated him are putting forward the most elusive presidential platform in modern history.
To wit: This list features 117 distinct policy shifts on 20 major issues, tracking only his reversals since he announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015.
The Full Story (September 7, 2016)
After a year of campaigning, hundreds of interviews, stadium rallies, and press conferences, it is still difficult to glean a platform from the Republican nominee's powerfully incoherent rhetoric and constantly evolving views.
Donald Trump changes his mind so frequently and so dramatically that a compilation of his current policies would not tell the whole story, nor would it be up to date for very long — he once offered up three different views on abortion in eight hours. By mixing facts with exaggerations and outright falsehoods in hundreds of interviews while simultaneously refusing to offer specifics — insisting that unpredictability is an advantage he'll use to cut better deals — Trump and the Republican Party that's nominated him are putting forward the most elusive presidential platform in modern history.
To wit: This list features 117 distinct policy shifts on 20 major issues, tracking only his reversals since he announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015.
The Full Story (September 7, 2016)
Washington Post: Trump’s History of Corruption is Mind-boggling. So Why is Clinton Supposedly the Corrupt One?
But the truth is that you’d have to work incredibly hard to find a politician who has the kind of history of corruption, double-dealing, and fraud that Donald Trump has. The number of stories which could potentially deserve hundreds and hundreds of articles is absolutely staggering. Here’s a partial list:
- Trump’s casino bankruptcies, which left investors holding the bag while he skedaddled with their money
- Trump’s habit of refusing to pay contractors who had done work for him, many of whom are struggling small businesses
- Trump University, which includes not only the people who got scammed and the Florida investigation, but also a similar story from Texas where the investigation into Trump U was quashed.
- The Trump Institute, another get-rich-quick scheme in which Trump allowed a couple of grifters to use his name to bilk people out of their money
- The Trump Network, a multi-level marketing venture (a.k.a. pyramid scheme) that involved customers mailing in a urine sample which would be analyzed to produce for them a specially formulated package of multivitamins
- Trump Model Management, which reportedly had foreign models lie to customs officials and work in the U.S. illegally, and kept them in squalid conditions while they earned almost nothing for the work they did
- Trump’s employment of foreign guest workers at his resorts, which involves a claim that he can’t find Americans to do the work
- Trump’s use of hundreds of undocumented workers from Poland in the 1980s, who were paid a pittance for their illegal work
- Trump’s history of being charged with housing discrimination
- Trump’s connections to mafia figures involved in New York construction
- The time Trump paid the Federal Trade Commission $750,000 over charges that he violated anti-trust laws when trying to take over a rival casino company
- The fact that Trump is now being advised by Roger Ailes, who was forced out as Fox News chief when dozens of women came forward to charge him with sexual harassment. According to the allegations, Ailes’s behavior was positively monstrous; as just one indicator, his abusive and predatory actions toward women were so well-known and so loathsome that in 1968 the morally upstanding folks in the Nixon administration refused to allow him to work there despite his key role in getting Nixon elected.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
The Atlantic: Trump's Immigration Policy Trap
It’s not that Trump never discussed deportation during the primaries. Over the course of hundreds of interviews, he was occasionally forced to admit that, yes, he would send all the undocumented home. But he discussed the topic as little as possible, for the same reason he avoided discussions of how to end the civil war in Syria and how to design a conservative replacement for Obamacare: He couldn’t condense his answer into an appealing bumper sticker. For months and months, Trump watched his GOP opponents discuss such topics as he soared above them in the polls. If they, who actually knew something about government, couldn’t spin policy flax into electoral gold, why on earth would he, a policy ignoramus, try?
Why is Trump now ensnared in the very net he avoided for so long? Because Kellyanne Conway, who specializes in making conservative politicians appealing to moderate female voters, decided that in order to soften Trump’s image, she needed to soften his immigration policy. What she appears not to have realized is that softening Trump’s immigration policy requires actually formulating one, something The Donald had wisely avoided for more than a year.
