Since the beginning of this nightmare administration, we’ve been assured — via well-placed anonymous sources — that a few sober, trustworthy people in the White House were checking Donald Trump’s worst instincts and most erratic whims. A collection of generals, New York finance types and institution-minded Republicans were said to be nobly sacrificing their reputations and serving a disgraceful president for the good of the country. Through strategic leaks they presented themselves as guardians of American democracy rather than collaborators in its undoing.
.. Last August, after the president said there were “very fine people” among the white supremacist marchers in Charlottesville, Va., senior officials rationalized their continued role in the administration to Mike Allen of Axios. “If they weren’t there, they say, we would have a trade war with China, massive deportations, and a government shutdown to force construction of a Southern wall,”
.. Since then, we’ve had a government shutdown over immigration, albeit a brief one. A trade war appears imminent. Arrests of undocumented immigrants — particularly those without criminal records — have continued to surge.
.. Over the past 14 months we’ve also seen monstrous levels of corruption and chaos, a plummeting of America’s standing in the world and the obliteration of a host of democratic norms. Yet things could always be worse; the economy is doing well and Trump has not yet started any real wars.
The former Deputy National Security Adviser
- Dina Powell left in January.
- Gary Cohn, head of the National Economic Council, announced his resignation on March 6. Secretary of State
- Rex Tillerson was terminated by tweet on Tuesday. National Security Adviser
- H. R. McMaster will reportedly be among the next to go, and Trump may soon fire Attorney General
- Jeff Sessions, possibly as a prelude to shutting down the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Adding to the tumult, a parade of lesser officials have either quit or been fired, including the White House communications director
- Hope Hicks, staff secretary
- Rob Porter and Trump’s personal aide
- John McEntee.
The self-styled grown-ups are, for the most part, being replaced by lackeys and ideologues. Larry Kudlow, the CNBC pundit Trump has appointed to succeed Cohn, is known for the consistent wrongness of his predictions.
.. John Roberts of Fox News reported that McMaster could be replaced by uberhawk John Bolton, who last month wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “The Legal Case for Striking North Korea First.” (Bolton has described proposed talks between Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea as an opportunity to deliver a harsh ultimatum.)
.. This new stage of unbound Trumpism might make the administration’s first year look stable in comparison. That would partly vindicate the adults’ claims that things would be even messier without them. But it would also mean that by protecting the country from the consequences of an unhinged president, they helped Trump consolidate his power while he learned how to transcend restraints.
Whatever their accomplishments, if from their privileged perches these people saw the president as a dangerous fool in need of babysitting, it’s now time for some of them to say so publicly.
.. That logic, however, only holds for those who remain on decent terms with Trump. Which means that if there’s one person who has no excuse for not speaking out, it’s Tillerson, once one of the most powerful private citizens in America, now humbled and defiled by his time in Trump’s orbit... “Rex is never going to be back in a position where he can have any degree of influence or respect from this president,” my Republican source said. Because of that, the source continued, “Rex is under a moral mandate to do his best to burn it down.” That would mean telling the truth “about how concerned he is about the leadership in the Oval Office, and what underpins those concerns and what he’s seen.”.. patriotism and self-interest point in the same direction... If Tillerson came out and said that the president is unfit, and perhaps even that venal concerns for private gain have influenced his foreign policy, impeachment wouldn’t begin tomorrow, but Trump’s already narrow public support would shrink further... Republican members of Congress like Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, might be induced to rediscover their spines and perform proper oversight.
Mexico, U.S. Cancel Meeting After Trump Refuses to Avoid Border-Wall Talk
Messrs. Trump and Peña Nieto had a “tense” phone call lasting nearly an hour last Tuesday that culminated in what U.S. officials described as a mutual decision to put off a meeting at the White House.
Things got difficult as Mr. Trump was “exasperated” at Mr. Peña Nieto’s insistence that the U.S. president steer clear of talking about his campaign pledge that Mexico would pay for construction of the border wall, senior U.S. and Mexican officials said.
.. After the call, Mr. Trump directed his senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to call Mr. Peña Nieto back to “discuss ways to keep moving forward on other issues,”
.. The decision to cancel the visit was understandable, said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank.
“It would be completely humiliating for Mr. Peña Nieto to show and agree that Mexico will pay for the wall,” Mr. Shifter said. “No self-respecting Mexican president would do it.”
.. With Mexican presidential elections less than five months away, the canceled trip could boost leftist nationalist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is leading in polls.
.. The canceled trip will also complicate negotiations among the U.S., Mexico and Canada to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“It complicates Nafta negotiations and a host of other issues the U.S. has with Mexico,” Mr. Shifter added.
.. There is broad consensus in Mexico against Mr. Trump’s proposed border wall, and that goes beyond ideology, income levels or party lines
.. “There can’t be a dialogue between presidents if there is no common understanding on fundamental issues,” said Ms. Rojas, who belongs to the Senate’s foreign relations committee. “If Mr. Trump refuses to accept the reality that Mexico will not pay a cent for the construction of the wall, a meeting isn’t possible.”
Kelly calls some of Trump’s campaign pledges on immigration and wall ‘uninformed,’ meeting attendees say
White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly told Democratic lawmakers Wednesday that some of the hard-line immigration policies President Trump advocated during the campaign were “uninformed,” that the United States will never construct a wall along its entire southern border and that Mexico will never pay for it, according to people familiar with the meeting.
The comments were out of sync with remarks by Trump, who in recent days has reiterated his desire to build a border wall that would be funded by Mexico “indirectly through NAFTA.”
.. “Certain things are said during the campaign that are uninformed,” Kelly said.
“One thing is to campaign, another thing is to govern. It’s really hard,” he added later, according to attendees.
“A concrete wall from sea to shining sea” is not going to happen, Kelly said. Instead, “a physical barrier in many places” is what the administration is requesting. Kelly used the term “physical barrier” several times during the meeting, attendees said.
.. Instead, “we need 700 more miles of barrier,” Kelly said — a concession that a physical barrier does not need to stretch the entire length of the border.
.. “Concrete wall would be good in only certain places,” he added, saying that manpower and drone technology should suffice in some parts.
.. Kelly also said that there will be no wall “that Mexico will pay for.”
.. “In one way or another, it’s possible that we could get the revenue from Mexico, but not directly from their government,” he said.
.. “Drug cartels will always find a way to get their drugs in so long as there’s demand in the U.S.,” Kelly said.
.. Kelly seemed unimpressed by the deal, attendees said, telling the group that Graham and Durbin have always agreed on immigration matters. What would be more impressive, Kelly suggested, is if Hispanic Caucus members worked with conservatives like Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who introduced a conservative-backed proposal on immigration reform last week.
Trump’s accidental moment of truth
Progress in many areas where the parties could work together is being blocked because of the need for Trump and the Republican Party to kowtow to conservative ultras.
.. It was ironic that hours after Trump’s triple axel on the question, Judge William Alsup halted the president’s original effort to end DACA by citing Trump’s own words to make the case against him.
“Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military?” Trump had said in September. Well, the other Trump seemed to want to do just that.
.. Trump is also stuck with his promise to build the border wall despite the fact that a USA Today survey of Congress last fallfound that fewer than 25 percent of Republicans were willing to endorse the plan. But the wall is all about his brand.
.. The cost of extremism is obvious on other matters as well. The Children’s Health Insurance Program is a genuinely bipartisan achievement that, at low cost, gets health care to 9 million young Americans. But the renewal is hung up because House Republicans are demanding that it be paid for by cutting Obamacare spending on various preventive-care measures. Really? Since when is prevention a partisan issue?