US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6246

Vice President-elect Mike Pence has ordered the removal of all lobbyists from President-elect Donald Trump's transition team, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday night.

The action was among Pence's first since formally taking over the team's lead role. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey was abruptly dismissed from the post last week.

Critics had excoriated Trump for including lobbyists, Washington insiders, and Republican Party veterans among his team, saying it contradicted the antiestablishment message that defined his campaign.

Earlier Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said Americans "do not want corporate executives to be the ones who are calling the shots in Washington.

"What Donald Trump is doing is that he's putting together a transition team that's full of lobbyists — the kind of people he actually ran against," she said.

The move capped a chaotic day for Trump's transition team. Mike Rogers, the former congressman from Michigan who handled national-security duties, was ousted, as was Matthew Freedman, a senior defense and foreign-policy official.

Rogers was told that all team members picked by Christie were being ousted, The Journal reported, citing a source familiar with the situation. Rogers has publicly indicated that the team may be in disarray.

"Is there a little confusion in New York? I think there is. I think this is growing pains," he told CNN's Jim Sciutto. Sources cited by CNN in that story suggested infighting among Trump's close advisers. Another unnamed CNN source denied the claim.

Trump attempted to dispel talk of turmoil in a tweet late Tuesday: "Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions," the tweet said. "I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!"

Trump's team is tasked with finding and hiring 4,000 political appointees to fill out the federal government.

In the waning days of the presidential campaign, Bill and Hillary Clinton had a knock-down, drag-out fight about her effort to blame FBI Director James Comey for her slump in the polls and looming danger of defeat.

"I was with Bill in Little Rock when he had this shouting match with Hillary on the phone and she accused Comey for reviving the investigation into her use of a private email server and reversing her campaign's momentum," said one of Bill Clinton's closest advisers.

"Bill didn't buy the excuse that Comey would cost Hillary the election," said the source. "As far as he was concerned, all the blame belonged to [campaign manager Robby] Mook, [campaign chairman John] Podesta and Hillary because they displayed a tone-deaf attitude about the feeble economy and its impact on millions and millions of working-class voters.

"Bill was so red in the face during his conversation with Hillary that I worried he was going to have a heart attack. He got so angry that he threw his phone off the roof of his penthouse apartment and toward the Arkansas River."

During the campaign, Bill Clinton felt that he was ignored by Hillary's top advisers when he urged them to make the economy the centerpiece of her campaign. He repeatedly urged them to connect with the people who had been left behind by the revolutions in technology and globalization.

"Bill said that constantly attacking Trump for his defects made Hillary's staff and the media happy, but that it wasn't a message that resonated with voters, especially in the rust belt," the source explained. "Bill always campaigned as a guy who felt your pain, but Hillary came across as someone who was pissed off at her enemy [Trump], not someone who was reaching out and trying to make life better for the white working class."

According to the source, Bill was severely critical of Hillary's decision to reject an invitation to address a St. Patrick's Day event at the University of Notre Dame. Hillary's campaign advisers nixed the idea on the ground that white Catholics were not the audience she needed to reach.

"Bill also said that many African Americans were deeply disappointed with the results of eight years of Obama," the source continued. "Despite more and more government assistance, blacks weren't economically any better off, and black-on-black crime was destroying their communities. He said Hillary should have gone into the South Side of Chicago and condemned the out-of-control violence."

Though Bill conceded that FBI Director Comey's decision to revive Hillary's email scandal created a problem for her campaign, he believed the issue had little impact on the outcome because it had already been baked into the decisions of most voters.

"A big part of Bill's anger toward Hillary was that he was sidelined during the entire campaign by her advisers," said the source. "He can't be effective if he sees himself as just another hired hand. He wasn't listened to and that infuriated him. After all, he knows something about campaigns, and he told me in early October that Hillary and her advisers were blowing it.

"Hillary wouldn't listen. She told Bill that his ideas were old and that he was out of touch. In the end, there was nothing he could do about it because Hillary and her people weren't listening to anything he said."

On November 17 2016 00:58 xDaunt wrote:


Source.

Hrm, so maybe now we know why some of these early transition steps have been delayed? Imagine that. Trump's keeping his word to drain the swamp.

On November 17 2016 00:59 LegalLord wrote:
By the way, on the eve of his presidency, I'm curious what people think of Obama. I wrote this brief comment about his term; overall I myself approve of him but think his presidency will be remembered as "decent but not extraordinary" overall.

Quick polls:
+ Show Spoiler +

I'd also like to hear more detailed opinions.

On November 17 2016 01:05 xDaunt wrote:


Obama will go down in history as a middling president. He had minimal accomplishments, and what he did accomplish is about to be erased by Trump. That said, I think that he should be judged by the promise of his 2008 campaign. By that standard, he has been an utter failure and disappointment. He ran on "hope and change," not "the status quo."

On November 17 2016 01:05 xDaunt wrote:


Obama will go down in history as a middling president. He had minimal accomplishments, and what he did accomplish is about to be erased by Trump. That said, I think that he should be judged by the promise of his 2008 campaign. By that standard, he has been an utter failure and disappointment. He ran on "hope and change," not "the status quo."

On November 17 2016 01:33 LegalLord wrote:

I suppose "hope and change, but not at the cost of the global liberal economic and political order" is the mantra of his, and that of many other "status quo" Western leaders, if you want to characterize it in a more fair and/or dickish manner.

By the way, were you for or against Obama in 2008?

Senate Democrats on Wednesday elected Chuck Schumer of New York to lead the party into the Trump era, while Senate Republicans re-elected Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to be the key legislative bridge to the next administration.

Schumer had hoped he might be the majority leader if his party recaptured the Senate, working closely with Hillary Clinton’s administration. Instead, the New York Democrat will serve as the party’s key counterweight to a Trump presidency as minority leader.

“We needed a sharper, bolder, stronger economic message and we needed to let Americans understand what we all believe – that the system’s not working for them and we’re going to change it,” Schumer said during a brief press conference after the elections.

Flanked by senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Schumer said Democrats would work with the incoming administration on areas where they agree, but said to expect a “strong and tough fight” where they don’t agree.

Asked about the appointment of Stephen Bannon, who has been called a champion of white supremacists, as a senior White House adviser, Schumer called his rhetoric “reprehensible” but stopped short of calling for his resignation.