Friday, September 30, 2016
New York Times: Donald Trump Explains His Obama-Founded-ISIS Claim as ‘Sarcasm’
After making the suggestion at a rally on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump doubled-down on the assertion on Thursday, insisting in multiple interviews that he really did mean it when he said that the president and Mrs. Clinton were responsible for ISIS. But in an early-morning Twitter post, Mr. Trump said that he was just being sarcastic.
The turnabout was a reversal from just a day ago, when Mr. Trump said in multiple interviews that he was indeed serious about the charge. When the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt tried to help Mr. Trump soften the remark by reminding him that Mr. Obama wants to destroy ISIS, the Republican presidential nominee would not have it.
“No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do,” Mr. Trump said. “He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.”
The Full Story (August 12, 2016)
Thursday, September 29, 2016
New York Times: Donald Trump Calls Obama 'Founder of ISIS' and Says It Honors Him
“In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama,” Mr. Trump told a raucous and rowdy crowd in Florida on Wednesday night. “He’s the founder of ISIS. He’s the founder of ISIS. He’s the founder. He founded ISIS.” He added, “I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton.” During an extended riff on the crisis in Crimea, Mr. Trump added extra emphasis on the president’s full name, saying that it occurred “during the administration of Barack Hussein Obama.”
Mr. Trump’s statement was an escalation in his recent criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of the terror threat, as he had previously accused only Mrs. Clinton of having a “founding” role in the terror group. His suggestion that the president was honored by ISIS recalled an earlier controversy when Mr. Trump seemingly implied that the president had some connection to the terrorist massacre of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
“He doesn’t get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands,” Mr. Trump told Fox News in June. And the use of the president’s middle name recalled Mr. Trump’s questioning of Mr. Obama’s faith during his crusade several years ago to prove that Mr. Obama, who is Christian, was not born in the United States.
Mr. Trump also found himself in an awkward camera framing immediately after criticizing the Clinton campaign for the appearance of Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of the Pulse gunman, at Mrs. Clinton’s campaign event this week. “Wasn’t it terrible when the father of the animal that killed these wonderful people in Orlando was sitting with a big smile on his face right behind Hillary Clinton?” Mr. Trump said.
Yet sitting behind Mr. Trump was Mark Foley, a former Republican congressman who resigned after being confronted with sexually explicit messages he had sent to underage congressional pages. Mr. Trump seemed not to be aware of the disgraced former congressman’s presence as he tried to cast doubt on the Clinton campaign’s account that it had not known who Mr. Mateen was. “When you get those seats, you sort of know the campaign,” Mr. Trump said.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Washington Post: The Unbearable Stench of Trump’s B.S.
By Fareed Zakaria:
But someone engaging in B.S., Frankfurt says, “is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all . . . except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says.” Frankfurt writes that the B.S.-er’s “focus is panoramic rather than particular” and that he has “more spacious opportunities for improvisation, color, and imaginative play. This is less a matter of craft than of art. Hence the familiar notion of the ‘bullshit artist.’ ”
This has been Trump’s mode all his life. He boasts — and boasts and boasts — about his business, his buildings, his books, his wives. Much of it is a concoction of hyperbole and falsehoods. And when he’s found out, he’s like that guy we have all met at a bar who makes wild claims but when confronted with the truth, quickly responds, “I knew that!”
* * *
Or look at the issue that fueled his political rise, birtherism. Trump said in 2011 that he had sent investigators to Hawaii and that “they cannot believe what they’re finding.” For weeks, he continued to imply that there were huge findings to be released. He hinted to George Stephanopoulos, “We’re going to see what happens.” That was five years ago, in April 2011. Nothing happened.
In fact, it appears highly unlikely that Trump ever sent any investigators to Hawaii. In 2011, Salon asked Trump attorney Michael Cohen for details about the investigators. Cohen said that it was all very secret, naturally. Trump has said the same about his plan to defeat the Islamic State, which he can’t reveal. He has boasted that he has a strategy to win solidly Democratic states this fall, but he won’t reveal which ones. (Even by Trump’s standards, this one is a head-scratcher. Won’t we notice when he campaigns in these places? Or will it be so secret that even the voters won’t know?) Of course, these are not secret strategies. It’s just B.S.
