Category Archives: Donald Trump

The 43-year-old Ryan, who failed to unseat Pelosi as House minority leader last year, says that the Democrats brand is toxic, and in some places worse than Trumps. Which is beyond pathetic.

The Republicans have a wildly unpopular, unstable and untruthful president, and a Congress that veers between doing nothing and spitting out vicious bills, while the Democratic base is on fire and appalled millennials are racing away from Trump. Yet Democrats are stuck in loser gear.

Trumps fatal flaw is that he cannot drag himself away from the mirror. But Democrats cannot bear to look in the mirror and admit what is wrong.

We congenitally believe that our motives are pure and our goals are right, Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, told me. Therefore, we should win by default. But, he added dryly: Youve got to run a good campaign. In elections, politics matter. Oooh, what a surprise.

As Ryan sighs: If you dont win, you dont have power, and you cant help on any of these issues we care about.

Democrats cling to an idyllic version of a new progressive America where everyone tools around in electric cars, serenely uses gender-neutral bathrooms and happily searches the web for the best Obamacare options. In the Democrats vision, people are doing great and getting along. It is the opposite of Trumps dark diorama of carnage and dystopia but just as false a picture of America.

With Jon Ossoff, as with Hillary Clinton, the game plan was surfing contempt for Trump and counting on the elusive Obama coalition. Heavy Hollywood involvement is not necessarily a positive in Georgia, though. Alyssa Milano drove voters to the polls but couldnt bewitch the Republicans. And not living in the district is bad anywhere.

Democrats are going to have to come up with something for people to be for, rather than just counting on Trump to implode. (Which he will.) The party still seems flummoxed that there are big swaths of the country where Democrats once roamed that now regard the Democratic brand as garbage and its long-in-the-tooth leadership as overstaying its welcome. The vibe is suffocating. Wheres the fresh talent?

In a new piece in The Atlantic, Emanuel and Bruce Reed who engineered their partys last takeover of Congress in 2006, the first since 1994 argue that Democrats need to channel their anger and make 2018 a referendum on Trumps record, not his impeachment.

In dwindling swing districts, Emanuel told me, Democrats need to choose candidates who are pro-middle class, not merely pro-poor.

They cant just waltz in and win seats held by Republicans. And they cant go full Bernie. They have to drum up suburban candidates who reflect their districts, Emanuel says, noting that they wrenched back control of Congress by recruiting a football player in North Carolina, an Iraq veteran in Pennsylvania and a sheriff in Indiana.

Its shocking that Hillary couldnt be bothered to come up with an economic message or any rationale other than Its My Turn. Hillary never got a real message out, Michael Bloomberg, who eviscerated Trump at Hillarys convention, told Anderson Cooper. It was Dont vote for that guy and the gender issue. Whereas Donald had us saying Make America Great Again.

Ryan says Democrats need to stop microtargeting. They talked to a black person about voting rights, a brown person about immigration, a gay about gay rights, a woman about choice and on and on, slicing up the electorate, he said. But they forgot that first and foremost, people have to pay their mortgages and get affordable health care.

He also urged his fellow Democrats to stop obsessing about Trump and Russia and start obsessing on globalization, automation and wage stagnation.

The crazy thing is that theres a great opportunity here, because neither party has figured out how to thrive in the new economy, he said.

Carrier and Boeing, where Trump visited to boast about saving jobs, announced layoffs last week, and Ford is shifting some production to China. And news flash for Donald: King Coal has been dethroned.

Trump leveraged his wealth to convince working-class people that he could deal with these changes, Ryan said. But just saying, The Chinese rent from me, doesnt mean hes figured this stuff out.

Trump may be nuts enough to blow up the world. But the Democrats are nuts if they think his crazy is enough to save them.

Visit link:

Donald Skunks the Democrats - New York Times

Theyre at it again.

In response to Sen. Elizabeth Warrens strongly worded criticism of the Senate Republican health care bill, President Donald Trump shot back at the Massachusetts senatorin a Fox News interview Sunday.

Trump was asked about Warrens claim that people will die due to the recently unveiled bill. He responded with some familiar ad hominem attacks.

Well, I actually think shes a hopeless case. I call her Pocahontas, and thats an insult to Pocahontas. I actually think that she is just somebody who has got a lot of hatred, a lot anger.

I dont think she has the kind of support that some people do. I think she hurt Hillary [Clinton]. I watched her campaigning for Hillary, and she was so angry. Hillary would be sitting back, listening to her, trying to smile, but there were a lot of people in that audience that were going Wow, is this what we want? Theres a lot of anger there and hostility.

Trump did not address or dispute Warrens criticism of the legislation, which would significantly cut Medicaid and roll back many aspects of the Affordable Care Act.

I think shes a highly overrated voice, he added, including Warren (not for the first time) on the long list of other people and things he thinks are overrated.

Earlier in the interview, Trump said he wished Congress could produce a bipartisan health care bill and criticized Democrats for not supporting the bill (even though Senate Republican likely do not need bipartisan support, given the procedural rules they hope to use to pass the bill).

We wont get one Democrat vote not one, Trump said. And if it were the greatest bill proposed in mankind, we wouldnt get a vote.

A study released Thursday by Harvard researcher and the center-left policy think tank Center for American Progress estimated that the subsequent health care coverage losses from the Senate bill could result in 18,100 to 27,700 additional deaths in 2026.

In a speech Thursday, Warren characterized the bills cuts to Medicaid as blood money.

People will die, she said. Lets be very clear: Senate Republicans are paying for tax cuts for the wealthy with American lives.

Academic studies haverepeatedlylinkedlack of health care coverage to increased mortality rates. A number of health care and hospital groups have come out against the current legislation in the Senate.

Boston.com Download our app

Go here to read the rest:

Donald Trump responds to Elizabeth Warren's claim that 'people will die' due to Republican health care bill - Boston.com

ALL THAT GLITTERS President Trump is briefed on a military strike on Syria, at Mar-a-Lago, April 6. Among his advisers present, nearly one-third are Goldman Sachs alums (circled).

Photograph from the White House/CNP/SIPA USA.

One photograph makes it abundantly clear just how present a small group of Goldman Sachs alumni has become in Donald Trumps White House. From April 6, it shows a stone-faced Trump and his advisers in a sensitive, compartmented information facility at Mar-a-Lago, just after the president had given the order to launch cruise missiles at a Syrian-government airbase. In the closely cropped picture, released by Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Twitter, 14 men and one woman are crowded tightly around a small table, their eyes glued to a closed-circuit-television screen. Three of the people in the pictureGary Cohn, the head of the National Economic Council and Trumps chief economic adviser; Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary; and Dina Powell, a deputy national-security adviserare former Goldman Sachs partners, one of the most coveted perches on Wall Street. A fourth, Steve Bannon, Trumps chief strategist, was a Goldman Sachs vice president in the late 1980s, before he left the firm to start his own investment-banking business.

I find it validating, says Lloyd Blankfein, Goldmans chairman and C.E.O., from his Battery Park City, Manhattan, office, 41 floors above the Hudson River, that as he was looking for good people it happens that a lot of them had Goldman Sachs affiliations. It makes me feel good that he sees in those people the same thing I see in those people.

