Trump’s paranoid White House: mistrust, fear, loathing endanger nation
The paranoid style, to use the term made famous half a century ago by Richard Hofstadter in a legendary Harper’s article, has come to the Oval Office in a big way.
President Trump and his staff distrust each other – and everyone else in the government:
In President Trump’s first two weeks of office, damaging reports involving White House aides and staffers have steadily emerged from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Embarrassing stories — from the the president’s unhealthy TV diet to his tendency to throw temper tantrums — have been sourced through people reportedly close the president. Now, a longtime Trump adviser has leaked to Politico that the president is paranoid about all the leaks streaming from his office.
“Trying to nail down who the leakers are is like trying to count the cockroaches under the couch,” said Michael Caputo, a longtime adviser of Trump who has stayed in touch with people connected to the president.
Some Trump staffers told Politico that they were shocked by the amount of secrets leaking from the White House. “People are just knifing each other,” one said.
Just in the past day, reports of tense conversations between Trump and the leaders of Mexico and Australia have surfaced. Direct quotes, such as Trump telling Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that his call was “the worst by far,” have now made international headlines.
Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s senior counselor, told Fox News that no one in the Trump administration is responsible for the leaks.
“Obviously, we’re not commenting on private conversations in that way. We give a readout to the media on most conversations but we don’t release transcripts and we certainly don’t mischaracterize them as some others have. This is the practice for us though. We’re the ones not leaking,” Conway said.
Trump and his team are reportedly distrustful of government bureaucrats, whom they see as loyal to former President Obama. “Every time something got to one of the agencies, it got out,” one person told Politico.
Agency staff reportedly think the White House’s unwillingness to share information is causing implementation problems with the executive orders. The result is an undeniable disconnect between the White House and federal agencies.
Could one of the reasons be a close advisor who makes Doctor Strangelove‘s Jack T. Ripper seem almost rational by comparison?
The United States and China will fight a war within the next 10 years over islands in the South China Sea, and “there’s no doubt about that”. At the same time, the US will be in another “major” war in the Middle East.
Those are the views – nine months ago at least – of one of the most powerful men in Donald Trump’s administration, Steve Bannon, the former head of far-right news website Breitbart who is now chief strategist at the White House.
In the first weeks of Trump’s presidency, Bannon has emerged as a central figure. He was appointed to the “principals committee” of the National Security Council in a highly unusual move and was influential in the recent travel ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, overruling Department of Homeland Security officials who felt the order did not apply to green card holders.
“We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years,” he said in March 2016. “There’s no doubt about that. They’re taking their sandbars and making basically stationary aircraft carriers and putting missiles on those. They come here to the United States in front of our face – and you understand how important face is – and say it’s an ancient territorial sea.”
And that’s not the only thing Bannon said that has rational state and defense professionals worried:
Here’s an actual quote that he gave to The Hollywood Reporter after the election:
“Darkness is good… Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they” — I believe by “they” he means liberals and the media, already promoting calls for his ouster — “get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.”
The dude compared himself to Satan, AND HE MEANT IT AS A GOOD THING. It would be so great if we could confidently sit here and be able to believe that most idiotic of excuses the alt-right loves to use in cases like this and say that Bannon was just “trolling.” But now he’s in power, and we see that he was just being honest. And as we discussed yesterday, he has now ascended to an unprecedented position of power for a political operative and has unseated two veteran security officials on the National Security Council, making him a huge player in dictating our foreign policy. This wouldn’t be quite as scary if it weren’t for the fact that Steve Bannon believes we’re in a holy war with Islam, according to The Washington Post:
At the same time, Bannon was concerned that the United States and the “Judeo-Christian West” were in a war against an expansionist Islamic ideology — but that they were losing the war by not recognizing what it was. Bannon said this fight was so important, it was worth overlooking differences and rivalries with countries like Russia…
In the past, Bannon had wondered aloud whether the country was ready to follow his lead. Now, he will find out.“Is that grit still there, that tenacity, that we’ve seen on the battlefields . . . fighting for something greater than themselves?” Bannon said in another radio interview last May, before he joined the Trump campaign.
