Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label Reince Priebus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reince Priebus. Show all posts

Monday, January 29, 2018

Republican senators urge Congress to revisit bill to protect Mueller

January 29, 2018  10H:16  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Rachel Rubin and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Washington DC

WASHINGTON DC - The U.S. Congress should revisit proposed legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller after President Donald Trump tried to fire him last year while he investigated the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia, two Republican senators said on Sunday.
In separate television interviews, Senators Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham expressed dismay at reports the Republican president had told the top White House lawyer to order U.S. Justice Department officials to fire Mueller.
“I’ve got legislation protecting Mr. Mueller, and I’d be glad to pass it tomorrow,” Graham told the ABC News “This Week” program.
On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Collins said: “It certainly wouldn’t hurt to put that extra safeguard in place, given the latest stories.”
Tensions over Mueller’s probe are hovering over Trump’s year-old presidency as he prepares to give his first State of the Union Address on Tuesday.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that Trump ordered White House counsel Donald McGahn to fire Mueller in June but backed down after McGahn threatened to resign rather than carry out the order.
McGahn was “fed up” after Trump’s order, a person familiar with the matter told us at Reuters. He did not issue an ultimatum directly to the president but told then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and then-chief strategist Steve Bannon that he wanted to quit, the source said.

FILE PHOTO: Special Counsel Robert Mueller (R) departs after briefing members of the U.S. Senate on his investigation into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo
Graham and three Democratic senators introduced legislation last August that would protect special counsels, including Mueller, by requiring that a panel of federal judges review any action to remove them.
The likelihood that such a bill would become law have seemed remote. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have shown little enthusiasm for the idea.
“I don’t think there’s a need for legislation right now to protect Mueller,” House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “The president and his team have fully cooperated” with the special counsel, he said.
Republicans hold the majority in both the House and Senate.
Mueller is investigating whether Trump associates and the Kremlin colluded during the 2016 presidential election. Russia denies such collusion, and Trump frequently denounces the probe as a “witch hunt.”
Both Collins and Graham said they saw no sign that Trump is currently trying to fire Mueller.
“I think what happened here is the president had a bad idea,” Collins said. “He talked with his counsel, who explained to an angry and frustrated president why it was a bad idea.”
Graham said: “It’s pretty clear to me everyone in the White House knows it’d be the end of President Trump’s presidency if he tried to fire Mr. Mueller.”


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Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Analyzing Anthony Scaramucci's 11 days at the White House

Not mooch left
by Rachel Rubin and Biodun Iginla, Political News Analysts, The Economist Intelligence Unit, Washington DC

But it might help

IN THE 64 years during which American presidents have appointed national security advisers, nobody had less time in the post than Donald Trump’s first pick: Michael Flynn, who left in February after just 24 brutal, scandal-filled days. In the 71 years since Harry Truman made John Steelman the first White House chief of staff, nobody except Pete Rouse—an interim choice of Barack Obama’s—had a shorter stint than Reince Priebus, who resigned last Thursday after just over six months.
Even by those standards, Anthony Scaramucci’s tenure as White House communications director was brief: he was ousted in the afternoon of July 31st, his eleventh day.
Mr Priebus’s dismissal seemed almost inevitable. He is a mild-mannered Wisconsinite unrelated to the president who rose through Republican party ranks and urged Mr Trump to drop out of the presidential race after a tape surfaced in which the then-candidate boasted that he grabbed women’s genitals. But Mr Scaramucci is much Trumpier. A nattily dressed, self-made tycoon from Long Island nicknamed “The Mooch”, he was politically inexperienced but able to vociferously defend Mr Trump on television. The president prizes personal loyalty above all; Mr Scaramucci missed the birth of his own son to accompany Mr Trump to West Virginia.