That Trump would turn to Goldman Sachs to fill some of the most important positions in his fledgling administration is rich with irony. For years, Trump and Goldman practiced mutual disdain. Trump was the poster child of the kind of client that Goldman, which has always prided itself on superb risk management, warned its bankers to avoid. At least four of Trumps hotel and casino businesses have ended up in bankruptcy court, costing creditors and shareholders billions of dollars in losses. For this reason and others, Goldman determined never to do business with Trump and conveyed that message to its new recruits. Sources at Goldman now deny he was unwelcome at the firm, but more than one former Goldman banker has told me that its true, and Goldman has never underwritten a single stock or bond offering for a Trump majority-owned business or real-estate project or lent him any money.

Goldman also avoided Trump politically. It is no secret that Cohn, when he was Goldmans president and C.O.O., and Blankfein were Democratsalthough neither man was particularly enamored of President Obama and his antiWall Street rhetoric. Famously, Goldman paid Hillary Clinton $675,000 to appear at three non-taxing question-and-answer sessions during 2013, less than two years before she declared her candidacy for president. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Goldman employees and affiliated pacs donated less than $5,000 to Trump during the 2016 election cycle. By contrast, Clinton received more than $340,000 from them.

During the campaign, Trump was not shy about returning the love. He criticized his political opponents mercilessly for their ties to Goldman Sachs. During a rally in February 2016, when he was still trying to fend off Senator Ted Cruz, whose wife, Heidi, is a managing director at the bank, Trump said, I know the guys at Goldman Sachs. They have total, total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton. As the presidential campaign was coming to a close, Trump ran a television ad featuring Blankfein (along with billionaire businessman George Soros) as one of Wall Streets arch-villains, responsible for sending U.S. jobs overseas and closing U.S. factories.

Yet, after his surprise victory, last November, Trump did a 180-degree turn on Goldman Sachs. Perhaps he decided that, after a long and divisive campaign, he had to show the capital markets that he wasnt a total lunatic, especially when in the early-morning hours of November 9 the futures market plunged some 1,000 points. What better way to reassure Wall Street that he wasnt completely bonkers than to hire Goldman Sachss best and brightest? And, even better, he could make them kiss his ring and show them whos boss. At the infamous June 12 Cabinet meeting Mnuchin fell right in line with the other sycophants in the room praising Trump. There was nothing rehearsed about that, Mnuchin says. I mean, it was, basically: the vice president started it, and I think it was how everybody felt in the room. He dismisses the widespread charges of fawning at that Cabinet meeting: What criticism? I mostly list that in the fake news.

Whatever Trumps convoluted logic for going Goldman, it confounded Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, an outspoken critic of Wall Streets bad behavior leading up to the financial crisis and since. Donald Trump promised to drain the swamp, she says. Then he put enough Goldman bankers on his team to open a branch office of Goldman in the White House. The more Warren thinks about it, the more exasperated she gets. Donald Trump ran on not Goldman Sachs running this economy. If there was a single economic idea that was consistent in his campaign, it was that Goldman Sachs should not run Americas economy. Then he got elected, put in a Goldman team, and handed them the keys.

If Trumps about-face was surprising, you also have to wonder why Gary Cohn, a lifelong Democrat, left Goldman to accept Trumps offer. The conventional wisdom is that Cohn, 56, grew tired of waiting for Blankfein to retire from the C.E.O. post at Goldman and leapt at the chance to serve his country in such a crucial role. Becoming the director of the National Economic Council gave Cohn a graceful exit from Goldman and allowed him to follow in the footsteps of two illustrious Goldman senior partners: Robert Rubin and Stephen Friedman. (Leaving also allowed Cohn the not insignificant economic benefit of being able to convert his roughly $250 million of Goldman Sachs stock into Treasury securities on a tax-deferred basis. In 2016, Goldman paid Cohn $20 million and then vested his restricted stock after he left for Washington.)

There is another version of Cohns decision to leave Goldman that is slightly more complicated. In September 2015, Blankfein announced the shocking news that he had lymphoma. He had been C.E.O. for nearly a decade and had successfully steered Goldman through both the 2008 financial crisis and the reputational abyss that followed, when the firm became the symbol of Wall Street greed and arrogance.

While Blankfein was recuperating, Cohn seemed to delight in the attention and adulation he received when he filled in for his boss on earnings calls, industry presentations, and media events, such as The New York Timess DealBook Conference. Thats when, some say, he became overconfident and decided to inquire of several of his fellow board members about becoming C.E.O., even as Blankfein was responding well to his chemotherapy treatments. Gary made a play to replace Lloyd, according to a former Goldman partner. It didnt work. The board was noncommittal to Cohn, he continues. Theres a lot of loyalty to Lloyd on the board.

I think Gary had been getting frustrated in the sense of Will I ever be in a position to lead? says a longtime Goldman partner. And I think the conclusion was Well, not now, buddy. He then started looking at Wait a minutetheres other opportunities here to do things.

The board consensus was that Cohn wasnt well rounded enough to lead the firm. Wed talk about how wed crossed the Rubicon and he wouldnt know what we were talking about, says a former Goldman board member. But he was unusually bright, knew markets, had huge character, and was straightforward. If you think Im blunt, hes right from the brain to the mouth.

But the man who had made any number of successful bets as a Goldman trader had miscalculated. That quickly proved to be an untenable situation for both Cohn and Blankfein.

A source close to the situation describes what happened at Goldman differently. The honest-to-goodness story is: did Gary have lunch with Bayo [Adebayo Ogunlesi], Goldmans lead director, once or twice? Absolutely. Did he ever make a power play to become C.E.O.? He absolutely did not. He met with Bayo and said, Look, is the board comfortable with Lloyd staying on? Bayo said, Yeah. Gary said, Well, look, thats great. I know where I am. Im not in any hurry and Im not threatening, but we should all be on the same page that Ive been president and chief operating officer for 10 years. Gary gets a lot of phone calls for opportunities. He told Bayo he was going to start listening when his phone rang.

The timing was perfect for Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law, to pounce. He approached Cohn, supposedly at the suggestion of mutual friends. Jared Kushner has always been a little starstruck with Goldman Sachs people, says a former Goldman partner who knows him well. Hes always liked that sort of promotional edginess that Goldman Sachs has had, and hes always liked the reputation that Goldman Sachs has the best people, quote unquote, the smartest, savviest people. The idea, by the way, that Jared was suddenly in a position where he actually had the power to call on and hire and lure a number of people like that to the bench side, if you will, was a very, very intoxicating, enticing, and really kind of exciting thing to him, the former partner continues. This was an incredibly sort of convenient and opportune kind of thing that came along for Gary becausewhether he was going to Washington or notGary was out.

Cohn was the quintessential Goldman executive, with a well-known backstory: a middle-class striver from the heartland who came to the firm and succeeded wildly. From a suburb of Cleveland, the dyslexic grandson of Jewish immigrants, he was pressured by his father to get a job he didnt want, in the home-products division of U.S. Steel.

On a business trip to New York he visited the comexthe Commodity Exchange Inc., as it used to be knownin Lower Manhattan and eventually talked his way into a job trading options. In 1990 he joined the J. Aron division of Goldman, rising through the ranks, along with his mentor, Blankfein. When C.E.O. Hank Paulson became Treasury secretary, in 2006, Blankfein succeeded him, choosing Cohn to be his deputy.

I think people respected Gary completely, says Robert Steel, a former Goldman partner, Treasury official, and New York City deputy mayor who is now the C.E.O. of Perella Weinberg, the boutique investment bank. I dont think theres any issue of him being a jerk or a bad guy or anything like that. Hes very generous. Hes raised a lot of money for N.Y.U. hospital. He has nice kids, one wife. Hes not obnoxious. He looks you in the eye. Ive never heard him say a single thing derogatory about anybody . . . . Hes never read a five-page memo in his life, but when he asks you to describe something to him he pays incredible attention and remembers every word.

