dwell for a moment on the awfulness of Tillerson.
He came to office with no discernible worldview other than the jaded transactionalism he acquired as ExxonMobil’s C.E.O. He leaves office with no discernible accomplishment except a broken department and a traumatized staff.
Six of the 10 top positions at State are vacant; even now the United States does not have an ambassador to South Korea, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Africa or the European Union, among other posts.
.. he did seem to figure out that Vladimir Putin is a bad guy. But that’s progress only because he was previously the Russian despot’s premier apologist.
.. he opposed the president’s two best foreign policy decisions: moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and decertifying the Iran deal.
.. Some secretaries of state — Colin Powell, for instance — alienate their bosses by siding with the bureaucracy. Others, like Henry Kissinger, do the opposite. Tillerson is the rare bird who managed to do both.
.. unlike Tillerson, he will have credibility with foreign governments. Just as importantly, he’s been willing to contradict the president, meaning he’ll be able to act as a check on him, too.
Trump isn’t going to be disciplined by someone whose views are dovish or establishmentarian. But he might listen to, and be tempered by, a responsible hawk.
.. The notion that Kim Jong-un is going to abandon his nuclear arsenal is risible. What, other than reunification of Korea on Pyongyang’s terms, would Kim exchange his arsenal for?
Equally risible is the idea that his regime will ever abide by the terms of a deal. North Korea violates every agreement it signs.
.. might strike it at South Korea’s and perhaps Japan’s expense. This president has never been particularly fond of our two closest Asian allies, much less of the cost to the United States of aiding in their defense.
.. The promise of Pompeo is that he can provide ballast against some of Trump’s other gusts, particularly when it comes to the Kremlin.
- On Syria, he dismisses the possibility of a collaborative relationship with Russia.
- On Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he insists, “America has an obligation to push back.”
- On WikiLeaks, he calls it a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”
- On Russian interference in the U.S. election, he acknowledges it as incontrovertible fact and warns of the “Gerasimov doctrine” — the Russian conviction that it can use disinformation to win a bloodless war with the West.
.. If the thought that Putin has strings to pull with this president alarms you, Pompeo’s presence should be reassuring. However much you might otherwise disagree with him, the guy who graduated first in his class from West Point is not a Russian stooge.
.. he’d be smart to model his behavior on Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the administration’s one undisputed star, who thrives in his job because he’s plainly not afraid of losing it, much less of speaking his mind.
Kushner-led Mideast-Peace Plan Faces Growing Difficulty Even Before Arrival
Trump administration blueprint remains in its nascent stages ahead of Netanyahu’s second White House visit
.. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other officials have said the plan is almost finished and that it will be up to President Donald Trump to decide when to present it.
.. Several former officials who worked on the Middle East process said a top-secret clearance is needed for high-level meetings at the White House as well as to review intelligence related to negotiations. But Trump administration officials said Mr. Kushner still will work on the issue, and other former officials said leaders in the region value Mr. Kushner’s closeness to his father-in-law.
.. “He doesn’t need a security clearance to do what they’re going to do, which is basically identify in rather detailed form U.S. positions on all of the major issues as a possible basis for negotiations,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. negotiator on Middle East peace.
But a series of Trump recent administration moves have been seen as favoring Israel by Europeans, Palestinians and their supporters. These
- moves include a cut to funds to the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency,
- a restriction on the Palestine Liberation Organization’s activities in Washington,
- a formal recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and
- the announcement of plans to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
.. Palestinian officials have denounced the decisions and have called openly for a new approach to peace talks that is not led by the U.S.
.. Mr. Shapiro said one way to handle the peace plan would be to roll it out in tandem with the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem, as a show that the Israelis, too, will have to make concessions as part of the negotiations.
.. More than the peace plan, Mr. Netanyahu is interested in raising concerns about Iran’s behavior in Syria and the Iranian nuclear deal, American and Israeli officials said.