The Full Story (August 4, 2016)
(Note: Mr. Zakaria's above opinion article stemmed from a comment he made a few days beforehand. See CNN’s Fareed Zakaria Calls Donald Trump a ‘Bullshit Artist’ on Live TV)
But someone engaging in B.S., Frankfurt says, “is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all . . . except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says.” Frankfurt writes that the B.S.-er’s “focus is panoramic rather than particular” and that he has “more spacious opportunities for improvisation, color, and imaginative play. This is less a matter of craft than of art. Hence the familiar notion of the ‘bullshit artist.’ ”
This has been Trump’s mode all his life. He boasts — and boasts and boasts — about his business, his buildings, his books, his wives. Much of it is a concoction of hyperbole and falsehoods. And when he’s found out, he’s like that guy we have all met at a bar who makes wild claims but when confronted with the truth, quickly responds, “I knew that!”
* * *
Or look at the issue that fueled his political rise, birtherism. Trump said in 2011 that he had sent investigators to Hawaii and that “they cannot believe what they’re finding.” For weeks, he continued to imply that there were huge findings to be released. He hinted to George Stephanopoulos, “We’re going to see what happens.” That was five years ago, in April 2011. Nothing happened.
In fact, it appears highly unlikely that Trump ever sent any investigators to Hawaii. In 2011, Salon asked Trump attorney Michael Cohen for details about the investigators. Cohen said that it was all very secret, naturally. Trump has said the same about his plan to defeat the Islamic State, which he can’t reveal. He has boasted that he has a strategy to win solidly Democratic states this fall, but he won’t reveal which ones. (Even by Trump’s standards, this one is a head-scratcher. Won’t we notice when he campaigns in these places? Or will it be so secret that even the voters won’t know?) Of course, these are not secret strategies. It’s just B.S.
The Full Story (August 4, 2016)
(Note: Mr. Zakaria's above opinion article stemmed from a comment he made a few days beforehand. See CNN’s Fareed Zakaria Calls Donald Trump a ‘Bullshit Artist’ on Live TV)
Monday, August 22, 2016
Talking Points Memo: Welp, That's Weird. But of Course It Is
By Josh Marshall:
Now, normally (i.e., completely separate from anything to do with Trump) it would be entirely unremarkable that someone was getting fundraising emails both from a campaign and also Super PACs supporting the campaign. They're likely both buying lists from the same vendor or even different vendors of likely Trump voters.
But remember, Tim is a foreign citizen and part of the government in another country. We've already speculated about the various ways all these foreign legislators could have ended up on Trump's list. The more we've looked into it, it seems increasingly implausible that he got this list from a list vendor. Not impossible just not likely at all. It now seems more probable that the Trump Organization simply had these emails in some business related database and decided to dump them into the email hopper for the fundraising blitz or just found some site that had a zip file of foreign government officials and used that. As I've said, all of these possibilities are outlandish and ridiculous. But we know for a fact that he has and continues to spam members of Parliament in the UK, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland and Iceland and possibly others. So one of these completely preposterous set of facts has to be true.
And here's where we get to coordination, which is a big no no.
The Full Story (July 1, 2016)
Now, normally (i.e., completely separate from anything to do with Trump) it would be entirely unremarkable that someone was getting fundraising emails both from a campaign and also Super PACs supporting the campaign. They're likely both buying lists from the same vendor or even different vendors of likely Trump voters.
But remember, Tim is a foreign citizen and part of the government in another country. We've already speculated about the various ways all these foreign legislators could have ended up on Trump's list. The more we've looked into it, it seems increasingly implausible that he got this list from a list vendor. Not impossible just not likely at all. It now seems more probable that the Trump Organization simply had these emails in some business related database and decided to dump them into the email hopper for the fundraising blitz or just found some site that had a zip file of foreign government officials and used that. As I've said, all of these possibilities are outlandish and ridiculous. But we know for a fact that he has and continues to spam members of Parliament in the UK, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland and Iceland and possibly others. So one of these completely preposterous set of facts has to be true.