I think Mnuchins homework is being checked by Gary Cohn, says a former Goldman partner.

Adds John F. W. Rogers, Goldmans longtime consigliere, If you went and talked to most of the bankers at the firm, they would say Gary was a guy whod go anywhere, anytime, if we asked him to. He was always engaging, and he always brought an interesting market perspective to the dialogue of the problem of the client. He also was an exceptional listener and would look for those common points of moving the conversation forward.

A former Goldman partner, who still speaks occasionally to Cohn, thinks hes already made a huge difference in the White House. Trump likes alpha males that either have been in the military and have been in battle or alpha males that have made a lot of money, he says. Trump likes to say, Thats my Goldman Sachs president over there, Thats my Exxon C.E.O. over there, you know, Thats my general over there. The partner says that, by working closely with Ivanka Trump, Kushner, and Dina Powell, Cohn has tempered the reactionary influence of people around the president (such as Peter Navarro, head of the National Trade Council, and Steve Bannon, the chief strategist with white-nationalist leanings), and he is dedicated to making sure the U.S. doesnt start any ridiculous trade wars or do something crazy on health care. Im not going to let it happen, the former partner says Cohn told him.

But he also may be starting to hedge his bets. Trump has asked Cohn to head up the search for a replacement for Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen, when her term expires early next year. She may yet get reappointed, but there has also been speculation that Cohn himself wants the job, which would insulate him, and his reputation, from the ongoing Trump scandals. Crazier things have happened: Once upon a time Dick Cheney led the search for George W. Bushs vice president and then took the job himself.

Like Cohn, Steve Mnuchin became a Goldman partner in 1994 and made his first fortune, said to be around $100 million, when Goldman went public, five years later. (Fortune puts Mnuchins current net worth at close to $500 million, based on his disclosure forms.) But thats pretty much where the similarities between Mnuchin and Cohn end. Mnuchin is Goldman royalty, which is far from the norm at a firm that takes pride in hiring the ambitious sons and daughters of the middle class and molding them in the Goldman Way. Steves father, Robert Mnuchin, was a Yale graduate and a longtime Goldman partner, a member of the management committee, and the head of institutional equity trading. In his 17 years at Goldman Sachs, his son had a variety of jobs. At his peak he ran Goldmans mortgage-backed securities division, as a protg of Mike Mortara, an exSalomon Brothers trader who became a Goldman legend. Mortara co-headed the fixed-income division with Blankfein. They hated one another, the former partner says. In 1999, at the height of the dot-com bubble, Paulson decided he needed to separate them. He moved Mortara out of fixed-income to run something called GS Ventures, a short-lived venture-capital fund. Mnuchin followed his rabbi there, but in November 2000, Mortara died suddenly of a brain aneurysm, at the age of 51.

Mnuchin left Goldman two years later, in 2002, convinced that, with the ascension of Blankfein, his days at the firm were numbered. He went to work briefly with his former Yale roommate Eddie Lampert, the billionaire hedge-fund manager, who invited him onto the board of directors of Sears Holdings, the parent company of both Sears and Kmart, Lamperts ill-fatedand ongoingretail venture. (Mnuchin resigned his board seat before he was confirmed as Treasury secretary.) In 2004, he started Dune Capital Management with financial backing from George Soros.

At Dune Capital, Mnuchin wasnt afraid of taking big risks. He formed RatPac-Dune Entertainment, a film-financing company, with Hollywood producer Brett Ratner and investor James Packer. They have had some successes, including The Lego Movie, American Sniper, and, most recently, Wonder Woman, and their share of bombs, including Pan and In the Heart of the Sea. Now hes making movies, says a former Goldman partner, who knew him when. [Now] hes going around with . . . Trump-like guys, which is really different than [who he was], which was a bit socially awkward, very smart, really into teamwork. I would have sworn he was a Democrata liberal Democrat.

In 2014, Mnuchins fund invested a reported $80 million in a small Hollywood studio, Relativity Media. For a time, he was co-chairman of Relativitys board, having been personally recruited to it by the studios founder, Ryan Kavanaugh. Mnuchin and other Wall Street investors were assuming Relativity would eventually go public, and theyd all cash in. Instead, in 2015, it filed for bankruptcy, and Mnuchin lost his $80 million investment. But he enjoyed the Hollywood social scene; he recently married the Scottish actress Louise Linton, 18 years his junior. It is Mnuchins third marriage; he has three children from his second marriage.

Mnuchin also built a real-estate business at Dune, which invested in two Trump projects: the Trump International Hotel Waikiki and the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago. In November 2008, a day before a $330 million payment was due on the $640 million Chicago-tower construction loan, Trump sued his lenders, including Dune Capital. Incredibly, Trump claimed that his lenders had precipitated the 2008 financial crisis and therefore he shouldnt have to repay the loan, which had been provided by a syndicate led by Deutsche Bank. The lawsuit between Trump and his Chicago creditors was later settled, and the building was completed. But Trump ended up losing his $40 million of equity in the building. I like to think of Chicago as something that I got built, that is a great monument, he once told me. I always say it was better for the people of Chicago than it was for Donald Trump.

Mnuchins biggest score by far came when he led a group of investors, including Soros, billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson, and computer billionaire Michael Dell, in the 2009 acquisition of IndyMac, a failed California-based bank that had made too many risky mortgages in the years leading up to the financial crisis. With the help of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which agreed to cover a portion of any future loan losses, Mnuchin and his partners bought IndyMac for $1.55 billion and renamed it OneWest.

In 2014, CIT Group, a large financial institution then run by former Goldman partner John Thain, bought OneWest for $3.4 billion in cash and CIT stock. While its not known publicly exactly how much Mnuchin made from the deal, his 1.2 percent stake in CIT was at one time worth around $100 million.

OneWest generated plenty of controversy when Mnuchin owned it, including claims that the bank ruthlessly foreclosed on individual homeowners for tiny infractions. In 2011 the Office of Thrift Supervision issued a consent order after its review of OneWest uncovered unsafe and unsound practices. California housing advocacy groups have also filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, alleging that OneWest discriminated in its lending practices against African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians.

Mnuchin says he has known Trump for about 15 years and met with him several times during the primaries, when he was funding the entire primary himself, and then, when it got to the point that it was clear that he was going to win the nomination, he reached out to me and asked me to work for him being the finance chairman. I was also a senior economic adviser on the campaign.

In May, Mnuchin went toe-to-toe with Senator Warren during a public hearing over the topic of whether the Trump administration would make good on backing a return to a form of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall law, which separated commercial banking from investment banking to prevent risky bets being made with depositors money. Cohn had led her and other senators to believe during an early-April closed-door meeting of the Senate Banking Committee that the Trump administration would support a reinstatement of the law. Now Mnuchin was hedging. It was quite the show, which ended with Warren concluding, So, let me get this straight. Youre saying youre in favor of Glass-Steagall, which breaks apart the two arms of banking . . . except you dont want to break apart the two parts of banking. This is like something straight out of George Orwell.

A former Goldman colleague says of Mnuchin, If you look at him and you study him, hes not a charismatic guy that will inspire you, [but] he is a very confident person. . . . If the shit were hitting the fan or something like that, Id rather have Hank [Paulson] there, but . . . I will not be surprised if Mnuchin does a very good job with all the limits that surround somebody in a role like that.

