Saving Jeff Sessions: Inside the GOP effort to protect the Attorney General
Days after President Donald Trump deemed Jeff Sessions “beleaguered” and threatened to fire him last July, members of the president’s inner circle made a desperate case to save the attorney general’s job. The White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and the president’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, pleaded with Trump during a heated Oval Office meeting to keep Sessions, warning that his dismissal would only pour gasoline on the Russia investigation. And, they said, it could alienate those in Trump’s conservative base, supporters enamored with the attorney general’s tough stances on law enforcement and immigration. Priebus and Bannon both were out of their jobs within the month. But Sessions survived, his reprieve delivered by John Kelly as one of his first acts as chief of staff. Ten months later, the Republican campaign to save Sessions has continued and — at least for now — succeeded. In private meetings, public appearances on television and late-night phone calls, Trump’s advisers and allies have done all they can to persuade the president not to fire a Cabinet official he dismisses as disloyal. The effort is one of the few effective Republican attempts to install guardrails around a president who delights in defying advice and breaking the rules. It’s an ongoing effort, though not everyone is convinced the relationship is sustainable for the long term. As recently as this month, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said the president had raised the issue again, wondering aloud if he’d made a mistake in not firing Sessions. And both Giuliani and influential Republican lawmakers have hinted that, once special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe wraps up, Sessions could be in danger again. “There’s no doubt he’s complained about him, there’s no doubt he has some grievances. I don’t know they’ve aired them out yet. He’s not going to fire him before this is over,” Giuliani told reporters Wednesday. “Nor do I think he should.” Trump showed Wednesday the campaign to save Sessions hasn’t tempered his anger at the attorney general’s decision to recuse himself from the Russia probe, an act the president believed birthed the Mueller investigation, which is imperiling his presidency. In a tweet, Trump again declared he regretted appointing the former Alabama senator to the job in a familiar, but no less stunning, public rebuke of a sitting Cabinet official. Despite the withering complaints, Trump appears to comprehend the potential consequences of firing Sessions and seems resigned to the idea that he’s stuck with him for the time being, according to nearly a dozen people close to the decision, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. The case that Sessions’ protectors have outlined to Trump time and again largely consists of three components: Firing Sessions, a witness in Mueller’s investigation of obstruction of justice, would add legal peril to his standing in the Russia probe; doing so would anger the president’s political base, which Trump cares deeply about, especially with midterm election looming this fall; and a number of Republican senators would rebel against the treatment of a longtime colleague who was following Justice Department guidelines in his recusal. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has said that he will not schedule a confirmation hearing for another attorney general nominee if Sessions is fired. Giuliani told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Trump has asked him multiple times, before and after the former New York mayor joined the president’s legal team last month, about whether Sessions should have been fired. Giuliani said Trump consulted him last summer during the height of his rage about Sessions’ recusal. More recently, he said, Trump has not actively considered firing Sessions but has wondered if he made the right decision in not doing so previously. “And when he asks, ‘Should I have done that?’ I say, ’No, the way it is now has worked out,’” Giuliani said, adding that he did not believe Trump would fire Sessions. Later, speaking to reporters at the White House, he compared the president’s temper to that of the late George Steinbrenner, the mercurial owner of the New York Yankees. Influential conservatives have also heard Trump lash out about Sessions and, though some have sympathy for the concerns, have repeatedly talked him out of doing anything drastic, said one person in touch with both men who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. The person recalled a venting session after a meeting at the White House last fall, when the president aired his frustrations with the attorney general about his recusal. The person expressed sympathy but argued against firing Sessions, in part because of his success in carrying out the president’s agenda. Trump’s complaints about Sessions have at times won sympathy from some friends who believe Sessions’ recusal was too broad and ill-timed and undercut the positive attention from a State of the Union address the president had recently delivered. While the recusal remains Sessions’ original sin in Trump’s eyes, the president has also fumed that he sees Sessions as failing to get a handle on immigration and not placing enough emphasis on combating transnational criminal organizations. After being berated by Trump over the recusal decision last spring, Sessions offered his resignation, but the overture was rejected. He is widely viewed as determined to stay in the job because he believes in the president’s agenda, which largely mirrors his own interests, and is reluctant to leave a job for which he gave up a Senate seat. Hours after the president’s attack on Wednesday, Sessions visited the White House for a routine litigation issue, a Justice Department official said. There may be a limit to how long the campaign to save Sessions can hold on. Giuliani on Wednesday only offered assurances Trump would not fire Sessions during the Mueller investigation, because of the “distraction” it would cause. And a number of Republican senators who have supported Sessions have indicated in recent days that they are warming to Trump’s complaints. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who in March said firing
James Comey compares Donald Trump to mob boss
Firing back at a sharply critical book by former FBI director James Comey, President Donald Trump blasted him Friday as an “untruthful slime ball,” saying, “It was my great honor to fire James Comey!” Trump reacted on Twitter early Friday, the day after the emergence of details from Comey’s memoir, which says Trump is “untethered to truth,” and describes him as fixated in the early days of his presidency on having the FBI debunk salacious rumors he said were untrue but that could distress his wife. The book, “A Higher Loyalty,” is to be released next week. The Associated Press purchased a copy this week. In the book, Comey compares Trump to a mafia don and calls his leadership of the country “ego driven and about personal loyalty.” Comey also reveals new details about his interactions with Trump and his own decision-making in handling the Hillary Clinton email investigation before the 2016 election. He casts Trump as a mobster-like figure who sought to blur the line between law enforcement and politics and tried to pressure him personally regarding his investigation into Russian election interference. The book adheres closely to Comey’s public testimony and written statements about his contacts with Trump and his growing concern about Trump’s integrity. It also includes strikingly personal jabs at Trump that appear sure to irritate the president. The 6-foot-8 Comey describes Trump as shorter than he expected with a “too long” tie and “bright white half-moons” under his eyes that he suggests came from tanning goggles. He also says he made a conscious effort to check the president’s hand size, saying it was “smaller than mine but did not seem unusually so.” “Donald Trump’s presidency threatens much of what is good in this nation,” Comey writes, calling the administration a “forest fire” that can’t be contained by ethical leaders within the government. On a more-personal level, Comey describes Trump repeatedly asking him to consider investigating an allegation involving Trump and Russian prostitutes urinating on a bed in a Moscow hotel, in order to prove it was a lie. Trump has strongly denied the allegation, and Comey says that it appeared the president wanted it investigated to reassure his wife, Melania Trump. Trump fired Comey in May 2017, setting off a scramble at the Justice Department that led to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation. Mueller’s probe has expanded to include whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey, which the president denies. Trump has assailed Comey as a “showboat” and a “liar.” Top White House aides also criticized the fired FBI director on Friday. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders questioned Comey’s credibility in a tweet and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Comey took “unnecessary, immature pot shots.” Comey’s account lands at a particularly sensitive moment for Trump and the White House. Officials there describe the president as enraged over a recent FBI raid of his personal lawyer’s home and office, raising the prospect that he could fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, or try to shut down the probe on his own. The Republican National Committee is poised to lead the pushback effort against Comey by launching a website and supplying surrogates with talking points that question his credibility. Trump has said he fired Comey because of his handling of the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s email practices. Trump used the investigation as a cudgel in the campaign and repeatedly said Clinton should be jailed for using a personal email system while serving as secretary of state. Democrats, on the other hand, have accused Comey of politicizing the investigation, and Clinton herself has said it hurt her election prospects. Comey writes that he regrets his approach and some of the wording he used in his July 2016 press conference in which he announced the decision not to prosecute Clinton. But he says he believes he did the right thing by going before the cameras and making his statement, noting that the Justice Department had done so in other high profile cases. Every person on the investigative team, Comey writes, found that there was no prosecutable case against Clinton and that the FBI didn’t find that she lied under its questioning. He also reveals new details about how the government had unverified classified information that he believes could have been used to cast doubt on Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s independence in the Clinton probe. While Comey does not outline the details of the information — and says he didn’t see indications of Lynch inappropriately influencing the investigation — he says it worried him that the material could be used to attack the integrity of the probe and the FBI’s independence. Comey’s book will be heavily scrutinized by the president’s legal team looking for any inconsistencies between it and his public testimony, under oath, before Congress. They will be looking to impeach Comey’s credibility as a key witness in Mueller’s obstruction investigation, which the president has cast as a political motivated witch hunt. The former FBI director provides new details of his firing. He writes that then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly — now Trump’s chief of staff — offered to quit out of disgust at how Comey was dismissed. Kelly has been increasingly marginalized in the White House and the president has mused to confidants about firing him. Comey also writes extensively about his first meeting with Trump after the election, a briefing in January 2017 at Trump Tower in New York City. Others in the meeting included Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, Michael Flynn, who would become national security adviser, and incoming press secretary, Sean Spicer. Comey was also joined by NSA Director Mike Rogers, CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. After Clapper briefed the team on the intelligence community’s findings of Russian election interference, Comey writes, he was taken aback by what the Trump team didn’t ask. “They were about to lead a country
Donald Trump’s fundraising prowess keeps Republican Party close
Republican senators are bucking President Donald Trump’s calls to revive the health care debate. And Trump just ousted his only top White House aide with deep links to the Republican Party. But the president and his party won’t be calling it quits anytime soon. They remain tightly linked by a force more powerful than politics or personal ties: cash. Trump’s fundraising prowess is the engine of the Republican National Committee and a lifeline for every Republican planning to rely on the party for financial help during next year’s congressional races. Leaning heavily on Trump’s appeal among small donors, the party has raised $75 million in the first six months of the year, more than double what the Democratic National Committee had raised by the same point in President Barack Obama’s first year. “The president is somebody who absolutely is an asset when it comes to fundraising,” RNC chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said. Trump resonates with a base of Republicans who have been more willing this year than ever before to chip in. The party says it collected more cash online in the first six months of the year than in all of 2016. In late June, Trump played star and host of a fundraiser for his re-election campaign and the RNC. The event at the Trump International Hotel, just down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, raised $10 million to be divided between Trump and the party, the kind of bounty usually reserved for the final months before an election. The fundraising numbers help explain why more Republicans — particularly those facing re-election next year — aren’t openly distancing themselves from a president whose approval rating hovers below 40 percent and whose White House has been wracked by public back-biting and legislative stumbles. And while Trump hasn’t hesitated to call out Republicans who defy him, he’s largely come to appreciate the permanence the RNC offers a White House that has had to quickly staff up from nothing — a task that hasn’t always gone smoothly. Trump’s dismissal last week of chief of staff Reince Priebus prompted a rush of concern from Republican lawmakers who’d gotten to know Priebus during his nearly six years as party chairman. Some wondered if Trump was losing his only link to the Republican Party. Yet the well-funded RNC has been reformatted for the Trump era. “The president likes the fact that the party is structured to help his agenda, and there’s not a question that this RNC is 100 percent loyal to him,” said Brian Ballard, one of the party’s lead fundraisers. “It’s not like the RNC he inherited as the party’s nominee; it’s his now.” Party employees have led communication at key points of the investigations into whether the Trump campaign had anything to do with Russian interference in the presidential election. And the RNC, realizing how important television is to this particular White House, has added employees to help book Trump proponents on cable shows. There are awkward GOP moments, to be sure. Just this week, Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, in his new book, called out Trump for his “seeming affection for strongmen and authoritarians.” Trump over the weekend on Twitter ridiculed Senate Republicans for not passing a health care bill, saying Democrats were laughing at them and they “look like fools.” McDaniel said the president has “every right” to engage with Republicans however he sees fit. “The American people put him in office to accomplish his agenda,” she said. She’s backed him up on Twitter: “I run into people every day who are hurting across the country under Obamacare,” she wrote recently. “Giving