American Politics Thread: Orange is the new POTUS

[FlameOn]

Priebus and Bannon are reportedly about to be fired by Trump. He is just considering when to "pull the trigger"

President Trump is considering ousting both White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon, Axios reported on Friday.

Aides and advisers to the president told Axios that, while Trump is considering a major shake up in the West Wing, it's not clear when it would happen or if Trump will "pull that trigger."

"Things are happening, but it's very unclear the president's willing to pull that trigger," one top aide said.

Bannon emerged as one of Trump's closest — and most controversial — aides before the president took office. In the early days of his presidency, Trump elevated Bannon onto the National Security Council's principals committee, and the former Breitbart executive chair was said to hold considerable influence with the president.

But Bannon was removed from the NSC earlier this week, seen by many White House staffers as a sign of the aide's fall from grace inside the Trump administration. The reshuffling of the NSC came as Bannon, a self-described "economic nationalist," finds himself locked in a battle with Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner over influence.

Bannon and Priebus represent divergent "wings" in the Trump administration, with the latter, a former Republican National Committee chairman, serving as the voice of the political establishment in a White House full of political neophytes.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...priebus-bannon

[Senator Clay Davis]

Bombing Syria isn't the only possible war Trump has to deal with: The Neocons versus the White Nationalists is coming to a head.

Stephen K. Bannon — the combative architect of the nationalistic strategy that delivered President Trump to the White House — now finds himself losing ground in an internecine battle within the West Wing that pits the “Bannonites” against a growing and powerful faction of centrist financiers led by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Less than 100 days into Trump’s chaotic presidency, the White House is splintering over policy issues ranging from taxes to trade. The daily tumult has created an atmosphere of tension and panic around the president, leaving aides fearing for their jobs and cleaving former allies into rivals sniping at one another in the media.

The infighting spilled into full view this week after Trump removed Bannon from the National Security Council’s “principals committee,” a reshuffling that left the president’s chief strategist less fully involved in the administration’s daily national security policy while further empowering Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s new national security adviser.

Bannon, an unkempt iconoclast, has generally chafed at the transition from firebomb campaigning to more modulated governing and for weeks has vented about the possibility of quitting, one person close to him said.

This account of the latest West Wing turmoil comes from interviews with more than 20 White House officials and people close to those in the administration, many of whom requested anonymity to offer candid assessments.

As Kushner has expanded his portfolio and consolidated his already vast power — the 36-year-old adviser has been called “the Trump whisperer,” with a direct line to the president — he has surrounded himself with a small group of outsiders who largely hail from the ranks of business and Wall Street. The group includes Dina Powell, an Egyptian-born former Goldman Sachs official who served in George W. Bush’s administration. Both she and Cohn are part of Kushner’s newly announced Office of American Innovation, an internal team devoted to streamlining government.

Bannon and his populist allies view Kushner’s circle with growing suspicion, worrying aloud that the group — whom they dismiss as “the Democrats,” “the New Yorkers” or, simply, “Goldman” — are pushing Trump in a “Democrat Lite” direction. Kushner’s allies, meanwhile, label Bannon’s crowd as “the Bannonites,” “the Nationalists” or “Breitbart,” the name of the incendiary conservative website he previously ran.

Bannon, grousing to friends, has cast the tensions as a confrontation between the nationalists and the liberal Democrats, whom he worries are eager to undercut the populist movement that helped lift Trump to victory. Looming over him daily on his office walls are the promises that Trump made during the campaign, which he methodically checks off.

Cohn has met with Democrats on several occasions and appears much more comfortable offering lawmakers olive branches than does Bannon, who during the health- care fight argued in favor of forcing a vote on the doomed bill to establish a public list of Republican traitors.

Bannon, allies said, still has the president’s ear, especially on key issues such as immigration, where he and Trump are in a complete “mind meld.” But the chief strategist has struggled to adjust to the more regimented mores of the White House. One friend said he hates attending meetings, bemoans the need to frequently wear suits, and finds the government bureaucracy stifling. While living in Los Angeles, Bannon would sometimes participate in Breitbart conference calls before showering and in a T-shirt or bathrobe; his D.C. staff would joke about the last time he got a haircut.

