President Trump instigated an extraordinary feud Sunday with Sen. Bob Corker, a senior Republican who holds sway over the administration’s foreign and domestic policy agenda, prompting the Tennessean to charge that the White House had devolved into “an adult day care center.”
.. The trash talk not only breaches what had been one of Trump’s few personal relationships on Capitol Hill, but also jeopardizes the president’s legislative priorities. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Corker will help determine the future of the Iran nuclear deal, and his support will be critical in passing sweeping tax cuts.
.. Corker tweeted a biting retort: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”
.. Corker told reporters that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly “are those people that help separate our country from chaos.”
.. Trump, who has little tolerance for public criticism and prides himself on counterpunching those who cross him, took to Twitter on Sunday to attack Corker.
.. Womack said Trump has repeatedly offered to support Corker, and as recently as last week asked the senator to change his mind and run for reelection.
“The president called Senator Corker on Monday afternoon and asked him to reconsider his decision not to seek reelection and reaffirmed that he would have endorsed him, as he has said many times,” Womack said in a statement.
.. Corker has been one of Tillerson’s few allies and staunch defenders in Washington, working closely on such issues as toughening sanctions on Russia and engaging North Korea diplomatically — two issues on which Trump has disagreed with Corker.
.. Corker also looks to play a key role in the upcoming debate over taxes. One of the Senate’s most committed deficit hawks and outspoken members on budgetary issues, Corker already has expressed concerns with the Trump administration’s proposal on tax cuts, and his vote will be key to any deal getting done.
.. In recent months, Trump has also gone after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), John McCain (Ariz.) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.) with cutting and sometimes personal insults.
.. Republican lawmakers and operatives have voiced exasperation that Trump is spending his time attacking senators he will need as allies if he hopes to sign any signature legislation.
.. Corker was a prominent supporter of Trump’s 2016 campaign and one of the few Republicans with gravitas willing to embrace the reality television star’s candidacy before he won the GOP nomination.
.. Corker also helped tutor Trump on foreign affairs, and he in turn considered the senator as a possible running mate and secretary of state.
.. In August, Corker criticized Trump’s handling of the deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, saying, “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.”
.. Corker urged Trump to visit Alabama and campaign alongside Strange in the closing days of the runoff campaign, and the president now partly blames Corker for encouraging him to get involved in a contest that has hurt his political standing
.. thinks Corker feels free to speak his mind now that he is not seeking reelection.
Tillerson Should Go
If Secretary of State Rex Tillerson resigned, how would anyone know? He has become the nation’s least influential top diplomat in recent memory. His relationship with the president of the United States is strained at best, he has no philosophy or signature initiative, he has barely staffed his own department, and he’s alienated the foreign service. The former CEO of ExxonMobil has taken one of the power positions in the U.S. government and made it an afterthought.
.. Usually establishmentarians have the advantage, if nothing else, of a great store of government experience. Brent Scowcroft devoted most of his adult life to public service; Tillerson devoted most of his adult life to ExxonMobil.
.. Unlike, say, James Mattis advising Trump on defense matters, this is not a professional guiding an amateur; it’s another amateur trying to school an amateur. Is it any wonder that it hasn’t gone well?
.. Recent Republican secretaries of state provide two models.
- There’s the Colin Powell approach of attending to the needs of “the building,” i.e., the civil service, and neglecting your relationship with the president.
- Then there’s the Condi Rice approach of tending to your relationship with the president and ignoring the building. Tillerson has done neither.
.. Neither of the opposing dispensations in American foreign policy should feel vested in Tillerson. If you’re a liberal internationalist who wants Trump checked, you’d prefer someone better suited to the task. If you’re a Trumpist who wants Trump empowered to transform American foreign policy, you want someone who is in sympathy with that goal.
.. he probably fails a threshold test: Can he reliably be thought to speak for the United States government?
Loyalty to Trump isn’t enough
Trump demands not just loyalty but flattery, too. He insists that his courtiers treat his pronouncements, however absurd or offensive, as infallible holy writ. Members of his Cabinet have made a humiliating bargain: humor him, suck up to him, and maybe — just maybe — he will leave you alone and let you make policy.
.. Trump demands not just loyalty but flattery, too. He insists that his courtiers treat his pronouncements, however absurd or offensive, as infallible holy writ. Members of his Cabinet have made a humiliating bargain: humor him, suck up to him, and maybe — just maybe — he will leave you alone and let you make policy.
.. Retiring Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, encouraged Tillerson to stay on because he, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly “are those people that help separate our country from chaos.”
.. other Cabinet members have made their peace with the Sun King’s demand for unctuous deference. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin looked as if he were in physical pain as he went on the Sunday shows and defended Trump’s demand for NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to be fired.
Chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, who almost quit after Charlottesville, told reporters he stayed on for the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to enact sweeping tax reform.
.. What these officials don’t seem to fully grasp is that their policy initiatives can be undercut by the president at any time, and probably will. Look at budget director Mick Mulvaney, who has big ideas about shrinking government and the deficit. He didn’t anticipate having to wipe away Puerto Rico’s debt, which Trump offhandedly promised to do.
Trump’s Insubordination Problem
The new measure of power in Washington is how far you can go criticizing the president at whose pleasure you serve. The hangers-on and junior players must do it furtively and anonymously. Only a principal like Gary Cohn, Rex Tillerson, or James Mattis can do it out in the open and get away with it.
.. First, it was chief economic adviser Cohn saying in an interview that the administration — i.e., Donald J. Trump — must do a better job denouncing hate groups. Then it was Secretary of State Tillerson suggesting in a stunning interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News that the rest of the government speaks for American values, but not necessarily the president. Finally, Secretary of Defense Mattis contradicted without a moment’s hesitation a Trump tweet saying we are done talking with North Korea. Trump teases tax reform plan for the first time 00:08 00:44
.. The fact that this hasn’t happened is an advertisement of Trump’s precarious standing, broadcast by officials he himself selected for positions of significant power and prestige. This isn’t the work of the deep state, career bureaucrats maneuvering or leaking from somewhere deep within the agencies. This is the shallow state, the very top layer of the government, operating in broad daylight.
.. Trump, of course, largely brought this on himself. He is reaping the rewards of his foolish public spat with Jeff Sessions and of his woeful Charlottesville remarks.
.. By publicly humiliating his own attorney general, Trump seemed to want to make him quit. When Sessions stayed put, Trump didn’t fire him because he didn’t want to deal with the fallout. In the implicit showdown, Sessions had won. Not only had Trump shown that he was all bark and no bite, he had demonstrated his lack of loyalty to those working for him. So why should those working for him fear him or be loyal to him? With his loss of moral legitimacy post-Charlottesville, the president is more dependent on the people around him than they are on him.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451006/donald-trumps-administration-has-insubordination-problem?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Week%20in%20Review%202017-09-03&utm_term=VDHM