And in truly horrifying news, we won’t even be able to track what exactly he’s doing on the NSC because, as an anonymous intelligence official told Foreign Policy, Bannon decided he didn’t want a paper trail to follow his decisions:
The lack of a paper trail documenting the decision-making process is also troubling, the intelligence official said. For example, under previous administrations, after a principals or deputies meeting of the National Security Council, the discussion, the final agreement, and the recommendations would be written up in what’s called a “summary of conclusions” — or SOC in government-speak…
These summaries also provided a record to refer back to, especially important if a debate over an issue came up again, including among agencies that needed to implement the conclusions reached.
So not only does Steve Bannon seem ready to go to war with the entire Muslim religion, he also doesn’t want anyone to know he’s doing it.
Is Bannon the reason Trump is freezing out authoritative analytical minds from the National Security Council?
National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is stacking the National Security Council with friends of the Trump administration in a move insiders fear will create a wall between President Trump and the intelligence community.
Flynn’s appointments — announced Thursday, according to a Politico report — include David Cattler, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official; John Eisenberg, a former Justice Department official; Kenneth Juster, a former Commerce and State Department official; and Kevin Harrington, a former managing director and head of research for the global macro hedge fund Thiel Macro LLC — which was owned by Trump friend Peter Thiel.
Cattler will specialize in regional affairs, Eisenberg will be the NSC’s top legal adviser, Juster will oversee economic policy, and Harrington will be in charge of strategic planning.
All four of these new appointments have the title of deputy assistant to the president.
A White House spokesman told Politico that the goal was to reduce the size of Flynn’s staff so as to “run a very precise and orderly and quick process,” but multiple sources told Politico that staffers that they were concerned this organization structure will lead to an insular policymaking process within the White House.
This isn’t the first time that reports have leaked about federal staffers and policymakers being displeased with how the Trump administration is conducting himself. Many talk with Obama’s recently-departed personnel over how they can resist the president’s initiatives or created social media accounts to anonymously leak their dissatisfaction with the new president’s policies and actions, according to a report by The Washington Post on Tuesday. These developments among State Department employees prompted Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, to say that they “should either get with the program, or they can go.”
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Copyright 2017 Liberaland
By: dave-dr-gonzo
David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.
* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.
35 responses to Trump’s paranoid White House: mistrust, fear, loathing endanger nation
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Buford2k11 February 3rd, 2017 at 09:41
ummm…ahhh…Bannon must not be allowed to stay…this is an national security issue…the gop are in violation of their oaths of office…
wpadon February 3rd, 2017 at 16:50
For clarity, did you say oaths or oafs? ;)
Buford2k11 February 3rd, 2017 at 16:55
yes..
Obewon February 3rd, 2017 at 09:51
The unemployment rate jumped to 4.8% of all workers unemployed in January 2017. Who leaked this! BHO44’s U.S. economy added 227,000 private jobs in January, but wage growth lags. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/03/u-s-economy-adds-227000-jobs-in-january-unemployment-ticks-up-to-4-8/?utm_term=.6f68f68f77f2
Mensa Member February 3rd, 2017 at 12:23
Do people call him BHO44?
Bush gave Obama the worst economies in decades. Obama gave Trump the best economy in decades.
And the Republicans will take credit for it. Then, after they crash the economy, they will blame the Democrats. Or maybe black people who want a home.
burqa February 5th, 2017 at 22:11
The economy Superstar Bill Clinton handed off to Bush Jr. was doing better than the one Obama handed off to Tchrump. Unemployment was at 4.1%, the budget was balanced and the economy had tapered off, but was still growing when Clinton left office.
When there is a change in administration from one party to the other, we Democrats tend to hand off stronger economies than Republicans hand off to Democrats.
Bush Jr. handed off the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Bush Sr. handed off a floundering economy that featured majr employers laying off workers by the tens of thousands.
Ford handed off a similarly moribund economy to Carter.
Eisenhower handed off a recession to Kennedy.
Hoover handed off the Great Depression to Roosevelt.