Some of those who resent Kushner’s rising power have compared him to Icarus, the youth in Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun and melted his wings. But because Kushner holds so much clout, many of his rivals fear bad-mouthing him and train their ire on his deputies instead. “When you complain about Gary or Dina, you’re really complaining about Jared and what he’s doing, because you’re not able to complain about Jared around here,” said one senior White House official.

But one administration official warned that Bannon was playing “a dangerous game” because it is “not a smart strategy to go up against the president and his family. That’s a game Steve will never win.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.2e51af826a83

[REDVAN]

For all those who've been against Trump so far, so you not think removing Bannon and Priebus would be a positive?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

For all those who've been against Trump so far, so you not think removing Bannon and Priebus would be a positive?

I get confused when a question begins with a negative.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

For all those who've been against Trump so far, so you not think removing Bannon and Priebus would be a positive?

Yes, but he also gave them their jobs. For a guy who "only hires the best people" he sure doesn't seem very good at it.

[saillias]

I'll believe it when it happens. Trump loves spreading this kind of misinformation. Remember the Romney for Sec State rumor? Trump dangles these "choices" out to toy with people.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

For all those who've been against Trump so far, so you not think removing Bannon and Priebus would be a positive?

No difference.

[socalwingfan]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

Yeah, they're looking for work that would pay them the way their fathers were paid in the coal mines--comfortable for raising a family on a single income, with pensions and health coverage because they were union jobs. They're not looking for jobs making 7.25/hr. Those jobs exist. Those jobs are the ones often held by undocumented immigrants. Undocumented immigrants aren't taking 50k/year jobs, they're taking 15-18k/year jobs. You can't raise a family on 18k/year, and you sure as hell can't retire on it. Getting rid of undocumented immigrants isn't helping dying coal towns.

If you want to panic about immigrants, worry about the legal immigrants who get their affordable medical schooling in other countries and then are highly in demand in the US, willing to work in smaller communities because they don't have $250k in student loan debt like American students accrue. And then while you're thinking about, think of the fact that American students cannot afford to work in those small dying coal towns because they won't make enough money to pay their student loan payments every month, and wonder why it is that we as a country apparently don't care enough about those people in those small towns to simply ensure that they have access to a damn doctor.




When undocumented immigrants live here, they often obtain social security numbers illegally in order to be employed. They're then taxed the same as citizens are, federal, state, local taxes taken from their paychecks. Those undocumented immigrants however cannot obtain any of the perks of citizenship, despite paying taxes into the system.

Immigration needs a massive overhaul, absolutely, but immigrants aren't the cause of the lion's share of problems in this country. Our excessive need to police the entire planet is most of the issue, and politicians' desire to cozy up to corporate interests is another huge part. In the grand scheme of things, undocumented immigration is a miniscule problem in this country, it's just a really easy bogeyman for guys like Trump to point at while he's stealing from blue collar workers to build his casinos and hotels that he then staffs with immigrant workers on temporary visas rather than hiring actual citizens because he'd have to pay them more and provide healthcare.

I'm out of thanks - but have to thank you for this extremely well thought out post!

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by saillias

I'll believe it when it happens. Trump loves spreading this kind of misinformation. Remember the Romney for Sec State rumor? Trump dangles these "choices" out to toy with people.

This is a bit of a different scenario though, it's essentially who has the most power and influence in the White House. Since Trump has longstanding mob ties, Kushner is essentially both the consigliere and the underboss to Trump. That makes him remarkably powerful and allows him to undercut the influence of others, like Bannon for instance. And lest we forget the only people on earth Bannon hates more than Jews are Muslims. He hates Kushner, whom he believes is just another globalist Jew, but the problem for Bannon is Ivanka. He cannot get rid of her, nor can he ever go against her too much or Donnie is giving him the boot. It's an almost impossible spot for Bannon, so much so that he's apparently formed an alliance with Reince even though they are not even close to allies, because they are both getting squeezed out by Kushner.

[REDVAN]

Originally Posted by New Era

No difference.

I think it'll make a big difference.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

For all those who've been against Trump so far, so you not think removing Bannon and Priebus would be a positive?