Others disagree. Hes in way over his head, says one Washington insider. Another former Goldman partner adds, I think his homework is being checked by Gary.

Theres clearly friction between Cohn and Mnuchin. The Washington insider says that Mnuchin seems insecure in his role, is not a team player, and has so far not hired the best possible team at Treasury. Mnuchin dismisses such criticisms. I was at Goldman for almost 18 years, he says. I oversaw various trading desks, I oversaw the technology division, so I had both operational as well as trading and risk-management expertise. I then started my own investment business; Ive been a regional banker for the last eight years, so Ive had firsthand experience on what it is to grow a regional bank, what it is to deal with regulators and interact with lots of small and medium-sized companies. So, I really see this as: my different jobs in my career were preparing me for the different parts of the Treasury job.

As for his hires at Treasury, Id say weve probably interviewed 300 or 400 people for these jobswe have every single one of the jobs filled. So whats holding back the process is these jobs require security clearances. . . . I think these comments that we havent filled jobs is ridiculous. We can get back to you with the facts, but I think weve filled jobs faster than the previous administration.

Mnuchin and Cohn found themselves on the defensive over the bizarre rollout of Trumps much-anticipated tax-reform plan. In late April, Trump visited the Treasury. Steven didnt want anyone else over there, if you notice, the Washington insider says. He wanted the whole thing to himself because it was his moment of glory. Suddenly, and without warning, Trump announced that the tax-reform plan would be forthcoming the following week. Cohn and Mnuchin, who had been working on the assumption that any such announcement was months away, were shocked, and were left scrambling to put something together over the weekend. This resulted in an embarrassing, one-page, detail-free proposal, presented at an April 26 press conference. Steven didnt manage [Trump], the insider concludes. Mnuchin responds, That couldnt be farther from the truth, okay? The facts are: I worked on a tax plan with the president for the last year. I started coming in, in January, and meeting with the House and the Senate and speaking to the leadership on tax reform, so weve been working on this since January. We have over 100 people in the Treasury working on it. [Tax reform] hasnt been done in 30 years.

In the White House, Steve Bannon is not considered part of the Goldman team. He was at Goldman, in the mergers-and-acquisitions department, but for only four years, in the late 1980s. I dont think Bannon has jack shit of a Goldman Sachs pedigree, a former Goldman partner says. But what was unusual about him, recalls another partner who knew him at the firm, was he was a huge patriot and kept thinking the country was going to hell. . . . He was really concerned about the United States of America. But I was never quite sure what he thought was wrong with it. . . . He was never able to articulate it in a way that I understood.

Dina Habib Powells Goldman pedigree also sets some teeth on edge at the firm. But shes beloved among the occupants of the top executive suites. Blankfein says he told Trump about her: Youre going to find shes going to be a very big, positive surprise to you. Youre going to find out that you end up counting on her for much more than you could imagine.

And indeed shortly after Powell joined the administration to work with Ivanka Trump on womens economic-empowerment issues, H. R. McMaster, the national-security adviser, plucked her to work with him as one of his deputies. Vogue recently called her Trumps right-hand woman.

Its a trajectory that leaves many current and former Goldman rank-and-file bankers scratching their heads. Powell, one Goldman executive tells me, was always thought of around the firm as content lite, when it came to knowledge about finance, which is about as brutal an observation as can be made about someone at Goldman, where intellect and revenue generation are prized above all else.

The most remarkable thing about Dina Powell is that she can manage up better than anybody Ive ever seen in my entire life, says one of her former Goldman colleagues. I believe managing up is when you are able to get the people whom you work for to think you are unbelievably good and competent at what you do.

Adds another former Goldman partner, Her gift is that shes incredibly politically astute. She is an incredible worker of people and relationships, and she is that type of person where, if you come into the room and Dina wants to make you feel like youre important or whatever, you are going to feel it. She is very effective at that, and the exterior package is really well put together. So she plays the part extremely well, and she knows the game in Washington.

Like Cohns, Powells narrative is classic Goldman, only more exotic. She was born in Cairo, and her father was a captain in the Egyptian Army. In 1977 the Habibs moved to Dallas to join grandparents who had already settled there. Her parents believed that she and her sister would have a much better chance of achieving their potential in the United States (another daughter was born in the U.S.). Their message was simple: We left our homeland and all our everything behind so that you and your sisters can achieve your potentialas long as youre a lawyer, a doctor, or an engineer. Settling in was difficult. Her father drove a bus, owned a convenience store, and eventually became a small real-estate entrepreneur. Her mother was a social worker.

After she graduated from the University of Texas, in 1995, she got into law school but instead took an internship working for Kay Bailey Hutchison, the U.S. senator from Texas. Her parents were horrified. They wanted her to be a lawyer and thought she was ruining her life. She worked for Hutchison for one year and then spent the next four years working for Dick Armey, then the Republican majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives. Armey later said something about Powell that many men echo: We immediately recognized her brains and her ability, and then her charm, and finally, I think somebody noticed she was gorgeous, too.

After George W. Bush was declared the winner of the 2000 election, Powell joined the White House and eventually became an assistant to Bush for presidential personnel, with responsibility to find and hire people to fill many of the empty White House positions. She later was promoted to become a deputy undersecretary of state, working closely with Karen Hughes, then the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. She traveled around the world with Hughes and later with Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state, who has said she found Powell to be indispensable.

Powells role in Republican politics in Washington brought her to the attention of John F. W. Rogers, the longtime Goldman partner who had worked for both Ronald Reagan and James Baker. He hired her in 2007 as a managing director. Three years latermuch to the surprise of many people at GoldmanPowell was made a partner. Rogers cites her intuition and creativity as reasons she did so well at Goldman. We had this idea of what we wanted to pursuea belief that womens empowerment was going to be an emerging thematic issue, he says. We had ideas, but we didnt have the execution. And one of the things that I found with her, she grabs hold and she executes.

But there was plenty of resentment inside Goldman toward her and envy of her meteoric rise. If there was ever a character tailor-made for Dina Powells charms and abilities, it was John F. W. Rogers, says someone who knows them both well. She knows how to play that guy . . . a combination of actual smarts, charm, flirtation, compliments, loyalty, all those things.... She was the apple of his eye at Goldman.

Anne Black, now the president of Goldman Sachs Gives (a philanthropic fund for Goldmans current and former senior employees), worked nearly nine years for Powell. She was really a steadfast champion for me and others of us on the team, who were all promoted thanks to her, she says. She elevated my game, inspired me to be creative and bold, and expected us to show results.A former Goldman partner who knows Powell well insists she played a substantive role at the firm and was a champion for the women who worked for her. All six of her senior leadership team members were with her most of her 10-year tenure, this person says. She fought hard to ensure that each one was promoted several times.

Rogers understands the envy. She wasnt in the revenue-producing area of the firm, so maybe some people here were jealous of her accomplishments, he says. But Ill say I know a lot of other people apply standards to her that they never would apply to a man. Thats just a fact.

At Goldman, Powell held several jobs: president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation (Rogers is its chairman) and overseeing the firms 10,000 Women program, which provides capital and training to women entrepreneurs, and its 10,000 Small Businesses program. Powell was also head of Goldmans Impact Investing Business, which makes loans to, and equity investments in, underserved communities in the U.S. Over a 13-month period ending in January, Goldman paid her around $6 million in compensation (the figure includes annual bonuses for two years), according to her White House disclosure forms.