In Donald Trump, Evangelicals Have Found Their President
Mr. Trump took a car ride with Mike Pence along with Billy Graham’s son Franklin and Tony Perkins, a leading figure on the Christian right, during the Louisiana floods of 2016. Impressed by what Franklin Graham’s Christian ministry had done for flood victims, Mr. Trump told him that he was writing it a six-figure check, which Mr. Graham told him to send to Mr. Perkins’s church. Both men were moved by his impulsive kindness, and a bond was formed.
.. When Mr. Trump exited the car, he gave Mr. Robison a hug, pulled him up against his chest firmly and said, “Man, I sure love you.” A small gesture, perhaps, but heartfelt, real and so unlike the caricature of the president most of us see. And practically every evangelical leader I interviewed has a similar story.
.. Critics say that the Trump-evangelical relationship is transactional
.. evangelicals take the long view on Mr. Trump; they afford him grace when he doesn’t deserve it. Few dispute that Mr. Trump may need a little more grace than others. But evangelicals truly do believe that all people are flawed, and yet Christ offers them grace. Shouldn’t they do the same for the president?
.. The Bible is replete with examples of flawed individuals being used to accomplish God’s will. Evangelicals I interviewed said they believed that Mr. Trump was in the White House for a reason.
.. Bishop Wayne Jackson, who is the pastor of Great Faith Ministries International in Detroit and calls himself a lifelong Democrat, remembers Mr. Trump’s campaign visit to his church. He told me that the moment Mr. Trump got out of the car, “the spirit of the Lord told me that that’s the next president of the United States.”
.. I’ve watched Mr. Trump through the lens of the faith community for years, and he has delivered the policy goods and is progressing on the spiritual ones.
.. Donald Trump is on a spiritual voyage that has accelerated in recent years, thanks to evangelicals who have employed the biblical mandate of sharing and showing God’s love to him rather than shunning him.
.. This president’s effect on our cultural norms has been shocking. His critics would call it appalling; evangelicals say it’s immensely satisfying: They’ve seen a culture deteriorate quickly in the past decade, and they’re looking for a bold culture warrior to fight for them.
Showing that God does indeed have a sense of humor, He gave them Mr. Trump. Yet in God’s perfection, it’s a match made in heaven.
Mr. Trump and evangelicals share a disdain for political correctness, a world seen through absolutes and a desire to see an America that embraces Judeo-Christian values again rather than rejecting them.
.. Finally, why in the world wouldn’t evangelicals get behind and support a man who not only is in line with most of their agenda but also has delivered time and time again? The victories are numerous:
- the courts,
- pro-life policies,
- the coming Embassy in Jerusalem and
- religious liberty issues
, just to name a few. He easily wins the unofficial label of “most evangelical-friendly United States president ever.”
.. But the goal of evangelicals has always been winning the larger battle over control of the culture, not to get mired in the moral failings of each and every candidate.
.. For evangelicals, voting in the macro is the moral thing to do, even if the candidate is morally flawed. Evangelicals have tried the “moral” candidate before.
- .. Jimmy Carter was once the evangelical candidate. How did that work out in the macro?
- George W. Bush was the evangelical candidate in 2000: He pushed traditional conservative policies, but he doesn’t come close to Mr. Trump’s courageous blunt strokes in defense of evangelicals.
Evangelicals, Having Backed Trump, Find White House ‘Front Door Is Open’
When the White House wants to gather evangelicals for one of its many issue-specific “listening sessions,” the Rev. Johnnie Moore is often one of the first to hear.
It wasn’t always clear that Mr. Moore, a 34-year-old Southern Baptist minister who was a co-chairman of the Trump campaign’s evangelical advisory board, would be a frequent White House guest.
.. Not a day goes by when there aren’t a dozen evangelical leaders in the White House for something.”