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Unfortunately, he broke the cardinal rule of the Trump White House: he got more press than the boss. Less than a week into his job, Mr Scaramucci gave a profanity-heavy interview to a reporter at the New Yorker in which he accused Mr Priebus of leaking a publicly available document, threatened to “fucking kill all the leakers”, and bragged that unlike Steve Bannon, Mr Trump’s nationalist chief strategist, he was “not trying to suck my own cock”. A White House statement said Mr Scaramucci left in order to give John Kelly, Mr Priebus’s replacement, “a clean slate and the ability to build his own team”; Mr Kelly, a former general and homeland-security secretary, reportedly told Mr Scaramucci of his ouster shortly after being sworn in.
Mr Kelly was brought in to impose discipline and control on a chaotic, factional, leaky White House. Getting rid of the brash but erratic Mr Scaramucci—who bragged that he reported directly to the president, rather than going through the chief of staff, as is customary—seems a sound first step. But just how much it will change things remains unclear. Mr Trump, after all, is more or less his own communications director: when he has something to say, he tweets. He is also notoriously resistant to advice.
Perhaps that will change under Mr Kelly: Mr Trump may listen to a general more readily than he did to a standard politico such as Mr Priebus. But don’t bet on it. Articles promising that Mr Trump would become more “presidential” after this event, or more disciplined after bringing in that staffer, have inevitably proved just so much fish wrap.
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Sunday, July 30, 2017

Republicans to new Trump chief of staff: fix White House chaos

JULY 31, 2017 / 04:H22  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
WASHINGTON - Republicans on Sunday urged President Donald Trump's new chief of staff John Kelly to rein in the chaos within the White House on Monday but said the retired Marine Corps general will be challenged to assert control.
In his first six months in office, Trump has upended White House convention with a loose decision-making style and an open-door policy to his Oval Office for advisers, both internal and external. Infighting among his senior staff has become bitter and public.
"He's going to have to reduce the drama, reduce both the sniping within and reduce the leaks, and bring some discipline to the relationships," Karl Rove, a Republican strategist and former White House adviser to George W. Bush, said on "Fox News Sunday."
Trump announced Kelly would replace his embattled chief of staff Reince Priebus at the end of a particularly chaotic week that saw his first legislative effort - healthcare reform - fail in Congress.
"He (Trump) is in a lot of trouble. This week was the most tumultuous week we’ve seen in a tumultuous presidency," Rove said.
On top of the healthcare debacle, Trump came under fire for banning transgender people from the military, and was pilloried for politicizing a speech he made to the Boy Scouts.
Adding fuel to the fire, his new communications director Anthony Scaramucci unleashed a string of profane criticism about Priebus and Trump strategist Steven Bannon to a New Yorker magazine reporter.
Republicans welcomed Trump's decision to bring in Kelly, who starts on Monday.
"I think he will bring some order and discipline to the West Wing," said Republican Senator Susan Collins and Trump critic on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The last week heightened concerns in Trump's party that the distractions and West Wing dysfunction would derail other legislative priorities, including tax reform and debt ceiling negotiations.
FILE PHOTO: Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly (L) listens to U.S. President Donald Trump during a meeting with cyber security experts in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., January 31, 2017.Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said he thought Priebus had been effective "but was probably a little bit more laid back” in the way he ran the office.
"I think the president wants to go in a different direction, wants a little bit more discipline, a little more structure in there," said Mulvaney, who reports to the chief of staff.
It is not yet clear whether all of Trump's senior staff will answer to Kelly. Some members, including Scaramucci and senior counselor Kellyanne Conway, report directly to Trump, a structure which gives them more power.
"I will do whatever the president and our new chief of staff General Kelly ask me to do," Conway told Fox News' "Fox News Sunday."
Kelly should be empowered to be the gatekeeper to the Oval Office, said Mike Huckabee, the former Republican governor of Arkansas, whose daughter Sarah Sanders is Trump's spokeswoman.
"That's what needs to happen, but that's going to be up to the president," Huckabee said on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures."
"The president has a very different style, he's very open, the door is open, he invites people to just come on it to a meeting," Huckabee said.
To be effective, Kelly needs to find a way to work within Trump's untraditional style, said Corey Lewandowski, who was a former campaign manager to Trump, and remains close to the president.
"The thing that General Kelly should do is not try to change Donald Trump," Lewandowski said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"Anybody who thinks they're going to change Donald Trump doesn't know Donald Trump," Lewandowski said.
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Thursday, January 26, 2017