up is not an option.” Priebus and others at the RNC were squeamish about their presidential nominee at various points during the 2016 campaign, but few if any detractors remain at its headquarters on Capitol Hill, where the hallways are lined with portraits of Trump and blown-up snapshots of him. The RNC voted McDaniel in as party chair on Trump’s recommendation. As the Michigan GOP head, she’d been a staunch Trump supporter even as her uncle, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, expressed his own reservations about Trump during the campaign. Trump also tapped Bob Paduchik, his campaign’s Ohio director, to serve as a deputy to McDaniel. The two remain close, and Paduchik traveled with Trump last month for a rally in Youngstown. Trump’s family, including son Donald Trump Jr. and daughter-in-law Lara Trump, Eric Trump’s wife, are involved in the RNC’s strategy and fundraising and have grown close to McDaniel. Longtime Trump friend Steve Wynn, a fellow billionaire businessman, is the party’s chief fundraiser; the president’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, is among the RNC’s principal fundraisers. His campaign’s trusted data and digital director, Brad Parscale, joined the board of Data Trust, the party’s data vendor, which keeps its voter files up to date. Trump heaped praise on the RNC’s leadership team during the June fundraiser, calling them stars and winners. Bill Stepien, the White House’s political director, said relations between the party and the president are as good now as they were in the mid-2000s, when he worked at the RNC while George W. Bush was president. Stepien said the White House and the party have “a strong relationship” and that Trump’s aides view the RNC as an “essential component” of his success. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Anthony Scaramucci out of White House job as John Kelly takes charge
Anthony Scaramucci is out as White House communications director after just 11 days on the job – and just hours after former Gen. John Kelly took over as President Donald Trump‘s new chief of staff. Hoping to turn the page on a tumultuous opening chapter to his presidency, Trump had insisted earlier Monday that there was “no chaos” in his White House as he swore in the retired Marine general as his second chief of staff. Not long after, Scaramucci, who shocked many with his profane outburst last week against then-chief of staff Reince Priebus, was gone. In the words of the White House announcement, he was leaving because he “felt it was best to give Chief of Staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team.” The three-sentence release concluded, “We wish him all the best.” The statement about Scaramucci’s departure used the same “clean slate” language that departing press secretary Sean Spicer used to describe his own reason for resigning the day Trump brought Scaramucci aboard. Spicer remained in the White House on Monday, saying he was there to assist with the communications transitions. As the Scaramucci news spread, Kelly was in the East Room smiling and taking pictures with guests who were gathering for a Medal of Honor presentation. Earlier, in an Oval Office ceremony, Trump predicted Kelly, who previously served as Homeland Security chief, would do a “spectacular job.” And the president chose to highlight the rising stock market and positive jobs outlook rather than talk about how things might need to change in his White House under Kelly. Trump on Friday ousted Priebus as chief of staff and turned to Kelly, who he hopes will bring military discipline to an administration weighed down by a stalled legislative agenda, infighting among West Wing aides and a stack of investigations. Scaramucci’s brief tenure shoved internal White House disputes into the open. In media interviews, he trashed Priebus as a “leaker” and senior White House aide Steve Bannon as a self-promoter. One of Scaramucci’s first – and it turns out only – acts was to force out a communications aide seen as loyal to Priebus. Spicer, Priebus and Bannon had all objected to Trump’s decision to hire Scaramucci, who would have reported directly to the president. While Trump is looking for a reset, he pushed back against criticism of his administration with this tweet: “Highest Stock Market EVER, best economic numbers in years, unemployment lowest in 17 years, wages raising, border secure, S.C.: No WH chaos!” In fact, economic growth averaged 2 percent in the first half of this year, a pace Trump railed against as a candidate and promised to lift to 3 percent. The stock market first hit a record under President Barack Obama and has kept growing. The unemployment rate, too, started to decline on Obama’s watch. And wage gains have been weak. Trump on Monday convened his first Cabinet meeting with Kelly at his side, telling his team it is “doing incredibly well” and “starting from a really good base.” On how he would deal with rising tensions with North Korea, Trump said only: “It will be handled.” Seated across from Trump was Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has stayed on the job while Trump has publicly savaged him in interviews and on social media. Kelly’s success in a chaotic White House will depend on how much authority he is granted and whether Trump’s dueling aides will put aside their rivalries to work together. Also unclear is whether a new chief of staff will have any influence over the president’s social media histrionics. Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who was ousted from the campaign in June 2016, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he expected Kelly would “restore order to the staff” but also stressed that Trump was unlikely to change his style. “I say you have to let Trump be Trump. That is what has made him successful over the last 30 years. That is what the American people voted for,” Lewandowski said. “And anybody who thinks they’re going to change Donald Trump doesn’t know Donald Trump.” Kelly’s start follows a wild week, marked by a profane tirade by Scaramucci, the president’s continued criticism of his attorney general and the failed effort by Senate Republicans to overhaul the nation’s health care law. In addition to the strains in the West Wing and with Congress, Kelly starts his new job as tensions escalate with North Korea. The United States flew two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea, following the country’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile test. The U.S. also said it conducted a successful test of a missile defense system located in Alaska. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that she hopes Kelly can “be effective,” and “begin some very serious negotiation with the North and stop this program.” Another diplomatic fissure opened Sunday when Russian President Vladimir Putin said the U.S. would have to cut its embassy and consulate staff in Russia by several hundred under new sanctions from Moscow. In a television interview, Putin indicated the cutback was retaliation for new sanctions in a bill passed by Congress and sent to Trump. Trump plans to sign the measure into law, the White House has said. After Putin’s remarks, the State Department deemed the cutbacks “a regrettable and uncalled for act” and said officials would assess the impact and how to respond to it. While Trump is trying to refresh his team, he signaled that he does not want to give up the fight on health care. On Twitter Sunday, he said: “Don’t give up Republican Senators, the World is watching: Repeal & Replace.” The protracted health care fight has slowed work on Trump’s other policy goals, including a tax overhaul and infrastructure investment. But Trump aides made clear that the president still wanted to see action on health care. White House
Donald Trump’s six-month stall sparks a White House shake-up
