If anything, Mr. Trump’s two forays overseas have shown that some leaders are bending toward his positions, not the reverse.
The statement, for example, carried language about America helping other countries use “fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently.” A European Union official conceded the reference to “these kind of energy sources is not something we like.”But the White House liked it. Trump officials cast the wording as a victory for a president who still sees a place for oil and gas drilling.
.. When the subject of trade came up a few months ago at a meeting of finance officials from the 20 leading countries, “it was kind of 19-1—me being the one,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin recalled.
.. Mr. Trump used the three-day trip to deliver the clearest vision he’s offered to date of his world view: a commitment to preserving western civilization.
.. “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,” Mr. Trump said. “Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders?”
.. “I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion…..,” Mr. Trump tweeted Sunday morning. “We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!”
Trump Pushing Big White House Changes as Russia Crisis Grows
Meetings are set for next week as the president returns from his overseas trip
the president slept only two hours in Saudi Arabia the night before his widely anticipated speech on Islam that he spent little time rehearsing.
.. One major change under consideration would see the president’s social media posts vetted by a team of lawyers, who would decide if any needed to be adjusted or curtailed. The idea, said one of Mr. Trump’s advisers, is to create a system so that tweets “don’t go from the president’s mind out to the universe.”
Some of Mr. Trump’s tweets—from hinting that he may have taped conversations with Mr. Comey to suggesting without any evidence that former President Barack Obama wire-tapped Trump Tower—have opened him to criticism and at times confounded his communications team.
Trump aides have long attempted to rein in his tweeting, and some saw any type of legal vetting as difficult to implement. “I would be shocked if he would agree to that,” said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign aide.
.. Some senior administration officials said they are considering hiring their own private attorneys... the president may also bring back a trio of former campaign officials: Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, to handle communications and political duties related to the investigation, and David Urban, for a senior White House job.
- .. Mr. Bossie, the deputy campaign manager, is a long-time political operative who worked for the House oversight committee in the 1990s.
- Mr. Urban worked as a top Republican Senate aide in the late 1990s during the Bill Clinton impeachment proceedings.
.. “The most important thing is Trump listens to them,” one senior administration official said. “And it will free up the rest of the White House to focus on health care, taxes and the things we should be worrying about.”
.. Mr. Lewandowski’s return may prove awkward internally. He was accused of assaulting a reporter at a campaign event—charges were eventually dropped—and Trump family members believed he was peddling negative stories about Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, campaign officials said at the time. He was pushed out at the behest of Mr. Trump’s children.
.. One White House official said that Mr. Spicer, parodied by comedian Melissa McCarthy on “Saturday Night Live,” has taken on an unwanted celebrity status that threatens to undercut his effectiveness as a spokesman. “I wouldn’t wish being parodied on Saturday Night Live on anybody,” the official said.
.. Mr. Bannon’s critics say they suspect him of leaking to the press and regard him as too much of a firebrand to massage the president’s agenda through Washington’s traditional processes. Mr. Kushner’s detractors in the West Wing refer to him as the “young princeling.”
.. questioned the judgment of communications officials, citing as an example the rollout of a tax-plan outline in April that featured Goldman Sachs alumni Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and Gary Cohn
.. “The left is automatically going to say the tax plan is tailored to the rich and to Wall Street. And we just gave them an image of the rich and of Wall Street,” one Trump former campaign official said.
‘21st Century Glass-Steagall’ Means Whatever You Want It To, Unless You Want It To Mean Glass-Steagall
Mnuchin’s response at times approached the cosmic incomprehensibility of a Buddhist koan:
There actually wasn’t a reversal. The Republican platform did have Glass-Steagall. We, during the campaign . . . specifically came out and said we do support a 21st Century Glass-Steagall, which is – that means that there are aspects of it that we think may make sense. But we never said before that we supported a full separation of banks and investment banking, if we—
Here Warren interjected: “There are aspects of Glass-Steagall you support, but not breaking up the banks and separating commercial banking from investment banking? What do you think Glass-Steagall was if that’s not right at the heart of it?”
The exchange is worth quoting in bulk:
MNUCHIN: Again, I’m well aware of what Glass-Steagall was. As you may know the original concern about Glass-Steagall was about conflicts, not about credit risk. And if we had supported a full Glass-Steagall we would have said at the time that we believed in Glass-Steagall and not a 21st Century Glass-Steagall. We were very clear in differentiating it. I have realized and I had not realized that your bill was named the 21st century Glass-Steagall—
WARREN: And it has been for three years now.
MNUCHIN: I apologize that I was not aware of that, so—
WARREN: I still haven’t heard the answer to my question. What do you think Glass-Steagall was if it wasn’t separating commercial banking from investment banking?
MNUCHIN: Again, the fundamental part of Glass-Steagall was, as you’ve just outlined, the separation of investment banking from commercial banking because people were concerned about conflicts—Again there’s some back-and-forth as Warren takes on the look of someone watching a gory athletic injury in slo-mo. “This is like something straight out of George Orwell,” she says.
.. Yet she takes another crack at it. Again, worth quoting in full:
WARREN: I have to try this one more time. What does it mean to be in favor of 21st Century Glass-Steagall if it does not mean breaking apart these two functions in banking?
MNUCHIN: You know what, I’d be more than happy to come and see you and follow up—
WARREN: Just tell me what it means!
MNUCHIN: Had we – we never came out and said separate banks from investment—
WARREN: Just tell me what 21st Century Glass-Steagall means if it doesn’t mean breaking apart those two functions. It’s an easy question – or an impossible question.
MNUCHIN: It’s actually a complicated question because there’s many aspects of it, OK? The simple answer, which we don’t support, is breaking up banks from investment banks. We think that would be a huge mistake. But again, I’m more than happy to listen to your ideas on it. You obviously have strong views, and I’d be happy to follow up and listen to you.
WARREN: This is just bizarre, the idea that you could say we are in favor of Glass-Steagall but not breaking up the banks.
MNUCHIN: We never said we were in favor of Glass-Steagall, we said we were in favor of a 21st Century Glass-Steagall. It couldn’t be clearer!There you have it! As we have long held, the Trump administration’s “New Modern Twenty-First-Century Glass-Steagall” is just a vacuous string of mouth-sounds with no bearing on anything but the ability of Gary Cohn and Mnuchin to make it through an interview without sounding like a moron.
Steven Mnuchin Says Breaking Up Commercial Banks and Investment Banks Would Be A Huge Mistake
This was the first time that a Trump administration official has said that in its view a 21st century Glass-Steagall would not require the separation of commercial banks and investment banks.
.. The hearing quickly became heated, with Warren become increasingly annoyed with Mnuchin’s answers.
“There are aspects of Glass-Steagall that you support but not breaking up the banks and separating commercial banking from investment banking? What do you think Glass-Steagall was if that’s not right at the heart of it?” Warren asked.
“I’m well aware of what Glass-Steagall was,” Mnuchin said.
“This is like something straight out of George Orwell,” Warren said.
Mnuchin argued that the purpose of Glass-Steagall was to avoid conflicts of interests that can arise when banks act as brokers and securities dealers as well as lenders and deposit takers.
.. “This is just bizarre, the idea that you could say we are in favor of Glass-Steagall but not breaking up the banks,” a clearly frustrated Warren said.
.. Dealbreaker, widely-read by Wall Street’s younger set, described Mnuchin’s answers as having “the cosmic incomprehensibility of a Buddhist koan.”