And here's where we get to coordination, which is a big no no.
The Full Story (July 1, 2016)
Friday, August 19, 2016
Politico: The Believer - How Stephen Miller Went From Obscure Capitol Hill Staffer to Donald Trump’s Warm-up Act—And Resident Ideologue.
By Julia Ioffe:
Breitbart is Miller’s preferred media ally. “Every movement needs a dialogue,” Miller says. “Breitbart was a big part of that.” Miller worked tirelessly to make sure the dialogue kept going, and in the right direction. “When I first joined the staff, the first email I got was from him,” says one former Breitbart reporter. “It said something like, ‘Congratulations from everyone at Sessions’ office, we look forward to working with you.’” From that day on, the day’s first email would come from Miller, highlighting inaccuracies in other media outlets’ work or suggesting avenues for investigation. He worked primarily with two reporters at Breitbart, Caroline May and Julia Hahn, constantly feeding them scoops about the Disney workers’ plight, immigration numbers and welfare fraud. He used to organize a weekly Friday happy hour for Sessions and Breitbart staffers at Union Pub, across the street from the Heritage Foundation. “They’re all really good friends,” says the former Breitbart reporter.
Breitbart was also Sessions country long before it was Trump country. “Anything that Sessions sends out, Breitbart writes up immediately,” says the former Breitbart reporter. “There was no question whatsoever. They’d send out an email saying, ‘Anyone who has five minutes, can you write this up?’ I would do it sometimes because people were overloaded and it was just regurgitating a press release into a blog post.” The reporter added, “It was their way of repaying them” for the scoops. Now that Breitbart has also thrown in for Trump, the same happens for his news releases. “They’re all in the same boat together, Sessions, Trump and Breitbart,” the reporter said. “There’s no other politician that Breitbart does that for. They go above and beyond.”
The Full Story (June 27, 2016)
Monday, August 15, 2016
GQ: The Mystifying Triumph of Hope Hicks, Donald Trump’s Right-Hand Woman
By Olivia Nuzzi:
Getting the most out of the star requires keeping him informed. While Trump nurses an obvious addiction to cable news, the reading that's put in front of him is largely confined to a topic he already knows well. Every morning, staffers print out 30 to 50 Google News results for “Donald J. Trump.” He then goes at the sheaf with a marker, making circles and arrows and annotating things he likes or doesn't like. The defaced article gets scanned and e-mailed to the journalist or the person quoted who has drawn Trump's attention, under the subject line “From the office of Donald J. Trump.”
As for what arrives in Hicks's in-box, a typical day brings upwards of 250 media requests. Usually, she alone decides who gets in and who's kept out. But sometimes it's Trump who plays bouncer for his own private party. “She sees the tantrums, and there are tantrums,” a source who's been with Trump and Hicks told me. “He reads something he doesn't like by a reporter, and it's like, ‘This motherfucker! All right, fine. Hope?’ He circles it. ‘This guy's banned! He's banned for a while.’ That's exactly how it works.” Hicks plays parole officer to an extensive and expanding blacklist of outlets and reporters (your correspondent once included) no longer welcome at his events.
While Hicks is often eager to please, she doesn't mind upsetting the media and harbors no reverence for the civic duties of a free press. When reporters send her questions, she's often irked—convinced they're playing detective merely to irritate the campaign. She's seemingly unaware that they might just be vetting a potential United States president. Often she doesn't respond.
The Full Story (June 20, 2016)
Getting the most out of the star requires keeping him informed. While Trump nurses an obvious addiction to cable news, the reading that's put in front of him is largely confined to a topic he already knows well. Every morning, staffers print out 30 to 50 Google News results for “Donald J. Trump.” He then goes at the sheaf with a marker, making circles and arrows and annotating things he likes or doesn't like. The defaced article gets scanned and e-mailed to the journalist or the person quoted who has drawn Trump's attention, under the subject line “From the office of Donald J. Trump.”