Not really, because it depends on who replaces that influence. Kushner and Ivanka? Maybe, just maybe a little better-intentioned (in that their brand of corrupt self-enrichment is based on a more positive image), but spectacularly unqualified.
The neo-con establishment? Potentially disastrous internationally if it leads to another interventionist conflict.
Pence? Probably one of the more stable options, but terrible for certain minority groups.
Trump trusting his own judgement? That's maybe the scariest thought of all.

Preibus is slimy, but he's also primarily interested in Republican power (more than agenda), which involves hitting certain key alarmist notes but not actually doing much to rock the boat. I think he might be a stabilizing force within the whitehouse, and if he's gone that's one less moderating voice.

Bannon, on the other hand, good riddance.


It wouldn't surprise me if Bannon and Preibus were the two guys most outspokenly against the Syria missile strikes; Bannon because he's a firm believer in an isolationist, nationalist foreign policy, and Preibus because he knows that little political good can come from the way that this was done (without congressional or public appeal first). I can't help imagining that the security council met to discuss this, and shortly after Russia contacted Trump through back-channels expressing their displeasure, and Trump immediately knew that Bannon had leaked this back to Russia and so dumped him from the security council.

For what it's worth I don't have a major problem with Trump launching this air-strike as retaliation, but such actions need to be accompanied by a deft handling of diplomatic actions; and I have no confidence in the ability of this administration (especially with their gutted state department) to do this. Maybe if Bannon is ousted, the state department would start to get rebuilt, because that seems to have been his crusade more than anyone else's.

[REDVAN]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Yes, but he also gave them their jobs. For a guy who "only hires the best people" he sure doesn't seem very good at it.

Fair enough, I am against Bannon so I think this is good, but now Trump has gone from one unqualified "anti-swamp" person, to another unqualified young-but-in-the-swamp person who is only there because of who he married.

I mean, I'm sure they guy is smart and all, and he's definitely an improvement over Bannon (who appears to butt heads with everyone, just for fun), but he's still young and unqualified. Will it be an improvement? Maybe not, but I suspect you'll hear about a LOT less in-fighting.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

For all those who've been against Trump so far, so you not think removing Bannon and Priebus would be a positive?

One description I've read, on how Trump runs things, is exactly how he ran the apprentice. He thrives on sitting there flanked by 2 yes men, and watching people attack others to stay on the team.
He'll just replace them with 2 other personalities that will continue the chaos.

Ill try to find the article Im referring to.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

For all those who've been against Trump so far, so you not think removing Bannon and Priebus would be a positive?

It's a big deal and an improvement as Bannon is the driving force behind the healthcare and immigration legislation. That being said, it is an improvement in the same way that taking the anchovies out of a sh*t sandwich is an improvement...but it is still a sh*t sandwich.

[photon]

I lean towards the change not meaning a whole bunch, chaos and incompetency are still the administration's core values. Bannon or similar will be back when it comes time for re-election.

I'm more concerned about the sudden influx of praise and validation by the media.

[Drak]

Originally Posted by photon

I lean towards the change not meaning a whole bunch, chaos and incompetency are still the administration's core values. Bannon or similar will be back when it comes time for re-election.

I'm more concerned about the sudden influx of praise and validation by the media.

The praise was part of the strategy. The distraction is working, at least for now, with a media that seems to thrive on this stuff. This was coming, everyone was warned there would be a distraction.

[Leeman4Gilmour]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Bombing Syria isn't the only possible war Trump has to deal with: The Neocons versus the White Nationalists is coming to a head.







https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.2e51af826a83

Trump should hire Jeff Probst as a special adviser. At this point, he's the best qualified to manage what's happening in the White House.

[Hemi-Cuda]

So a president that's currently under an FBI investigation just had his supreme court pick confirmed after his party had to change the rules to make it happen. Republicans really are a disgusting breed

[photon]

The rule change does have a pretty long history on both sides, Dems did it "first" (though I would argue it was in response to a long period of obstruction).

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

So a president that's currently under an FBI investigation just had his supreme court pick confirmed after his party had to change the rules to make it happen. Republicans really are a disgusting breed

And after they bent the rules to ensure that Obama's pick didn't fill the position...

Disgusting...but you have to admit they are effective.