Her fans at Goldman say she was worth every penny. Alison Mass, a Goldman investment-banking partner, with whom she worked closely, says, She got stuff done. She was great at executing. We were at a point where the partnership really valued what she did. Shes a great networker. Shes got one of those attractive personalities.

Days after the election, Powell got a call from Ivanka, who was mapping out her agenda in Washington, focusing primarily on womens empowerment issues. She called Powell, at Goldman, to find out what had accounted for the success of the 10,000 Women and 10,000 Small Businesses programs. Powell impressed Ivanka, who offered her a job. After Trumps inauguration, Powell became a senior counselor to the president for entrepreneurship, small-business growth, and the empowerment of women. That didnt last long. In March, soon after he replaced Michael Flynn as national-security adviser, McMaster asked her to join him as one of his deputies. She leapt at the chance. (Some 20 percent of her time is still spent on her initial White House job.) Some say she did so because she feared it would become obvious that she had little understanding of finance and economics; others say her language skills (she is fluent in Arabic) and previous experience in Washington made her a natural fit for the job, because it requires bringing together a disparate group of government officials to get things done.

Powells fingerprints were all over Trumps May trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel. She spent months helping to plan it and working across various government agencies to make sure it came off without too many hitches. The consensus seems to be it was the most successful part of Trumps first overseas venture. Stuart Jones, the acting assistant secretary of state for the bureau of Near East affairs, went on the overseas trip with Powell. He says she was extremely influential and active on the trip and deserves much of the credit for making the Mideast part a historic success.

Jones says people at Goldman are mistaken if they question her qualifications for her position on the National Security Council. These are people who dont know Washington, he says. Thats the dichotomy between New York and Washington. I cant speak to her banking prowess, but in Washington its not just about deals. Its about relationships. Its about politics. Its about fostering policy. Its about bringing people along. Thats a different set of skills. Shes not only qualified, shes the most qualified person in that group of people.

The Washington insider also praises the job shes doing in the White House. Shes the best politician Ive ever met in my life, he says. She can work an organization better than anyone Ive ever seen. . . . Unlike the rest of us, she has prior White House experience, and she really knows how this place works. . . . Shes been able to use that to a huge advantage in here of working the system.

While the Washington insider says that Trump listens to Powell, it seems she has little influence over him on Middle East policy, even though she probably understands its intricacies as well as anyone in the Cabinet.

A Middle East specialist calls Trumps Middle East policy in general an unprecedented disaster. Whereas previous U.S. presidents have played a delicate game of appeasing the Saudis, while letting them know we wont support parts of their agenda not in our national interest, Trump has unbalanced the region by essentially tweeting them unconditional support for anything they want to dothe blockade of Qatar and roiling the Russians with further involvement against Assad in Syria, for instance.

Which brings us to the larger question: How successful is the Goldman troika at influencing the president? Recent signs have not been as encouraging as many people have hoped. Cohn and Powell (along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and Javanka) urged Trump to keep the nation a signatory to the Paris climate agreement. They lobbied the president, but their sound reasoning was overwhelmed by the illogical arguments made by Bannon and the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, who together persuaded him to stick with his campaign promise to abandon the accord.

The crucial question confronting Cohn, Mnuchin, and Powellwhether they choose to acknowledge it or notis if their association with Trump and his administration will forever tarnish the reputations they have worked so hard to build, mostly by affiliation with Goldman Sachs. And given how closely the three Goldman partners have come to be linked with Trump, it might not be great for Goldman eithera fact that Blankfein seems to have intuited. In his first-ever tweet, on June 1, after Trump trashed the Paris accord, Blankfein wrote, Todays decision is a setback for the environment and for the U.S.s leadership position in the world.

See the original post here:

The Untold Story of How Gary Cohn Fell for Donald Trump - Vanity Fair

President Donald Trump loves rallies, but he cant hold a rally every day. Sometimes he has to turn to Fox & Friends.

Amid a series of moves closing off access to the administration for journalists including recent major changes to the frequency and format of official press briefings the president and first lady Melania Trump are tapingan exclusive interview today with Fox News Ainsley Earhardt, his first televised, in-person interview in six weeks. (The interview is set to air Friday.) This move makes perfect sense for Trump, who is mired in countless major scandals and can expect to avoid being grilled about any of them on Fox & Friends, known more for its family-barbecue brand of casual, coded racism and xenophobia than for actual journalism.

The interview also speaks to a larger trend in the presidents approach to the press, as he increasingly elevates and prioritizes loyal conservative sycophants over actual news outlets. After tomorrows Fox & Friendsinterview, Trump will have given as many interviews to Fox & Friends (three) during his presidency as he has to ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN combined.

Since his inauguration, Trump has given 10 televised interviews in total to Fox News (and one to Fox Business), one each to CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, and the Christian Broadcasting Network, and none to CNN.

Trumps decision to grant another sit-down interview tohis friends at Fox & Friendscomes 40 days after his last one-on-one interview with Foxs Jeanine Pirro, who also asked him predictable softball questions. It is an ideal move for a president who wants to appear as if hes granting media access without being accessible to any members of the media who might actually ask him a critical question. (The last time he allowed that to happen, he stepped on a James Comey-shaped rake courtesy of NBCs Lester Holt.)

Trumps retreat to his friends at Fox is happening in the midst of his administrations unprecedented war on the press at large. On the same day the president and first lady are sitting down with Earhardt, elsewhere in the White House, deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders conducted yet another bizarre and pointlesspress briefing that barredvideo recordings. The frequency of the White House press briefings and gaggles recorded or otherwise has been sharply declining in recent months. The Washington Posts Callum Borchers calculated that the total White House press briefing time for June will shrink to about a third of what it was in March.

Trump also lags far behind his predecessors in holding solo presidential press conferences. So far, Trump has held just one press conference, in which he called CNNs Jim Acosta fake news; at this point in previous administrations, President Barack Obama had held six, President George W. Bush had held three, and President Bill Clinton had held seven solo press conferences.

Fox News (and Fox & Friends, in particular) is predictably the runaway favorite when Trump is compelled to branch out from public interaction via Twitter and rallies. As Politicos Joanna Weiss wrote last month:

Trumps cozy relationship with Fox & Friends has become one of the great curiosities of his unusual presidency. A well-known cable TV devotee, Trump has found inspiration for his Twitter timeline in various programs but none so much as Fox News Channels 6-9 a.m. talk show.

[. . .]

Its not hard to understand the shows appeal. While the rest of the media frets and wails over Trumps policies and sounds the alarm over his tweets, Fox & Friends remains unrelentingly positive. Its pitched to the frequency of the Trump base, but it also feels intentionally designed for Trump himself a three-hour, high-definition ego fix. For a president who no longer regularly receives adulation from screaming crowds at mega rallies, Fox & Friends offers daily affirmation that he is successful and adored, that his America is winning after all.

On Twitter, his preferred mode of communication with the public, the president has repeatedly lavished Fox & Friendswith praise since taking office. Trump routinely appeared on the show throughout his campaign, often calling in just to talk or complain about whatever was bothering him, including on Election Day. For years beforehand, he even had a weekly call-in segment on the show to share this thoughts about the news of the day.