Six months into his presidency, Donald Trump is saddled with a stalled agenda, a West Wing that resembles a viper’s nest, a pile of investigations and a Republican Party that’s starting to break away. Trump on Friday indirectly acknowledged the troubled state of his unconventional White House when he abruptly replaced his chief of staff with hard-nosed retired Gen. John Kelly, until now the Homeland Security secretary. Kelly will take the desk of Reince Priebus, a Republican operative who was skeptical of Trump’s electoral prospects last year and ultimately came to be viewed by the president as weak and ineffective. Kelly’s ability to succeed will depend on factors outside his control, including whether Trump’s squabbling staff is willing to put aside the rivalries that have sowed disorder and complicated efforts to enact policy. But the big question is can Kelly do what Priebus couldn’t? And that’s curbing the president’s penchant for drama and unpredictability, and his tendency to focus more on settling scores than promoting a policy agenda. No other aide or adviser has been successful on that front. As a candidate, and now as president, Trump has cycled through campaign chiefs and advisers but has remained easily distracted by his personal interests and only loosely tethered to any policy plans. “Trump has spent a lot of his political capital on nothing but defending his own reputation,” Alex Conant, a Republican strategist, said of Trump’s first six months in office. “There is no sustained strategy. His attention seems to shift with whatever is leading cable news at that moment.” Staff shake-ups are a tried-and-true way for struggling presidents to signal that they are ready to shift course. In 1994, President Bill Clinton elevated budget director Leon Panetta to chief of staff with a mandate to bring more discipline to a loosely organized White House. President George W. Bush made the same move with Josh Bolten in 2006 as the Bush presidency buckled under criticism of his handling of the Iraq war and the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Rarely, however, do presidents face as much turmoil as quickly as Trump has. His Friday afternoon tweet announcing Kelly’s hiring capped a tumultuous week: —his new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, spewed vulgarities in public at Priebus. —Trump drew blunt criticism from GOP lawmakers over his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions for withdrawing from the federal investigation into Russian campaign interference. —Senate Republicans’ efforts to pass legislation that would have overhauled the nation’s health care law collapsed. Some Trump allies tried to pin the blame for the health debacle on Priebus. The former Republican National Committee chairman had sold himself to Trump as a well-connected Washington operator who could help round up votes on Capitol Hill. He encouraged Trump to press forward with a health care overhaul early in his presidency. But as Republicans sorted through the rubble of their health care failure, it was Trump, not his chief of staff, who was the target of criticism. “One of the failures was the president never laid out a plan or his core principles and never sold them to the American people,” said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa. He said Trump “outsourced the whole issue to Congress.” Indeed, Trump’s relatively rare public appeals for the passage of health legislation suggested he was more interested in a political win than in the details of policy. A former Democrat who does not adhere to all GOP orthodoxy, Trump frequently shifted his own stance as to whether the Republicans should repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act at once or simply repeal the law for now. By week’s end, it was clear that some Republicans simply weren’t afraid of breaking with a weakened president. GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and John McCain of Arizona, who was back in Washington after a brain cancer diagnosis, doomed a last-ditch bill in Friday’s early morning hours. Murkowski, who was targeted by Trump on Twitter for her opposition, showed little sign of being cowed by the president. “We’re here to govern, we’re here to legislate, to represent people that sent us here. And so every day shouldn’t be about campaigning. Every day shouldn’t be about winning elections. How about doing a little governing around here?” she asked. To this point, Trump has failed to shepherd a single substantial piece of legislation into law. His only major accomplishments have been by executive power — rolling back regulations and undoing a few of his predecessor’s achievements, like the Paris climate treaty — along with his successful nomination of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Kelly, who spent his career in the military before being nominated by Trump to run the sprawling Department of Homeland Security, has limited political and legislative experience. But at least for now, he has the trust of the president. “He has been a true star of my administration,” Trump declared. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Donald Trump fires Reince Priebus, names Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly as chief of staff
President Donald Trump tweeted on Friday afternoon that he is naming Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly as chief of staff, ousting Reince Priebus. I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff. He is a Great American…. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2017 In the swirl of Shakespearean intrigue that surrounds Donald Trump’s White House, Priebus’ fortunes have long been a source of speculation, given his limited role, colorful band of rivals and the president’s public slights. Those questions sharply escalated this week with the arrival of Trump’s new communications director, who was hired over Priebus’ objections and reports directly to the president. Priebus’ already tense relationship with Anthony Scaramucci took a darker turn over the past 24 hours when the communications chief suggested in a late-night tweet that Priebus was one of the “leakers” that President Donald Trump has railed against. The New Yorker published a profanity-laced interview Thursday in which Scaramucci called Priebus a “paranoid schizophrenic.” Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview Tuesday that no staff shake-up was imminent. But he has privately floated potential replacements for Priebus, including Secretary John Kelly, deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and former campaign adviser David Urban, according to three people who’ve been in conversation with the president and senior staffers recently. The president often throws out names casually in conversation that end up going nowhere, and there is no indication that anyone has been approached about the job. But Priebus’ power — which has been limited compared with past people with that title — has dwindled. Scaramucci is the latest top aide to be granted a direct line to Trump, and it has become increasingly unclear who actually reports to Priebus. The White House did not respond to requests for an organizational chart. After Trump boarded Air Force One on Friday for a trip to Long Island, New York, reporters saw Priebus and Scaramucci, who was on the telephone and carrying a bag, boarding the aircraft using the rear staircase. Priebus has grown increasingly isolated in the White House, as past Republican National Committee colleagues and other allies have left or been pushed out of the West Wing. Those who have departed include former deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh, outgoing press secretary Sean Spicer and press aide Michael Short. The chief of staff made an appearance Thursday at an East Room event where Trump honored first responders, acting as if nothing was amiss. Asked if Trump had confidence in his chief of staff, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not answer directly, saying: “I think I’ve addressed this question when it comes to staffing and personnel many times, that if the president doesn’t, then he’ll make that decision. We all serve at the pleasure of the president and if he gets to a place where that isn’t the case, he’ll let you know.” Priebus did not respond to repeated requests for comment. On-the-job humiliation is often part of the deal