.. On Thursday, Mr. Moore will join what he calls the “Super Bowl for peacemakers” here: the annual National Prayer Breakfast, where around 3,000 clergy members, politicians and business leaders will eat, network and listen to speeches, including one from President Trump.
.. Mr. Trump will stand before an audience that has cheered the president’s first-year agenda as its own:
- announcing that the American Embassy in Israel would move to Jerusalem,
- anointing a national “prayer Sunday,”
- appointing Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court,
- signing anti-abortion legislation,
- opening a “conscience and religious freedom division” at the Department of Health and Human Services and
- fighting to end the Johnson Amendment, which threatens religious organizations with the loss of their tax-exempt status if they endorse political candidates.
.. Mr. Moore, a former Liberty University vice president
..
The group, which also includes
- Tim Clinton,
- Robert Jeffress,
- Darrell Scott,
- Samuel Rodriguez and
- Paula White, who has been called Mr. Trump’s personal “spiritual adviser,”
is a frequent and influential voice in the ears of senior administration officials.
.. Jennifer Korn, who as a deputy director of the public liaison office manages contact between the White House and faith groups, sends out invitations to policy briefings and the “listening sessions.”
.. Ms. Korn invites senior West Wing advisers such as Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Kellyanne Conway to visit the groups, which range from 20 to 100 guests and are often tied to specific faith-related legislation, executive orders and court appointments.
.. Mr. Jeffress, another core member from the campaign board, has been one of Mr. Trump’s most reliable evangelical advocates
.. “I can’t look into the president’s heart to know if he really personally believes these positions he’s advocating, or whether he thinks it’s smart politics to embrace them because of the strong evangelical influence in the country,” Mr. Jeffress said in an interview. “But frankly, I don’t care. As a Christian, I’m seeing these policies embraced and enacted, and he’s doing that.”
.. He and Mr. Moore are sympathetic to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, that shields young undocumented immigrants, which is often viewed as a progressive cause.
.. When he is in the Oval Office with faith leaders, Mr. Moore said, they try to “personalize” issues for Mr. Trump, including in a recent discussion on DACA, when the group told the president that he should view the issue as a father and grandfather.
.. evangelical advocacy in the White House also helped expedite the confirmation of former Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas as ambassador for international religious freedom, a post for which he and the core group of evangelical voices in the White House had long pushed.
.. The Rev. A. R. Bernard, the pastor of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn and a member of the campaign board, announced that he was no longer associating with the White House evangelical group after Mr. Trump’s failure to condemn white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Va., in August.
.. saw Mr. Trump as largely indifferent to faith leaders’ to-do list.
“There was nothing hidden. He wanted that voting bloc. He wanted their votes,” Mr. Bernard said
.. “It was transactional. He wanted to do whatever he thought would get those votes.”
.. When reports emerged last month that a pornographic-film actress was paid $130,000 to keep quiet
.. “He’s not the pastor of our country,” Franklin Graham
.. Tony Perkins, the president of the evangelical Family Research Council, said that evangelicals would give Mr. Trump a “mulligan.”
Mr. Jeffress agreed.
.. “Evangelical support for President Trump has always been based on his policies, not on his personal piety,” he said.
.. Mr. Scott, a pastor at the New Spirit Revival Center in the Cleveland .. aid Mr. Trump’s interest in evangelicalism stemmed not from opportunism but from wanting to atone for a life largely devoid of conventional religiosity.
.. Mr. Trump would often apologize if he cursed in front of them.
.. “I find his reverence for clergy very old-school,” Mr. Scott said. “When he’s in the room with clergy, he adopts the position of the lesser. He seems to regard the clergy as the greater.”
.. Mr. Trump has the view of “while you guys were off pursuing a higher calling, I was off building buildings,” Mr. Scott said. “Now it’s time for me to catch up.”
.. “People sort of think of evangelicals as these bumpkins. That always drives me crazy,” Mr. Moore said before he dashed out of a downtown Washington cafe. “I think we are far more informed than people give us credit for.”