As for what arrives in Hicks's in-box, a typical day brings upwards of 250 media requests. Usually, she alone decides who gets in and who's kept out. But sometimes it's Trump who plays bouncer for his own private party. “She sees the tantrums, and there are tantrums,” a source who's been with Trump and Hicks told me. “He reads something he doesn't like by a reporter, and it's like, ‘This motherfucker! All right, fine. Hope?’ He circles it. ‘This guy's banned! He's banned for a while.’ That's exactly how it works.” Hicks plays parole officer to an extensive and expanding blacklist of outlets and reporters (your correspondent once included) no longer welcome at his events.
While Hicks is often eager to please, she doesn't mind upsetting the media and harbors no reverence for the civic duties of a free press. When reporters send her questions, she's often irked—convinced they're playing detective merely to irritate the campaign. She's seemingly unaware that they might just be vetting a potential United States president. Often she doesn't respond.
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Politico: Trump’s Relationship with RNC Sours
By Kenneth P. Vogel, Eli Stokols and Alex Isenstadt:
Donald Trump is relying heavily on the Republican Party to bolster his skeletal operation, but his campaign’s relationship with the Republican National Committee is increasingly plagued by distrust, power struggles and strategic differences, according to sources in both camps.
In recent days, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has privately grumbled that his advice doesn’t seem welcome with Trump, according to one RNC insider. Other party officials have expressed frustration that Trump’s campaign is trying to take too much control over a pair of fundraising committees with the party while adding little to the effort, according to campaign and party officials familiar with the relationship.
While Trump had promised Priebus that he would call two dozen top GOP donors, when RNC chief of staff Katie Walsh recently presented Trump with a list of more than 20 donors, he called only three before stopping, according to two sources familiar with the situation. It’s unclear whether he resumed the donor calls later.
The Full Story (June 15, 2016)
Donald Trump is relying heavily on the Republican Party to bolster his skeletal operation, but his campaign’s relationship with the Republican National Committee is increasingly plagued by distrust, power struggles and strategic differences, according to sources in both camps.
In recent days, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has privately grumbled that his advice doesn’t seem welcome with Trump, according to one RNC insider. Other party officials have expressed frustration that Trump’s campaign is trying to take too much control over a pair of fundraising committees with the party while adding little to the effort, according to campaign and party officials familiar with the relationship.
While Trump had promised Priebus that he would call two dozen top GOP donors, when RNC chief of staff Katie Walsh recently presented Trump with a list of more than 20 donors, he called only three before stopping, according to two sources familiar with the situation. It’s unclear whether he resumed the donor calls later.
The Full Story (June 15, 2016)
Monday, July 4, 2016
New York Magazine: How the Trump Campaign Actually Works
By Gabriel Sherman:
Six months later, Lewandowski and Hicks worked into the early hours of the morning prepping for Trump’s campaign announcement in the lobby of Trump Tower. “It had to be perfect,” Lewandowski said. “We had to build the stage, make sure the flags hung perfectly; the eagles faced out; the carpet was red, and he would wear a red tie.” And hire plants. The campaign paid actors $50 each to wear Trump T-shirts and wave placards.
Later that morning, they watched from the wings as Ivanka introduced her father in front of reporters and photographers and the manufactured crowd. “It looked like the Academy Awards!” Trump recalled. “You saw the cameras, forget it. You couldn’t get another person in.”
Trump didn’t read a prepared speech, but he knew what he wanted to say, which hardly mattered anyway because hardly anyone took his candidacy seriously at the time. “Nobody said anything,” Trump said about the fact that he had accused Mexico of sending “rapists” over the border into the U.S. “Then two weeks later, they started saying, ‘Wait a minute! Did he really say that?’ ”
He hadn’t tested the line, but Nunberg’s deep dive into talk radio had shown him that this was the sort of thing that would resonate with a certain segment of the Republican base. He also knew that this kind of outrageous statement would earn him the free media attention ($1.9 billion worth and counting, according to the New York Times) that would propel his campaign.