Here are some stats I researched going back to 1900 to get a nice big sample size:
Number of recessions: 23
Number of Democratic Party presidents: 8
Number of Republican Party presidents: 12
Number of Republican presidents with a recession that began on their watch: 11 out of 12
Number of Democrat presidents with a recession that began on their watch: 4 out of 8
Number of Republican presidents with multiple recessions that began on their watch:
5 out of 12
Number of Democrat presidents with multiple recessions that began on their watch:
2 out of 8
Number of Republican presidents without a recession that began on their watch:
1 out of 12
Number of Democrat presidents without a recession that began on their watch:
4 out of 8
Number of recessions that began under a Republican president: 17 under 11 of 12 presidents
Number of recessions that began under a Democrat president: 6 under 4 of 8 presidents
Number of recessions that began under a Republican president and were handed off to a Democrat: 4 out of 12
Number of recessions that began under a Democrat president and were handed off to a Republican: 1 out of 8
Total length of recessions that began under a Republican president: 23 years
Total length of recessions that began under a Democrat president: 5 years, 3 months
Average length of recessions that began under a Republican president: 16.24 months
Average length of recessions that began under a Democrat president: 10.5 months
Number of recessions that began with Republican majorities in the House and Senate: 11
Number of recessions that began with Democrat majorities in the House and Senate: 11
Total length of recessions that began with Republican majorities in the House and Senate: 195 months
Total length of recessions that began with Democrat majorities in the House and Senate: 128 months
Average length of recessions that began with Republican majorities in the House and Senate: 17.73 months
Average length of recessions that began with Democrat majorities in the House and Senate: 11.64 months
Number of recessions that began with a Republican president and Republican majorities in the House and Senate: 9
Number of recessions that began with a Democrat president and Democrat majorities in the House and Senate: 4
Total length of recessions that began with a Republican president and Republican majorities in the House and Senate: 166 months
Total length of recessions that began with a Democrat president and Democrat majorities in the House and Senate: 34 months
Average length of recessions that began with a Republican president and Republican majorities in the House and Senate: 18.44 months
Average length of recessions that began with a Democrat president and Democrat majorities in the House and Senate: 8.5 months
Number of recessions that began with a Republican president and Democrat majorities in the House and Senate: 7
Number of recessions that began with a Democrat president and Republican majorities in the House and Senate: 2
Total length of recessions that began with a Republican president and Democrat majorities in the House and Senate: 94 months
Total length of recessions that began with a Democrat president and Republican majorities in the House and Senate: 29 months
Average length of recessions that began with a Republican president and Democrat majorities in the House and Senate: 13.43 months
Average length of recessions that began with a Democrat president and Republican majorities in the House and Senate: 14.5 months
granpa.usthai February 4th, 2017 at 01:03
is it just my lavish lifestyle of PJ sandwiches, or is the cost of living going higher?
burqa February 5th, 2017 at 21:51
Every time I see it in the 4s it reminds me of the alternative fact floated by the GOP in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
They came up with this notion of “full employment” and decided we would reach “full employment” when the rate got down to 5.3%. Anything lower would be a temporary anomaly because 5.3 was as low as it could go.
They settled on that number because it was the lowest unemployment got under Ronald “Dutch” Reagan…
anothertoothpick February 3rd, 2017 at 10:08
We actually found something trumpee is good at.
Making enemies.
arc99 February 3rd, 2017 at 10:20
Mr.Bannon, we are not blind to who and what you are.
You are a perversion and a cancer upon this nation. You are being watched.
You would do well to ignore the ridiculous spin about the popular vote coming from your idiot fascist worshipers. There are more of us than there are of you. No amount of spin will change that.
Tommie February 3rd, 2017 at 10:36
Just great, Trump’s team are fighting over how to fu*k up the country!
mea_mark February 3rd, 2017 at 11:33
I wonder what the military will do when our government collapses because of complete incompetence? I sure hope somebody is creating some backup plans. We are going to need some kind of structure to rebuild from.
Richard Banville February 4th, 2017 at 02:21
I have no doubt that the Pentagon has a contingency plan for everything, including the possibility of the White House going completely off the rails.
Mensa Member February 3rd, 2017 at 12:18
This comes from Trump’s failed leadership. Sad.