in Trump’s White House, as Priebus well knows. At a meeting of auto company CEOs in Michigan in March, Trump praised the executives and then said, “And then I look at Reince,” drawing scattered laughs with a tone that suggested Priebus was a less impressive presence. Trump quickly added that Priebus has “done a great job.” Trump structured the White House in a way that undermined Priebus’ authority from Day One. In a highly unusual arrangement, he said Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon would serve as “equal partners” in implementing his agenda. In a typical White House, most staffers, including the communications director, report to the chief of staff. But in Trump’s White House, a long list of top advisers bypasses the middle man. Scaramucci, social media director Dan Scavino and counselor Kellyanne Conway all report directly to Trump, as do the president’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, both senior advisers. “I plan on continuing to serve and report directly to President @realDonaldTrump at the @WhiteHouse, as I’ve done since 1/20/2017,” Scavino tweeted over the weekend. Trump has also maintained a near open-door policy, with top aides casually poking their heads in constantly to speak with the boss. “They’ve got all these chiefs running about with or without the title of chief,” said William Daley, the second chief of staff for President Barack Obama. He said that under Obama, there were high-ranking players with direct access to the president, but he was clued in on any policy or governing conversations, noting: “There was a sense that people were working together.” Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary under George W. Bush, said there are multiple ways to effectively run the White House. George H.W. Bush ran a hierarchical West Wing with a powerful chief of staff who controlled access to the Oval Office. When his son came to office, he chose a different model, creating a system under which numerous senior aides were able to walk into the Oval Office and speak to the president, even if, on paper, they technically reported to someone else. The difference now, he said, is that Trump has created a faction-driven White House, noting: “I just think he has too many independent power centers and not enough team players.” The lone voice coming to Priebus’ defense Thursday was House Speaker Paul Ryan, who called the fellow Wisconsinite a “close friend” and said, “I think he’s doing a great job as chief of staff.” But from within the White House there was less vocal support. Asked on Fox Business Network whether Priebus is in trouble, Conway replied: “You’d have to ask the president that.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Darryl Paulson: Please fire Robert Mueller!
For all my friends who think I have finally gone off the deep end, I really do not want Special Counsel Robert Mueller to be fired. I do think the firing of Mueller, if it happens, may be the only way to end the tyranny of President Donald Trump. Trump has already fired FBI Director James Comey, as well as releasing National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Press Secretary Sean Spicer. This does not include a half dozen lesser-known officials who have been shown the door in the first six months of Trump’s presidency. Nor does it include the likely departures of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Special Counsel Mueller. Trump fired Comey out of fear of where the Russian investigation was headed, although he told the public that Comey had lost the confidence of FBI employees. There was no evidence to support that. Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office that Comey was fired because “he was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken care of.” Or, so he thought! Terminating Mueller would mean that the two highest-ranking officials investigating the Russian influence in the 2016 election were fired. If Mueller is fired, Republicans will quickly distance themselves from Trump, something they should have done long ago. Democrats will clamor for Trump’s impeachment. The American public will be asking why Trump fired both Comey and Mueller. What did he have to fear? What was hiding in his financial records that might demonstrate Trump’s ties to Russian government and business? If Trump has nothing to hide, as he has maintained from the beginning, then why stop the investigations? What could be better for Trump than to be given a clean bill of health by one of the most respected individuals in government? If that were to happen, I could envision Trump’s early morning tweet: “I told you so. What a waste of taxpayer’s time and money. I have been completely exonerated.” A clean bill from Mueller would do more to help Trump than anything imaginable. Mueller is a decorated Vietnam veteran, a respected attorney, and appointed by Republican president George W. Bush as Director of the FBI in 2001. Mueller served the full ten-year term and stayed on for two additional years at the request of President Obama. Not only is Mueller universally admired by both Republicans and Democrats, but he is more trusted by the American public than is the president. 64 percent of Americans said, “Donald Trump is more concerned about protecting his administration from being investigated,” than “protecting the United States from Russian interference.” When asked if President Trump should stop the investigation by the Special Counsel, 81 percent said no. The attacks on Mueller are two-pronged. First, Trump has attacked the scope of the investigation. Trump told The New York Times that if Mueller looks at anything involving his business dealings, “that’s a violation.” Trump Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the media that “the investigation should stay within the confines of Russian meddling in the election. Nothing beyond that.” Both Trump and Sanders fail to recognize that Mueller’s mandate was given to him by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who appointed Mueller to his position. Rosenstein stated that Mueller had the authority to look into “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign.” The second attack on Mueller relates to potential “conflicts of interest.” Trump argues that the day before Mueller was appointed Special Counsel he was being interviewed to head the FBI. “He wanted the job,” said Trump. Even if he did, I am not sure how this constitutes a conflict of interest. The Justice Department regulations do allow the Special Counsel to be fired for “conflict of interest,” as well as “misconduct, dereliction of duty and incapacity.” Rosenstein has stated he sees no grounds for removing Mueller. During the debate at the Constitutional Convention on impeachment, George Mason of Virginia asked whether “any man be above the law.” Future president James Madison included some of the grounds for impeachment, including that the president “might betray his trust to a foreign power.” (Now known as the Trump Provision.) If Trump is wise, he will let the Mueller investigation run its course. Wisdom has not been one of Trump’s strengths during his first six months in office. Trump could fire Mueller, and that would lead to a constitutional crisis. Perhaps nothing could be done to unify the nation or the political parties more than Trump acting like Caesar. Trump and his advisors are looking at whether he can pardon himself and family members. Although there is no precedent for this, Trump is not likely to find this a successful path. If, as Trump has repeatedly stated, there is no substance to the allegation of collusion with the Russians, then let Mueller complete his investigation and issue his findings. If there is something that would indicate collusion between Trump and the Russians, then Trump would be best advised to step aside and let Vice President Mike Pence assume office. To a great extent, Trump may have one last chance to “make America great again.” ••• Darryl Paulson is Emeritus Professor of Government at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg specializing in Florida Politics and Elections.