This strategy did not go over well in all corners of the Trump empire. Ivanka, Trump’s 34-year-old daughter, had carefully tended her public image as the softer, more refined face of the Trump empire. Now her father’s hard-edged nativist rhetoric risked damaging not only her brand but her business. A few days after the announcement speech, Ivanka received a terse email from Kimberly Grant, the CEO of ThinkFood Group, the holding company behind celebrity chef José Andrés, whose restaurant was supposed to be the anchor tenant in one of Ivanka’s biggest projects: the $200 million redevelopment of the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C., into a luxury hotel.
“We need to talk. Getting crushed over DJT comments about Latinos and Mexicans,” Grant wrote her, according to legal filings.
Ivanka forwarded Grant’s email to her executives.
“Ugh,” one responded. “This is not surprising and would expect that this will not be the last that we hear of it. At least for formal, prepared speeches, can someone vet going forward? Hopefully the Latino community does not organize against us more broadly in DC / across Trump properties.”
Ivanka’s older brother, Donald Jr., also weighed in. “Yea I was waiting for that one. Let’s discuss in the am.”
Ivanka did her best to salvage the partnership. She asked her father to issue an apology, even submitting several drafts for him to release to the press. But he refused. “Rapists are coming into the country! You know I was right,” Trump later told me.
The Full Article (April 3, 2016)
Six months later, Lewandowski and Hicks worked into the early hours of the morning prepping for Trump’s campaign announcement in the lobby of Trump Tower. “It had to be perfect,” Lewandowski said. “We had to build the stage, make sure the flags hung perfectly; the eagles faced out; the carpet was red, and he would wear a red tie.” And hire plants. The campaign paid actors $50 each to wear Trump T-shirts and wave placards.
Later that morning, they watched from the wings as Ivanka introduced her father in front of reporters and photographers and the manufactured crowd. “It looked like the Academy Awards!” Trump recalled. “You saw the cameras, forget it. You couldn’t get another person in.”
Trump didn’t read a prepared speech, but he knew what he wanted to say, which hardly mattered anyway because hardly anyone took his candidacy seriously at the time. “Nobody said anything,” Trump said about the fact that he had accused Mexico of sending “rapists” over the border into the U.S. “Then two weeks later, they started saying, ‘Wait a minute! Did he really say that?’ ”
He hadn’t tested the line, but Nunberg’s deep dive into talk radio had shown him that this was the sort of thing that would resonate with a certain segment of the Republican base. He also knew that this kind of outrageous statement would earn him the free media attention ($1.9 billion worth and counting, according to the New York Times) that would propel his campaign.
This strategy did not go over well in all corners of the Trump empire. Ivanka, Trump’s 34-year-old daughter, had carefully tended her public image as the softer, more refined face of the Trump empire. Now her father’s hard-edged nativist rhetoric risked damaging not only her brand but her business. A few days after the announcement speech, Ivanka received a terse email from Kimberly Grant, the CEO of ThinkFood Group, the holding company behind celebrity chef José Andrés, whose restaurant was supposed to be the anchor tenant in one of Ivanka’s biggest projects: the $200 million redevelopment of the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C., into a luxury hotel.
“We need to talk. Getting crushed over DJT comments about Latinos and Mexicans,” Grant wrote her, according to legal filings.
Ivanka forwarded Grant’s email to her executives.
“Ugh,” one responded. “This is not surprising and would expect that this will not be the last that we hear of it. At least for formal, prepared speeches, can someone vet going forward? Hopefully the Latino community does not organize against us more broadly in DC / across Trump properties.”
Ivanka’s older brother, Donald Jr., also weighed in. “Yea I was waiting for that one. Let’s discuss in the am.”
Ivanka did her best to salvage the partnership. She asked her father to issue an apology, even submitting several drafts for him to release to the press. But he refused. “Rapists are coming into the country! You know I was right,” Trump later told me.
The Full Article (April 3, 2016)
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