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Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
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This is the second part of an editorial series on nepotism in the White House. Read more on the history of nepotism and politics here, and on Ivanka Trump’s role here.
For a Middle East negotiator, President Trump could have chosen a seasoned envoy trusted by all stakeholders and fluent in the region’s nuance. Instead, he appointed the heir to an opaque Manhattan real estate empire with deep ties to Israel who boasts that, as a businessman, “I don’t care about the past.”
To lead his initiative on government innovation, Mr. Trump could have named a dynamic authority on technology and entrepreneurship. Instead, he chose someone who failed in an expensive effort to bring a New York newspaper into the digital age.
When selecting his closest adviser, Mr. Trump could have chosen from among seasoned and wise strategists. Instead, he picked a political novice with no experience in government.
For all of these crucial roles, Mr. Trump turned to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Though Mr. Trump voices high praise for Mr. Kushner’s talent, the fact that he’s family is qualification enough for a president obsessed with close-lipped loyalty and uninterested in policy unless it benefits himself.
WASHINGTON — The chief executive sits at a long wooden table, putting his invited guests on the spot to defend their positions, occasionally needling them with biting comments, often shocking them with blunt talk — all for a rapt television audience.
The tableau was a routine occurrence on President Trump’s reality show, “The Apprentice,” punctuated each week for one unlucky contestant with his signature “You’re fired!”
Now, it has become a staple of life at the White House, where Mr. Trump is presiding over a different kind of televised ritual: the hourlong discussion session with members of Congress or ordinary citizens.
In West Wing meetings over the past several weeks, Mr. Trump has held discussions on immigration, school safety and gun control with cameras rolling and attendees speaking their minds.
The sessions are extraordinary for the rare glimpses they provide of unscripted conversations at the White House on critical issues. They have featured plot twists of their own, with the president, at least while viewers are tuned in, breaking sharply with his own party.
They are also a form of performance art for a president who has the instincts of a showman, and whose focus on building suspense and captivating an audience drives many of his decisions. Like the fiery, freewheeling rallies that powered his campaign, the presidential “listening sessions” are one way in which Mr. Trump has brought his reality show instincts to his next act as a politician.
The meetings have produced little in the way of concrete movement on major policy issues, and some Republican officials complain privately that they have only undercut the potential for such progress, because they show a president devoid of clear views. But they are nothing, lawmakers in both parties agree, if not entertaining.
“I thought it was fascinating television, and it was surreal to actually be there,” Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican, said this past week of Mr. Trump’s meeting on gun legislation. “Wild,” was the assessment from Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota.
Perhaps more important for the White House, they are, advisers note, one hour of live television when nobody is criticizing the president.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration has adopted a new strategy for how it issues tens of millions of dollars in federal family-planning grants, giving preference to groups that stress abstinence and making it harder for Planned Parenthood to do business.
Major reproductive health organizations are voicing serious concerns about changes that the president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists on Monday described as turning “back the clock on women’s health.”
Dr. Haywood Brown depicted the shift as part of the administration’s “continued move away from scientific, evidence-based policies and toward unscientific ideologies.”
The catalyst for the criticism was an announcement Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services of its guidelines and priorities for the next round of Title X grant applications, projected to total about $260 million.
The new HHS document makes repeated favorable mention of “natural family planning” — which encompasses the rhythm method and other strategies for avoiding pregnancy without using contraceptives like the birth-control pill. According to HHS, of 100 couples each year that use natural family planning methods, up to 25 women may become pregnant.
In addition to the president, the subpoena seeks documents that have anything to do with these current and former Trump associates:
- Steve Bannon, who left the White House as chief strategist in August.
- Michael Cohen, a personal lawyer for Trump who testified before congressional investigators in October.
- Rick Gates, Trump's former deputy campaign manager, who pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy and lying to the FBI.
- Hope Hicks, who resigned last week as Trump's communications director.
- Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager until June 2016.
- Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign manager and Gates' business partner, who pleaded not guilty to money laundering, conspiracy and making false statements last week.
- Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide.
- Keith Schiller, a former bodyguard for Trump who left as director of Oval Office operations in September.
- Roger Stone, a longtime Republican political operative and Trump campaign adviser who sources have told NBC News is the focus of investigators interested in his contacts with WikiLeaks during the campaign.