After delay, RNC finally gives OK to funding for Alabama special election
The Republican National Committee has approved funding for the Alabama special election, likely to support incumbent U.S. Sen. Luther Strange. As reported by POLITICO’s Alex Isenstadt, the long-delayed has recently become “a point of contention between Senate Republicans and the White House,” over Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ old seat. Much of the problem seems to rest with the convoluted campaign finance rules which Isenstadt describes as “weeks of closed-door talks, inflamed tensions between Senate GOP leaders and the administration and touched on a central issue: how the insurgent-minded Trump White House will approach party primaries.” The approval allows the National Republican Senatorial Committee to spend more than $350,000 on the race to benefit Strange, facing a crowded 10-person field for the Aug. 15 Republican primary, which includes U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore. A primary runoff, if necessary, will be Sept. 26; the general election is Dec. 12. Among those backing Strange are Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, through two McConnell-aligned groups — the NRSC and Senate Leadership Fund. For the past few weeks, McConnell has lobbied to get RNC to approve the cash infusion, but foot dragging so frustrated the majority leader that he appealed directly to former RNC chair and current White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. Strange also talked personally with President Donald Trump. Isenstadt writes that some close to McConnell thought the holdup could be due to bureaucratic disorganization — or the administration was intentionally staying out of the primary, giving a glimpse into how the White House might handle future political battles.
Darryl Paulson: Will Donald Trump be dumped? – The 25th Amendment
Each day seems to bring more trouble for President Donald Trump. He fired his National Security Adviser Michael Flynn after just three weeks in his position. Then came the firing of FBI Director James Comey. Numerous other individuals in his administration are supposedly on the chopping block, ranging from Press Secretary Sean Spicer to Chief-of-Staff Reince Priebus to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The FBI investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 election discovered that at least five members of the Trump administration or campaign team had met with Russian officials. Many had failed to disclose these meetings as was required. Before firing Comey, Trump asked the FBI Director on several occasions to pledge his loyalty to the president. Comey promised his “honesty,” but failed to pledge his loyalty. Trump also asked Comey to drop his investigation of Flynn because he is a “good guy.” When Trump fired Comey, he called him a “nut job,” and threatened Comey that he better “hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversation.” Trump also stated that Comey was a bad administrator of the FBI and had lost the support of his colleagues. Finally, Trump said the firing of Comey was done to relieve pressure on the Russian investigation which Trump called “a made-up story.” There is a growing national discussion of removing Trump as president either through the provisions of the 25th Amendment or through impeachment. Neither approach would be easy. Both the 25th Amendment and impeachment raise the specter of a “constitutional coup.” After only six months in office, how will the American public react to what looks like an attempt to nullify the results of the recent presidential election? The 25th Amendment was added to the Constitution in February 1967 and was the result of the assassination of President Kennedy. The Constitution did not provide a means to replace the vice president when he assumed office on the death of the president. There was also no mechanism to remove the president due to disability temporarily or permanently. The vice president and a majority of the cabinet could remove the president if they found him “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It could also occur if a congressionally appointed body of experts concluded the president was no longer capable of performing his duties. If the president opposes his removal, Congress has three weeks to debate and decide the issue. It requires a two-thirds vote of both houses to remove the president and there is no appeal. The 25th Amendment has been invoked six times since its ratification. On Oct. 12, 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned and was replaced by Gerald Ford. Ford was confirmed 92-3 by the Senate and 387-35 by the House. The following year, President Richard Nixon resigned the office of president due to Watergate. Ford assumed the presidency on the same day that Nixon resigned, Aug. 9, 1974. Ford became the only person to be both vice president and president without being elected to the positions. On Sept. 20, 1974, President Ford selected Nelson Rockefeller as his vice president. Rockefeller was confirmed 90-7 by the Senate and 287-128 by the House. Three incidents involve the 25th Amendment and presidential disability. On July 12, 1985, President Reagan underwent a colonoscopy and transferred power to Vice President George H.W. Bush for several hours. In 2002 and 2007, President George W. Bush transferred power to Vice President Dick Cheney during two colonoscopies. The presidential disability provisions were considered twice during the Reagan administration but were rejected. On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot by a deranged assassin. Reagan was incapable of turning over powers to his vice president, and vice president Bush decided not to invoke the powers even though Reagan was not capable of governing for several days. In 1987, outgoing Chief Donald Regan warned incoming Chief-of-Staff Howard Baker to be ready to invoke the 25th Amendment. Regan and other staff members were concerned that the president was disengaged from his duties and spent much of his time watching movies. Baker summoned close aides to the president and they all agreed to carefully monitor the president at a luncheon meeting the following day. The president was alert and funny and Baker considered the debate over. “This president is fully capable of doing his job.” One of the concerns over the 25th Amendment is its potential for misuse. In 1964, three years prior to the adoption of the 25th Amendment, 1,000 psychologists said Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was not psychologically fit to be president. Goldwater sued and won. In 1973, the American Psychological Association adopted the “Goldwater Rule,” barring members from making a diagnosis without doing an in-person exam. The Goldwater Rule did not stop 50,000 mental health professionals from signing a petition stating that Trump is “too seriously mentally ill to perform the duties of president and should be removed under the 25th Amendment.” I suspect these “liberals” let their politics get in the way of science, much like Republicans do with climate change. Responding to a letter to The New York Times from a retired Duke psychology professor that Trump was a “malignant narcissist,” an Emeritus professor at Duke Medical School responded that Trump “may be a world-class narcissist, but that doesn’t make him mentally ill. … The antidote is political, not psychological.” Finally, Jeff Greenfield of CNN, commented that attempts to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment for mental health reasons are a “liberal fantasy.” Part II: Will Trump be dumped? Impeachment. ___ Darryl Paulson is Emeritus Professor of Government at USF St. Petersburg specializing in Florida politics and elections.