The warm and familiar embrace of Fox & Friendsis where Trump turns for unconditional support in furthering an alternate reality where his presidency is historically successful and his critics are merely unfair or needlessly mean. Perhaps thats why Ivanka Trump is also now frequenting the show her own one-on-one interview with Earhardtwas pushed back to accomodate her fathers,but it will air on Monday.

Rob Savillo contributed original researchto this post.

View original post here:

Fox & Friends is Donald Trump's safe space - Salon

The New York Public Theaters presentation of William Shakespeares 400-year-old play, Julius Caesar was embroiled in controversy this month, with protests over a choice to costume the titular character as President Donald Trump. This wardrobe decision was controversial because senators plot to stab Caesar to death in the play.

Now that this run of Julius Caesar has come to an end, actor Corey Stoll has written a piece for Vulture about what it was like to star in the play. Stoll had the role of Marcus Brutus, a reluctant assassin of Caesar.

Although the play is explicitly about the pitfalls of assassination, Stoll wrote that following through with the play amid the protest eventually felt like a contribution to the resistance. These days, that term is loaded to evoke the phrase #resist which refers to a rallying cry against Trump.

The protesters never shut us down, but we had to fight each night to make sure they did not distort the story we were telling, wrote Stoll in the piece that was published Friday. At that moment, watching my castmates hold their performances together, it occurred to me that this is resistance.

Watch video of two protestors disrupting a performance:

Stoll, who memorably played an eventually murdered politician in the first season of House of Cards, said that he had no idea this production would portray Trump so explicitly before signing on to the role.

Stoll was frustrated by the choice at first, as he feared involving Trump would overshadow the rest of the performance.

A passage from Stolls piece:

When I signed on to play the reluctant assassin Marcus Brutus in this production, I didnt know Caesar would be an explicit avatar for President Trump. I suspected that an American audience in 2017 might see aspects of him in the character, a democratically elected leader with autocratic tendencies. I did not think anyone would see it as an endorsement of violence against him. The play makes it clear that Caesars murder, which occurs midway through the play, is ruinous for Brutus and his co-conspirators, and for democracy itself ...

After four weeks in the rehearsal room, we moved to the theater and I saw Caesars Trump-like costume and wig for the first time. I was disappointed by the literal design choice. I had little fear of offending people, but I worried that the nuanced character work we had done in the rehearsal room would get lost in what could seem like a Saturday Night Live skit. I was right and wrong.

chudakov2 via Getty Images

After the presidents eldest child,Donald Trump Jr., blamed this production for the actions of the gunman who fired on a baseball team made up of Republican congressmen, Stoll began to fear for his own life.

Like most Americans, I was saddened and horrified, but when the presidents son and others blamed us for the violence, I became scared, wrote Stoll.

The production was plagued with disruptions from protestors, but fortunately had none that caused physically critical harm.

Read the whole piece at Vulture.

Original post:

'Julius Caesar' Star Considered The Play To Be Donald Trump 'Resistance' - HuffPost

Comedian Stephen ColbertPhotograph by Roger L. WollenbergGetty/Pool

While in Russia, Stephen Colbert sent a tweet to President Donald Trump and announced he was considering a White House run.

"I am here to announce that I am considering a run for President in 2020, and I thought it would be better to cut out the middle man and just tell the Russians myself," Colbert said on the Russian late-night show Evening Urgant on Friday.

As the American TV host continued poking fun at allegations that President Trump's campaign may have colluded with Russia , Colbert added, "If anyone would like to work on my campaign, in an unofficial capacity, please just let me know."

Russian host Ivan Urgant joined in on the fun saying, "Its a pleasure to drink with the future U.S. President. To you, Stephen. I wish you luck. We will do everything we can so you become President."

Colbert tweeted a picture of himself in Russia to the President Thursday with the caption, "Don't worry, Mr. President. I'm in Russia. If the 'tapes' exist , I'll bring you back a copy!"

Go here to see the original:

Stephen Colbert Tweets at Donald Trump and Mulls 2020 Run - TIME

In January, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey arrived at a press conference to announce that her office was taking action challenging President Trumps executive order on immigration.

It took only three days for Attorney General Maura Healey to take President Trump to court, filing two legal challenges in January while the nation was still debating the size of the inauguration crowd on the National Mall.

Now, just six months into Trumps term, Healey has racked up 11 legal cases against the Republican presidents agenda, a pace of nearly one court challenge every two weeks.

Advertisement

The full impact of the legal barrage is not yet clear because most of the lawsuits are pending. But the fusillade is evidence of the increasingly aggressive and, some might say, partisan role that Democratic state attorneys general are taking in the Trump era.

The legal battles could also burnish Healeys reputation among Democratic voters, who already view her as a rising star and potential candidate for higher office.

Get Fast Forward in your inbox:

Forget yesterday's news. Get what you need today in this early-morning email.

What were seeing, and certainly Healey is one of the leaders, is really an escalation of the AGs national role, said Paul Nolette, a Marquette University political scientist who studies the rising influence of state attorneys general in shaping federal policy. Whether its reversing Obamas regulations or going after something new, like the travel ban, theyre saying, Were going to be the first line of defense and push back on that.

Mass. AG Maura Healey has taken action against the Trump administration on numerous fronts in the past six months.

Republican attorneys general launched a similar assault on President Obamas agenda when he was in office, suing him over issues ranging from transgender rights to immigration and health care. But most of those lawsuits didnt begin until Obamas second year in office, and the full onslaught didnt start until his second term, Nolette said.

Whats new here is just the rapid escalation of all this, he said. The Democratic AGs, including Healey, are just jumping right into the fray during the earliest days and months of the administration.

Advertisement

So far, Healey has filed or joined multistate legal challenges to the Trump administrations efforts to cut funding for the Affordable Care Act, enact bans on travel from several countries, undo student loan regulations, lessen oversight of for-profit colleges, and loosen environmental rules for oil and gas producers, trucks, electrical appliances, and light bulbs.

She also has also signed another dozen legal briefs, letters, and administrative requests in support of other states lawsuits against the travel ban and in opposition to administration policies related to the environment and consumer protection.

EPA/MICHAEL REYNOLDS

President Donald Trump.

Some legal observers contend the growing portfolio of federal court matters could drain attention and resources away from Healeys traditional duties as attorney general: to defend state agencies in court, issue advisory opinions on legal matters, and prosecute unscrupulous corporations and individuals.

The question is whether some of these lawsuits are depleting resources that might be used to pursue other important initiatives, especially if other states are challenging Trump and there is no fiscal cost to simply signing onto the briefs of other states, said Neal E. Devins, a professor at William & Mary Law School.

Healey insisted there is no tension between her federal legal activities and her responsibilities in Massachusetts, saying her battles against Trump are aimed at protecting local interests.

She said, for example, that Trumps executive orders to ban travel from some Muslim countries would have hurt local universities ability to attract top talent, that laxer energy-efficiency standards would undermine the states clean-energy sector, and that a delay sought by the US Department of Education in processing federal loan discharges could harm thousands of Massachusetts students. That is why, she said, she took steps to challenge those policies.

Weve run headlong into a brick wall when it comes to the Trump administration looking to take away rights and protections and to take us backwards, said Healey, who was elected in 2014. Thats why we absolutely have to be there as state AGs. This is our job, and if we dont do it, the question is: Who will?

From a legal standpoint, some scholars argue that Healeys attempts to defend federal regulations are an attempt to bypass Congress and craft national policy effectively legislating through litigation.

Shes overstepping her bounds as a state official trying to implement federal policy, and as an executive official trying to usurp federal power, said John C. Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University in Irvine, Calif. Weve got a real separation of powers problem.

