Jason Miller says he won’t take the job in order to spend more time with family
Though Mr. Trump’s practice has been to disparage the press at rallies, in Mr. Miller he had elevated someone who largely took a less-confrontational, more traditional approach in dealings with reporters.
.. Mr. Miller said his duties as communications director will be handled by incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer. Hope Hicks, the campaign press secretary, will serve as director of strategic communications and Dan Scavino will serve as the director of social media.
Sean Spicer Says Donald Trump Is A ‘Champion’ Of First Amendment
“He’s going to be very forceful, but he understands the role of the press,” Spicer said.
Sean Spicer, Donald Trump’s pick for press secretary, rushed to his new boss’ defense on Friday, contending that the president-elect is a “champion” of First Amendment rights.
“I mean look at his use of the First Amendment, he loves the First Amendment,” Spicer said with a laugh on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Many have expressed concern that Trump is intent on weakening the First Amendment due to his assaults on the “dishonest media,” cries many of his supporters have echoed.
Trump blacklisted nearly a dozen news organizations from his rallies by the end of his campaign, and he promised to “open up our libel laws” so it would be easier to sue news outlets.
Assassination, Truck Attack Point to Unpredictability Facing Trump
President-elect’s initial responses suggest his White House will take a sharply different approach to unexpected crises
Mr. Trump’s written statements just hours after the incidents were a notable contrast from those coming out of the Obama White House.
He labeled the assassin in Ankara a “radical Islamic terrorist,” even though Turkish authorities hadn’t yet drawn conclusions about the gunmen’s possible affiliations or motivations, whereas the White House simply stressed President Barack Obama’s “determination to confront terrorism.”
.. “With Obama you get thoughtfulness, but you don’t get any decisiveness. You don’t get any anger. You don’t get any passion. And I think people need a little bit of that,” Mr. Jeffrey said.
Donald Trump and the Indiana Carrier factory, explained
A huge PR coup for the Trump Show that’s almost certainly economically irrelevant.
The plants weren’t closing because Carrier was losing money hand over fist or because the products they made were obsolete. It was simply cold-hearted medium-term economic planning — it would be cheaper to do it in Mexico.
.. And as liberal economist Dean Baker writes, it is roughly correct that facilitating the relocation of industrial activity from the US to Mexico was one of the goals of the NAFTA deal.
.. It’s true that something abstract like a 0.25 percentage point cut in the federal funds rate or a temporary partial suspension of the payroll tax would do a lot more to create jobs than jawboning a single company about a single factory. But Trump’s willingness to roll up his sleeves and get involved in the problems of one American community indicates an obsessive focus on boosting the fortunes of working-class Midwesterners — even as his administration’s big-picture policy focus remains on deregulating Wall Street, enacting an enormous tax cut for rich people, and slashing spending on assistance to the poor.
.. The free media Trump is going to garner from this deal is worth many, many millions of dollars of television ads, so letting Trump have his win could simply be a highly cost-effective way to earn some goodwill from the president-elect.
.. undertakes a major effort that’s pretty clearly aimed more at a PR win than a particular policy goal is there’s always the risk that he’ll be inclined to give away the store in his negotiation for the sake of the photo op.
.. Trump has arguably laid out a blueprint for large-scale blackmail.