Jared Kushner, taking new White House role, faces rare scrutiny
Jared Kushner has been a power player able to avoid much of the harsh scrutiny that comes with working in the White House. But this week he’s found that even the president’s son-in-law takes his turn in the spotlight. In a matter of days, Kushner, a senior Trump adviser, drew headlines for leaving Washington for a ski vacation while a signature campaign promise fell apart. The White House then confirmed he had volunteered to be interviewed before the Senate intelligence committee about meetings with Russian officials. At the same time, the White House announced he’ll helm a new task force that some in the West Wing have suggested carries little real influence. Kushner became the fourth Trump associate to get entangled in the Russia probe. North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the chairman of the intelligence committee, said Tuesday that Kushner would likely be under oath and would submit to a “private interview” about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials. The news came as the White House announced Kushner would lead a new White House Office of American Innovation, a task force billed as a powerful assignment for Kushner. But the task force’s true power in the White House remained unclear, according to a half-dozen West Wing officials and Kushner associates who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official White House line is that the group would have sweeping authority to modernize government, acting as strategic consultants who can draw from experiences in the private sector — and sometimes receive input from the president himself — to fulfill campaign promises like battling opioid addiction and transforming health care for veterans. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday that it would “apply the president’s ahead-of-schedule-and-under-budget mentality” to the government. But others inside and outside the White House cast doubt on the task force’s significance and reach, suggesting it was a lower priority for the administration and pointing out that similar measures have been tried by previous presidents with middling success. The assignment revived lingering questions about whether Kushner had opted to focus his time on a project that would put him at some distance from some Trump’s more conservative and controversial policy overhauls. The announcement came just days after Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, were photographed on the ski slopes of Aspen, Colorado, as the GOP health care deal began to unravel amid protests from conservative Republicans that it did not go far enough in replacing President Barack Obama‘s Affordable Care Act. Kushner rushed back to Washington on Friday but it was too late to save the bill, which was scuttled hours later by House Speaker Paul Ryan. Two people close to Kushner vehemently denied the president was upset at his son-in-law for being absent, saying Trump had given the trip his blessing. And a senior White House official insisted the timing of the task force announcement was planned weeks in advance. Kushner, who has been at his father-in-law’s right hand since the campaign, has long been viewed as a first-among-equals among the disparate power centers competing for the president’s ear. Kushner, who routinely avoids interviews, draws power from his ability to access Trump at all hours, including the White House residence often off-limits to staffers. His portfolio is robust: He has been deeply involved with presidential staffing and has played the role of shadow diplomat, advising on relations with the Middle East, Canada and Mexico. Though Kushner and Ivanka Trump have been spotted with some frequency on the Washington social circuit, the president’s son-in-law is routinely in the office early and leaves late, other than on Fridays when he observes the Sabbath. While those close to Trump flatly state that Kushner, by virtue of marriage, is untouchable, this is a rare moment when he has been the center of the sort of political storm that has routinely swept up the likes of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, chief of staff Reince Priebus and senior counselor Kellyanne Conway. It points to a White House whose power matrix is constantly in flux. Kushner has been closely allied with senior counselor Dina Powell and National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs executive and a registered Democrat. That group has, at times, been at odds with conservatives led by Bannon, who to this point has been the driving force behind the White House’s policy shop. When Kushner officially joined the administration in January as a senior adviser, it was suggested that the real estate heir would draw upon the private sector to streamline and modernize government. His task force has been meeting since shortly after the inauguration and started talking to CEOs from various sectors about ways to make changes to entrenched federal programs. “Jared is a visionary with an endless appetite for strategic, inventive solutions that will improve quality of life for all Americans,” said Hope Hicks, Trump’s longtime spokeswoman. A list supplied by the White House of some of those who have met with Kushner reads like a who’s who of the American business world, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Tim Cook of Apple and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase. Kushner usually does more listening than talking in the meetings, largely avoiding ideological arguments while asking questions about efficiency and best practices, according to a person who has attended a gathering but is not authorized to discuss private conversations. But the Trump team is hardly the first seeking to improve how the government operates. The Reagan administration tasked the Grace Commission in 1982 with uncovering wasteful spending and practices, while the Clinton administration sought its own reinvention of government in 1993 with what was initially called the National Performance Review. Previous commissions have not produced overwhelming results in changing the stubborn bureaucracy, casting some doubt on what Kushner’s team can accomplish. Philip Joyce, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, said the domestic spending cuts in Trump’s budget blueprint suggest that this new committee would most likely focus more
James Comey in middle of political fray over Donald Trump and Russians
FBI Director James Comey is again in a familiar spot these days – the middle of political tumult. As a high-ranking Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, he clashed with the White House over a secret surveillance program. Years later as head of the FBI, he incurred the ire of Hillary Clinton supporters for public statements on an investigation into her emails. Now, Comey is facing new political pressure as White House officials are encouraging him to follow their lead by publicly recounting private FBI conversations in an attempt to dispute reports about connections between the Trump administration and Russia. It’s an unusual position for a crime-fighting organization with a vaunted reputation for independence and political neutrality. Yet Comey, the former top federal prosecutor in Manhattan who later became deputy attorney general of the United States, is known for an unshaking faith in his own moral compass. “I’m not detecting a loss of confidence in him, a loss of confidence in him by him,” said retired FBI assistant director Ron Hosko, noting the broad recognition that “these are very tumultuous, polarized, angry, angry times.” The latest flare-up occurred Friday, when White House officials told reporters that chief of staff Reince Priebus had asked top FBI officials to dispute media reports that Donald Trump‘s campaign advisers were frequently in touch with Russian intelligence agents during the election. The officials said the FBI first raised concerns about New York Times reporting but told Priebus the bureau could not weigh in publicly on the matter. The officials said Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Comey instead gave Priebus the go-ahead to discredit the story publicly, something the FBI has not confirmed. As the FBI declined to discuss the matter, pressure mounted on Comey to either counter or affirm the White House’s account. Even the Trump administration urged him to come forward, which as of Friday was not happening. “Politicized assertions