I’ve never worked for a CEO as horrible as Trump but I’ve seen the dynamic. Erratic, self-aggrandizing CEOs are throughout corporate America. In my opinion, they are the single biggest threat to a vibrant economy. They will trash a company, screw the workers and investors, and fly away with millions.
And now we have one in charge of America.
Snick1946 February 6th, 2017 at 12:47
I worked for one of those over 30 years ago. He would single out employees in meetings, scream at them and threaten them. He started in on me after awhile, actually made an implied threat on my life if I didn’t play ball and inform on co-workers. I got the living hell out of there and never looked back. A few years ago I got curious about what had become of him and did a Google search. I learned he dropped dead of heart attack at age 50 some years ago. I even found a picture of his gravestone. I bookmarked that page and now whenever I get depressed I look at it. Been going there a lot in the past couple weeks.
William February 3rd, 2017 at 13:38
Is everyone caught up? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7bb467983b597159962e6172f2e5635acc6b7e5406530849310cb0f6a42a4ac8.jpg
Larry Schmitt February 3rd, 2017 at 16:40
They will also probably kill the “fiduciary rule,” which was scheduled to take effect in April. It would have required investment professionals to act in the client’s best interest instead of their own. In other words, to recommend investment that would be best for the consumer, rather than just result in the highest profits for the “adviser.” As usual, republicans always side with business against people.
robert February 3rd, 2017 at 18:11
But donald said Dodd Frank was blocking small business loans leading us to believe more domestic job creation
Fooled again🃏
Larry Schmitt February 3rd, 2017 at 19:45
I work at a bank, and we make lots of loans. So that is bullshit.
StoneyCurtisll February 3rd, 2017 at 19:55
Where do I begin?…
This is crazy train overload..
Just when you think one of the trump lies have been debunked…
They throw up another one, and then repeat an old lie that had been debunked…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI-aetWhTWI&t=4s
granpa.usthai February 4th, 2017 at 01:14
kellyanne reminds me of a very angry frustrated ‘c*nt’ that’s one minute from a shuttering orgasm but can never reach it.
William February 4th, 2017 at 09:12
I think Orange-clown is trying to overwhelm fact-checkers and SNL staff writers.
StoneyCurtisll February 4th, 2017 at 11:52
Exactly~!
burqa February 5th, 2017 at 21:46
I think he’s pursuing the same winning strategy from the election. Say anything, anything to win the news cycle evry day.
This strategy strangled Hillary’s campaign here and elsewhere.
The American people aren’t going to vote for us if they never talk about us and what we’ve done and plan to do.
Our future will have many more defeats than victories if we continue to only talk about the other side and don’t spend even half as much time talking about our issues, our candidates, our accomplishments and our plans.
Obewon February 3rd, 2017 at 20:07
Exactly! If you can’t beat them with facts, meander off topic by baffling them with B.S.
granpa.usthai February 4th, 2017 at 01:10
the press also ignored the comet that split this planet in half!
yep, a split in half planet that is spinning around the sun in opposite directions, let’s just hope in 6 months when they meet again (almost said a year) east meets east and west meets west –
otherwise things will be just as F’d up as now!
burqa February 5th, 2017 at 21:47
……………………and that was the week that was……..
amersham1046 February 3rd, 2017 at 16:17
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
granpa.usthai February 4th, 2017 at 00:49
OLAY FRUITCAKES!
a paranoid COWARD is making decisions for the military?
Larry Schmitt February 3rd, 2017 at 19:05
Just for a little perspective, not that we need it here.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3seXKYUMAAABpQ.jpg:large
StoneyCurtisll February 3rd, 2017 at 19:50
Shocking~!
But not unexpected from trump.
StoneyCurtisll February 3rd, 2017 at 19:48
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22uvRSqFj98
The Original Just Me February 4th, 2017 at 09:51
Prickident Trump
Duke Woolworth February 5th, 2017 at 08:53
Worse than Bannon? Stephen Miller.
Spicer clumsily spoofed on SNL 2/4/17.
burqa February 5th, 2017 at 21:32
Looking more and more Nixonian.
Better keep an eye out to see if Trump decides the uniformed division of the Secret Service needs outfits that look like high school band uniforms. Then we’ll know we got Nixon reincarnated. That, and if Elvis drops by for a chat….