I've now read Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury twice, and have seen nothing in the news since the book went to bed (last November) that has me doubting what's in it. Even if not a single thing in it is factually accurate, all of it rings true. See, what Michael wrote is a portrait, not a photograph. And it's an artful one, since Michael is a helluva good writer. He's also the best media critic we've got. And Trump is, above all, a media character. So are, or were, all the many characters who surrounded Trump in the book's story of the administration's first eleven months. Now only three of those characters are left: Kellyanne Conway, John Kelly and the dual entity Steve Bannon calls Jarvanka.
Tag: Trump administration
🎧 Trump’s Tariffs | The Daily – New York Times
President Trump said that protections on steel and aluminum imports were in the interest of national security. But could the threat be the tariffs themselves?
A nice breakdown of the history of trade in the 20th century.
👓 Trump’s Abrupt ‘Yes’ to North Korea: The 45 Minutes That Could Alter History | The New York Times
How President Trump threw aside caution and agreed to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in a daring and risky diplomatic gambit to end a nuclear standoff.
It kills me that a year and change in, they still can’t get their act together to coordinate major moves like this. Our country is not a race car that stops on a dime or turns very quickly. Trump may want it to, but it’s not going to do it easily. He’s also likely to destroy a lot of value in our economies by playing bull in the china shop.
I’m still astounded that he’s managed to keep any businesses afloat when making snap decisions like this. It’s really his family’s incredible wealth that in large part has prevented him from reverting to the mean over his lifetime. I can only imagine what additional damage he might do if he actually had any executive capabilities.
If I were his Secretary of State, I’d be resigning and then doing some additional speaking out of school.
🎧 North Korea Reaches Out | The Daily – New York Times
South Korea says that the North is willing to talk about dismantling its atomic arsenal. What happened to the threat of nuclear war?
A nice breakdown on recent history of North Korea and nuclear weapons.
👓 IMF warns Trump tariff would hurt US | BBC
Others could follow Washington's example to justify tough trade restrictions, it says.
👓 Hope Hicks to Leave Post as White House Communications Director | New York Times
Ms. Hicks, who had been considering a departure for several months, did not indicate what her next job would be, but she said that she plans to leave the White House in the next few weeks.
Clickbait headline: No more Hope in the White House
Great article here with some reasonable background and history.
👓 Hope Hicks to resign as White House communications director | Axios
"I will miss having her by my side," said Trump
🎧 Mollie Hemingway | The Atlantic Interview
Mollie Hemingway, a senior editor for the Federalist and Fox News contributor, finds most of the media's histrionics over President Donald Trump to be overblown. While she won't let her kids listen to the president's most vulgar remarks, she's willing to defend his policies and his record, a fact which has cost her some friends. She talks to Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic's editor in chief, about where she finds Trump most effective, and what his successes mean for American politics.
👓 Analysis | Polls show ‘no one’ cares about the Russia investigation, White House press secretary said. That’s not true. | Washington Post
Eugene Scott (Washington Post)White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Trump will not address the ongoing investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia because no Americans care about the issue.
👓 whitehouse.gov Redesign | inkdroid
TLDR; By “redesign” I actually mean clusterfuck. As of last Thursday 47% of the 315 whitehouse.gov URLs I’ve collected during 2017 are now 404 Not Found
Dollars to donuts this goes down to switching CMSes from Drupal to WordPress–probably because the tech team doesn’t know Drupal, but also doesn’t know how to remap the URLs or to port over any of the data. I’ll bet it’s down more to incompetence than it is being evil, though being evil may be part of it too.
👓 Republican-led Congress passes sweeping tax bill | NBC
Congress approved a sweeping $1.5 trillion tax bill on Wednesday that slashes rates for corporations, provides new breaks for private businesses and reorganizes the individual tax code.
🎧 Pull Up A Chair #1 – Jay Rosen & David Fahrenthold | The Correspondent
David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post won a Pulitzer for his Trump coverage, but he couldn’t have done it without help from his readers. In the first episode of our new podcast, Pull up a Chair, David talks with NYU’s Jay Rosen about the power of putting readers at the heart of journalism.
An awesome little start of a podcast. I’d definitely come back to this.
Trump ignored transition planners during the campaign, then did things his way after he won. The administration is still playing catch up.
Chief digital officer steps down from White House job over background check | Politico
The background check must be completed by White House staffers for positions that cover national security.
Chief digital officer steps down from White House job over background check | POLITICO
The background check must be completed by White House staffers for positions that cover national security.