Healey argued, however, that she is acting safely within her authority.

This is exactly the role of the state attorney general: Its to enforce the law, to make sure people are complying with the law, and to bring legal action when necessary to protect the interests of our state, she said.

Previous state attorneys general also sued Republican administrations but not as frequently, said James M. Shannon, who was the Democratic attorney general of Massachusetts during the first Bush presidency.

Shannon attributed the surge in legal cases against Trump to the extraordinarily aggressive actions he has taken as president some of it illegal, like the immigration ban.

Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.

And its exacerbated because you dont have a Congress to stop him, he said. So I would say this is the first time weve seen the attorney generals office here, and across the country, really be the front line of opposition.

Politically, the legal challenges could lift Healeys standing among Democrats who want her to challenge Republican Charlie Baker in next years governors race. Healey has said she is running for reelection. But there is precedent elsewhere for her legal strategy leading to higher office.

When he was attorney general of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott boasted of the more than 30 lawsuits he filed against Obama, famously declaring that his job was straightforward: I go into the office in the morning. I sue Barack Obama, and then I go home. Partly on the strength of that record, Abbott was elected governor of Texas in 2014.

You can make a name for yourself in a state were the president is unpopular, said Saikrishna Prakash, a University of Virginia law professor. While other officials can only rail against the federal government, Healeys lawsuits signal to voters that shes taking action, he said.

Healey dismissed the comparison to Abbott and the implication that her court cases could give her a political boost.

Greg Abbott was somebody who said his job was to go to work, sue the Obama administration, and go home, she said. That is not the job of the attorney general. The job of the attorney general is to enforce the law and to make sure that youre fighting to protect the interests of the state, within the bounds of the law. And thats what were doing.

Read more here:

Maura Healey's top target these days is Donald Trump - The Boston Globe

Johnny Depp apologized Friday for making flip remarks about assassinating the president. In a statement to People, the actor said, I apologize for the bad joke I attempted last night in poor taste about President Trump. It did not come out as intended, and I intended no malice. I was only trying to amuse, not to harm anyone.

Depp was Glastonbury Festivals inaugural guest at its new Cineramageddon drive-in movie theater in Britain Thursday night, and he certainly gave the place a memorable launch. While introducing a screening of his 2004 movie The Libertine, he made inflammatory statements about President Donald Trump.

I think he needs help and there are a lot of wonderful dark, dark places he could go, Depp said, according to the Guardian.

He then asked the crowd, When was the last time an actor assassinated the president?

The answer is 1865, when John Wilkes Booth shot and killed Abraham Lincoln at Fords Theatre.

It is just a question Im not insinuating anything, he assured the crowd. By the way, this is going to be in the press. It will be horrible. I like that you are all a part of it.

He also claimed he wasnt referring to himself, since hes not really an actor.

I lie for a living, he clarified. However, it has been a while and maybe it is time.

White House officials were not amused.

The joke is no laughing matter, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, told The Washington Post in a phone interview. These things are real.

Conway called Depp a nut job and said his statement was not a slip of the tongue but rather a deliberate attempt to spread vile ideas that could easily inflame lunatics who wish to bring harm.

A Secret Service spokesman told The Post that the agency is aware of the comment in question. For security reasons, we cannot discuss specifically nor in general terms the means and methods of how we perform our protective responsibilities.

Depp is hardly the first celebrity to target Trump.

Madonna came under fire in January, after she said shed thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.

Comedian Kathy Griffin was roundly criticized and fired from CNN after she was photographed holding a mask of what looked like President Trumps bloody severed head.

We expect actors and musicians and others to continue to spew hateful rhetoric, Conway said Friday.

How, she wondered, will people react to Depps remarks?

Will people chide him, discipline him or drop him? she asked.

In a sharply worded statement to The Post, deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that President Trump has condemned violence in all forms and its sad that others like Johnny Depp have not followed his lead. I hope that some of Mr. Depps colleagues will speak out against this type of rhetoric as strongly as they would if his comments were directed to a Democrat elected official.

This isnt the first time Depp has aired his feelings about Trump; he played the then-candidate in Funny or Dies The Art of the Deal: The Movie in early 2016. But that was mere parody not something the Secret Service might need to investigate.

Depp has been the subject of plenty of bad press in the past year. First there was the very public implosion of his short marriage to Amber Heard, who claimed the actor had physically abused her. Photos of her bruised face circulated on the internet.

Meanwhile, Depp sued his business managers, who in turn countersued, going public with some very unsavory accusations about the actor, saying that he has compulsive spending disorder and had squandered hundreds of millions of dollars with an outrageously extravagant lifestyle that included spending $30,000 every month on wine. According to a Hollywood Reporter story about Depps recent troubles, he was also difficult on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, where he routinely showed up late for work, leaving the cast and crew waiting around for hours.

And now there are his statements at Glastonbury.

If Kathy Griffins experience joking about Trumps death by holding up a fake severed head that resembled the president is any indication, there could be some serious blowback. Griffin ended up making a tearful apology but still lost her New Years Eve gig with CNN.

This isnt Depps first public apology. He had to do so on videotape when he and Heard illegally smuggled their dogs into Australia. The formal apology the pair made was stilted and stiff but at least seemed genuine. Later, Depp told Jimmy Kimmel that there had been a few takes of the mea culpa, since it was hard for him to keep his composure.

So much for saying sorry. But Depp said it himself: He lies for a living.

Read the original here:

Johnny Depp apologizes for joking about assassinating Donald Trump - Bangor Daily News

If you are an American worried about your local factory losing jobs, better not let Donald Trump find out.

Four reasons why:

In February, the US president visited the Boeing factory in North Charleston, SC. We are going to fight for every last American job, he declared at the rollout of the Dreamliner 787-10 passenger jet. He added, jobs is one of the primary reasons Im standing here today as your president, and I will never, ever disappoint you. Believe me, I will not disappoint you.

On Thursday (June 22), Boeing announced 200 jobs would be eliminated at the plant, as it faces stiff competition from its European rival Airbus.

In December, president-elect Trump visited the Carrier plant in Indianapolis, Indiana, to express his glee at a deal to keep 1,100 jobs there that had been slated to go to Mexico. And by the way, that number is going to go up very substantially as they expand this area, Trump said. So the 1,100 is going to be a minimum number. He added, These companies are not going to be taking peoples hearts out. They are not going to be announcing, like they did at Carrier, that they are closing up and moving to Mexico.

On Thursday, CNBC reported that more than 600 employees at the plant will be losing their jobs, as the deal did not work out as advertised. Last month, the company told Indiana officials about 800 factory employees would still have jobs when the layoffs end.

In December, Trump took notice of an industrial-bearings manufacturers plan to lay off its Indianapolis employees:

Well, not exactly. In late March, as noted by the Los Angeles Times, the company nevertheless started the shuttering process.

On Thursday, it was reported that the closing is coming in September. Plant union president Don Zering told the Associated Press that production by the remaining 110 workers goes on only because factories in Mexico and McAllen, Texasquite close to the borderarent yet prepared to do the work.

In January, Ford, the second-largest US automaker, pulled back on its plan to build a new plant in Mexico for the next generation of the Focus, a small-car model, a move that came after criticism from the president-elect. The new Focus instead would be manufactured at an existing plant in Mexico, Ford said.

On June 20, Ford announced it will build the new Focus, not in the US or Mexico, but in China.