BREAKING AND UPDATE: Mexico condemns Trump's border wall tax proposal


  • Jan 27, 2017  05H:40  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
    •  
  • From the sectionUS & Canada
the US-Mexican borderImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionSome fencing already exists on the 2,000-mile (3,200km) US boundary with Mexico
by Renee Celeste and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Mexico City
Mexico has condemned a US suggestion that it may impose a 20% tax on Mexican imports to pay for President Donald Trump's planned border wall.
Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said such tax would make Mexican imports more expensive for US consumers and they would end up paying for the wall.
The Mexican president earlier cancelled a visit to the US amid the row of who would pay for the barrier.
The planned wall was one of Mr Trump's key election campaign pledges.
Earlier this week, the president signed an executive order to create a wall along the 2,000-mile (3,200km) US-Mexico border.
Speaking on Thursday, Mr Videgaray said: "A tax on Mexican imports to the United States is not a way to make Mexico pay for the wall, but to a way make the North American consumer pay for it through more expensive avocados, washing machines, televisions.''
He also stressed that paying for Mr Trump's wall "is not negotiable" for Mexico.
Earlier on Thursday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said a 20% tax could generate approximately $10bn (£8bn) in tax revenue per year.
"Right now our country's policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous", he said, adding that the tax will "easily pay for the wall".
But Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, later said that the border tax is only one of several options being considered.
Media captionAvocado anxiety over Trump's border tax

Border tax unacceptable - Will Grant, BBC News, Mexico City

President Enrique Pena Nieto would have been perceived as very weak if he had travelled to Washington for talks and for many here it would have been tantamount to accepting Mr Trump's central claim - that Mexico will pay for the US border wall.
If that is not up front, then it may come eventually - perhaps under the latest proposal being floated by Donald Trump's White House, a massive 20% border tax on Mexican imports.
As Mexico exports some $300bn of goods a year to the US, the impact of such a proposal would be felt across the country.
Furthermore, the idea of funding a wall through a new tariff is simply unacceptable to most ordinary Mexicans who view the wall as unnecessary, inhumane, expensive and ineffective.
As their elected leader, at least for the next 18 months, Enrique Pena Nieto was left with little option but to deliver that message to the White House - by not going there in person.
Enrique Pena Nieto (left) and Donald TrumpImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionTrump and Pena Nieto met in Mexico before the US presidential elections
The rift between the neighbours and trade partners has deepened just days into Mr Trump's presidency.
After Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto pulled out of next week's summit, Mr Trump said the meeting would have been "fruitless" if Mexico didn't treat the US "with respect" and pay for the wall.
Earlier Mr Pena Nieto said he "lamented" the plans for the barrier.
In a televised address, the Mexican leader told the nation: "I've said time and again: Mexico won't pay for any wall."
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham warned that US consumers may wind up bearing the cost of the proposed tax.
"Any tariff we can levy they can levy. Huge barrier to econ growth", he wrote online.
"Build that wall" was one of Mr Trump's campaign rally slogans.
Mr Trump's executive orders also called for hiring 10,000 immigration officials to help boost border patrol efforts.
"A nation without borders is not a nation," Mr Trump said. "Beginning today the United States gets back control of its borders."
In other developments:
  • UK Prime Minister Theresa May addressed a group of Republican Congressmen ahead of talks with President Trump on Friday. She called for an end to foreign interventions overseas to "remake the world in our own image"
  • Chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon said that the media should "keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while" and that he views the press as "the opposition party"
  • The White House is planning additional executive actions in the coming days, one of which will reportedly curb refugee admissions
  • Mr Trump told US media that he had made his selection for Supreme Court nominee, and will announce the name next Thursday

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