by White House chief of staff Priebus about what may or may not be the findings of an FBI investigation are exactly the wrong way for the public to hear about an issue that is of grave consequence to our democracy,” Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “The American people deserve real transparency, which means Director Comey needs to come forward, in an open hearing, and answer questions.” The push on Comey to publicly discuss the bureau’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is especially acute given his statements in the run-up to Nov. 8 that many Democrats believe cost Clinton the election. He detailed the results of the FBI’s investigation at an unusual July news conference, testified on it for hours on Capitol Hill and alerted Congress less than two weeks before Election Day that the FBI would be reviewing new emails potentially connected to the case. But it’s not clear that Comey, now in the fourth year of a 10-year term, will be swayed by any public hand-wringing. People who have worked with the FBI director describe him as holding strong personal convictions. As deputy attorney general, he confronted White House officials in the hospital room of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in an effort to quash the reauthorization of a counterterrorism surveillance program. When nominating Comey for FBI director in 2013, President Barack Obama praised him for his “fierce independence and deep integrity.” Comey stood apart from the administration on a few occasions after that, including when he floated the possibility that police concerns over being recorded on video were causing officers to pull back and contributing to an uptick in homicides, a viewpoint the White House refused to endorse. His decision to announce the FBI’s recommendation against criminal charges in the Clinton email case was made without any notice to the Justice Department, and his notification to Congress about the new emails was not supported by department leaders, including Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Decisions that reach the desk of the top leadership of the FBI are generally not easy, said Robert Anderson, a retired FBI executive assistant director. “The director of the FBI is a hard job, even when it’s an easy day or nothing’s in the newspaper,” Anderson said. “By the time it makes it up to Jim, it’s all hard at that point.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Conservatives learn dealing with Donald Trump can be complicated
For the past eight years, thousands of conservative activists have descended on Washington each spring with dreams of putting a Republican in the White House. They finally have one, but they are not sure he’s really conservative. With Donald Trump‘s presidential victory, the future of the conservative movement has become entwined with an unconventional New York businessman better known for his deal-making than any ideological principles. It’s an uneasy marriage of political convenience at best. Some conservatives worry whether they can trust their new president to follow decades of orthodoxy on issues like international affairs, small government, abortion and opposition to expanded legal protections for LGBT Americans — and what it means for their movement if he doesn’t. “Donald Trump may have come to the Republican Party in an unconventional and circuitous route, but the fact is that we now need him to succeed lest the larger conservative project fails,” said evangelical leader Ralph Reed, who mobilized his organization to campaign for Trump during the campaign. “Our success is inextricably tied to his success.” Trump is to address the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday morning. Vice President Mike Pence is to speak Thursday, as are White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and senior adviser Steve Bannon. Speaking Thursday morning, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway thanked the conservatives for helping elect Trump. As conservatives met for their first big sessions Thursday at the gathering in Oxon Hill, Maryland, a Washington suburb, they heard a stream of familiar conservative rhetoric. A panel of GOP governors urged Washington Republicans, who control the levers of power for the first time in a decade, to deliver the results that Republican governors have brought to their states. “The victory is not on Nov. 8. That is an assignment for change and real reform,” said Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, urging Trump and his allies in Congress to make good on promises to repeal “Obamacare,” enact tax reform, and cut the federal budget. “As governors, as activists, engaged citizens, we need to hold all elected leaders accountable for results in this cycle right now. We may not get this same opportunity again. We can’t squander it.” Social conservatives were thrilled by a Wednesday night decision to reverse an Obama-era directive that said transgender students should be allowed to use public school bathrooms and locker rooms matching their chosen gender identity. Trump has a somewhat tortured history with CPAC, an annual convention that’s part ideological pep talk, part political boot camp for activists. Over the past six years, he’s been both booed and cheered. He’s rejected speaking slots and galvanized attendees with big promises of economic growth and electoral victory. At times, he has seemed to delight in taunting them. “I’m a conservative, but don’t forget: This is called the Republican Party, not the Conservative Party,” he said in a May interview on ABC’s “This Week.” The tensions between Trump’s brand of populist politics and conservative ideology will be on full display at the three-day conference, which features panels like “Conservatives: Where we come from, where we are and where we are going” and “The Alt-Right Ain’t Right At All.” Along with Trump come his supporters, including the populists, party newcomers and nationalists that have long existed on the fringes of conservativism and have gotten new voice during the early days of his administration. Pro-Brexit British politician Nigel Farage will speak a few hours after Trump. Organizers invited provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos after protesters at the University of California at Berkeley succeeded in stopping his appearance on campus. But the former editor at Breitbart News, the website previously run by Bannon, was disinvited this week after video clips surfaced in which he appeared to defend sexual relationships between men and boys as young as 13. Trump “is giving rise to a conservative voice that for the first time in a long time unabashedly, unapologetically puts America first,” said Republican strategist Hogan Gidley. “That ‘America First’ moniker can very well shape this country, but also the electorate and the Republican Party and conservative movement for decades.” Trump’s early moves — including a flurry of executive orders and his nomination of federal Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court — have cheered conservatives. They’ve also applauded his Cabinet picks, which include some of the most conservative members of Congress. The ACU awarded his team a 91.52 percent conservative rating — 28 points higher than Ronald Reagan and well above George H.W. Bush who received a 78.15 rating. But key items on the conservative wish list remain shrouded in uncertainty. The effort to repeal President Barack Obama‘s health care law is not moving as quickly as many hoped, and Republicans also have yet to coalesce around revamping the nation’s tax code. No proposals have surfaced to pursue Trump’s campaign promises to build a border wall with Mexico that could cost $15 billion or more or to buttress the nation’s infrastructure with a $1 trillion plan. Conservatives fear that those plans could result in massive amounts of new spending and that Trump’s penchant for deal-making could leave them on the wrong side of the transaction. “There is wariness,” said Tim Phillips, president of Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity. But with a Republican-controlled Congress, others believe there’s no way to lose. “He sits in a room with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. Is there a bad a deal to be made with those three in the room?” asked veteran anti-tax activist Grover Norquist. “A deal between those three will, I think, always make me happy.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