There was no response from the president. He left that task to his Commerce secretary, who added a new optimistic twist in the face of the disappointing news.

The Ford decision shows how flexible multinational companies are in terms of geography, Wilbur Ross said. I believe that as President Trumps policies and reforms take hold, more companies will begin to locate their facilities in the US as several German and Japanese automakers already have.

The Detroit Free Press observed that Rosss cheery statement lacked any of the bellicose remarks made by candidate Trump about what he would do to manufacturers.

So no worries, America. It turns out the world is a complicated place that requires subtlety to navigate. The White House is on it.

This story has been updated to clarify the details of Fords January announcement about its manufacturing plans in Mexico.

See the rest here:

Why did the factory cross the road? To get away from Donald Trump's kiss of death - Quartz

Qatar is home to the USs largest military base in the Middle East and a long-time US ally. Since its Gulf neighbors, led by Saudi Arabia, imposed a blockade two weeks ago, president Donald Trump has enthusiastically praised the blockade and attacked Qatarcontradicting the messages from his own Defense Department, State Department, and Senate Republicans. His ex-ambassador to Qatar, who abruptly stepped down last week, this week took to Twitter to cheer the State Department for chiding the Saudis.

That same day, Trump chastised Chinas attempts to rein in North Korea, tweeting that it had not worked out. That must have made for an uncomfortable meeting, just hours later, between top Chinese defense officials and diplomats and the US secretaries of State, Rex Tillerson, and Defense, James Mattis.

US foreign policy experts who spoke to Quartz, many of whom work or worked in the National Security Council, State Department, or Pentagon in the past, say theyve rarely seen such a wide-open divide between what a US president is saying and long-stated US government agenda, or between the president and his own top policy and security advisors. It looks like we have two governments at the moment, said Edward Goldberg, a professor at New York Universitys Center For Global Affairs, and author of The Joint Ventured Nation: Why America Needs A New Foreign Policy.

Aside from contradicting his own officials, Trump has made a habit of bypassing them. This week his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and the Trump Organizations former legal counsel are in Israel for peace talks with Israeli and Palestinian authoritiescutting out the State Department and its decades of experience. Kushner will brief Trump, Tillerson, and national security advisor HR McMaster on his return, according to the White House. During Trumps last visit to the Middle East, Kushner sat in on a meeting with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, while McMaster was left outside, reportedly for hours.

White House officials seem to have given up trying to reconcile the conflicting approaches. Asked on Air Force One on June 21 how the presidents tweets affected Mattis and Tillersons meeting with Chinese officials, a spokeswoman had only this enigmatic response: The president is not going to project his strategy. And tweets speak for themselves. While Trump has focused on a few hot spots, the result is that the bureaucrats and generals are running much of US foreign policy.

Traditionally, the National Security Council (NSC) is supposed to serve as the presidents chief advisory body on foreign policy, funneling information from State, Defense, and intelligence agencies into a cohesive action plan. Some tensions are normal; in the Barack Obama administration, friction between the Oval Office, NSC, State, and Defense ran high over how to respond to ISIL and the Russian invasion of Crimea, among other topics.

But this time is different. Mattis, McMaster, and usually Tillerson are increasingly united around traditional US policy goals, as in Qatar. Trump, backed by a tiny group of personal confidantes with no foreign-policy experience, including Steve Bannon and Kusher, is disregarding them.

Not only are officials from these agencies openly contradicting the president; more quietly, some are recommending that his public statements be ignored. US foreign policy still works fine if the international community realizes they dont have to react to every Trump tweet, explained one defense department official, who asked not to be named.

The message to the rest of the world is that it is not a systematic policy development process, said Stephen Biddle, a defense policy expert at the Council of Foreign Relations and a former advisor to the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is poorly managed, poorly coordinated, and is going to be a challenge for any US embassy to try to understand and explain. You cant take a garden variety statement from the president or the secretary of State as US policy, said Biddle.

In the worst case, this confusion could cause the US to bumble into a war. We might find ourselves in a major military conflict with Assad, Iran, or Russia, without knowing why, exactly, or what US interests are, said Ilan Goldenberg, a director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, and a former State Department chief of staff.

Some military heads of command have already had a conversation about what to do if Trump gives an order they cant comply with, said a former National Security Agency analyst who still consults for the US government, citing direct conversations with military agency personnel. If it gets to a point beyond their comfort level, theyre well trained by the military not to disobey, said the defense official. Instead, expect the military leaders to just say Im out.

Kushners close relationship with Saudi prince Mohammad bin Salman, the 31-year old who has just been named successor to the aging King Salman, has shaped Trumps embrace of Saudi Arabia, analysts say. He has also helped moderate the presidents views on China. Because he has the presidents ear at any time, his influence has proven hard to counteract. Kushner has proven tough to work around, one lobbyist in DC with foreign clients said.

But Kushners foreign-policy inexperience is a risk for the situation now developing in the Middle East. Its much more dangerous than other previous spats, said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. What the Saudi royal family is doing is arguing whether the ruling family of Qatar has legitimacy, he said. If the Saudis want to push it all the way to its logical end, this could become a very dangerous crisis in the Gulf.

Moreover, the special prosecutor investigating the Trump campaigns possible ties to Russian election hacking is now investigating Kushners business dealings. If he becomes a bigger focus of the probe his star, and his influence, is likely to fade.

One Washington, DC consultant to Middle East governments compares Trumps stance on Qatar to a car with no driver but only a set of brakesin the form of State, Defense, and the NSC. The brakes are all that is stopping the tensions around Qatar turning into an all-out war against a US ally.

One emerging outcome of this is that foreign policy in general is increasingly under the control of the military. Mattis has a tremendous amount of autonomy, billions of dollars of weaponry at his disposal, and political capital, said Goldenberg. He can make decisions and back them up with real action. In particular, Mattis has been given full responsibility for troop levels in Afghanistan, normally something the president decides.

Described as both deeply thoughtful and extremely aggressive, Mattis earned a fearsome reputation for leading Marine troops in the bloody 2004 attack on Fallujah, but said last year he thought the Iraq war was a strategic mistake. Since taking the Defense job, he has urged for the US to provide more military support for anti-Iranian forces (paywall) in Yemen, and has armed Syrian Kurdish fighters.

McMaster, himself a general with experience in the Middle East and Afghanistan, has ex-Army officials Derek Harvey and Joel Rayburn on his team, giving even more heft to the military point of view. In contrast, Tillerson, as a civilian voice on foreign policy, is hampered by running a department with large numbers of senior posts and ambassadorships still unfilled, while trying to defend its budget, which Trump has targeted for nearly 30% cuts.

Taken together, the team is smart and well-respected, said Goldenberg. But, sometimes things cant be figured out with a military solution, he said. Sometimes they are grayer and murkier and uglier than good guys and bad guys.

A White House spokesman, Michael Short said that questions about a disconnect between the presidents words and the State and Defense departments actions were nebulous claims. Trump and Tillerson, he said, have both stated publicly that there are steps that Qatar needs to take to address concerns about support for terrorists and extremists. Given the high stakes involved, the United States is disappointed that this dispute between our partners in the Gulf has not been resolved.

The State Department is still pointing to a diplomatic solution. The president and the secretary both want to see the Qatar dispute resolved quickly, one official said. Through the secretarys phone calls and meetings, he believes it can be resolved.

Follow this link:

Under Trump, US foreign policy is increasingly being left to the generals - Quartz