Trump Presidency Going Wild

Trump Presidency Going Wild

by Martin Hittelman

May 17, 2017

Table of Contents

Introduction

Trump’s Picks

Chief Strategist: Steve Bannon.

Chief of Staff: Reince Priebus. Priebus is the chairman of the Republican National Committee.

White House Counsel: Donald F. McGahn II

Press Secretary: Sean Spicer. Spice was the Republican National Committee chief strategist.

Counselor to the President: Kellyanne Conway.

Chief Policy Advisor: Stephen Miller

Budget Director: South Carolina Congressman Mick Mulvaney:

Securities and Exchange Commission Head: Jay Clayton

Attorney General: Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions.

Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson.

CIA Director: Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo.

National Security Advisor: former General Michael Flynn.

Director of National Security: Dan Coats.

Ambassador to the United Nations: South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

Ambassador to Israel: David Friedman.

Secretary of Homeland Security: Four-star General John Kelly

Secretary of Defense: Four-star general James "Mad Dog" Mattis.

Secretary for the Army: Vincent Viola.

Treasury Secretary: Steven Mnuchin.

Administrator of the Small Business Administration: Linda McMahon.

National Economic Council director: Gary Cohn.

Assistant to the President: Peter Navarro.

Secretary of Commerce: Wilbur Ross.

United States Trade Representative: Robert Lighthizer

Secretary of Education: Betsy DeVos.

Secretary of Energy: Rick Perry.

Secretary of the Interior: Congressman Ryan Zinke.

Environmental Agency administrator: Oklahoma State Senator Scott Pruitt.

Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tom Price.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Ben Carson.

Secretary of Agriculture: Sonny Perdue

Secretary of Veterans Affairs: David Shulkin

Secretary of Transportation: Elaine Chao.

Secretary of Labor: Andy Puzder.

Secretary of Labor: R. Alexander Acosta

Federal Communications Commission Chair: Ajit Pai

Senator Votes on Trump Nominees

Trump Quotes that Make Americans Proud to be Americans and May Help to Explain Trump’s Cabinet Picks

Trump on Twitter

Making Friends in Congress

On Senator Lindsey Graham:

Senator Ted Cruz: Ted Cruz

Senator Rand Paul:

Senator Marco Rubio:

Senator Elizabeth Warren:

Senator Jeff Flake: United States senator

Senator John McCain: United States senator

Representative Paul Ryan: House Speaker

Senator Ben Sasse: United States senator

Ben Carson: Retired neurosurgeon

Rick Perry Former Texas governor

Nikki Haley South Carolina governor

Mitt Romney:

Karl Rove: Former deputy White House chief of staff

On Ohio Governor John Kasich:

Introduction

Donald Trump was elected president of the United States by an electoral college vote of 306 to 232 on election night. On December 19, 2016, the electors voted and gave him 304 votes. Trump lost the popular vote 62.9 million to 65.5 - a margin of more than 2.6 million votes. Including all voters, Trump received 46.2% of the vote and Hillary Clinton received 48.2% of the vote. 5.6% of the voters voted for someone other than Trump or Hillary Clinton. If the vote from California was not included, Trump would have won the popular vote. Clinton received 61.7% of the vote in California with 4.3 million more votes than Trump.

Trump voters have their own opinionsin many important areas. In a recent poll by PPP pre-released to Rachel Maddow on MSNC on December 10, 2016 it was disclosed that:

President Obama’s overall approval rating is at 50% but is at 5% among Trump voters.
Even though the Dow Jones Industrial average went from 7,949 to 19,615, 39% of Trump voters believe that the stock market went down under Obama.
Even though the unemployment rate dropped form 7.8% in the Obama years, 67% of Trump voters believe that the unemployment rate rose under President Obama.
40% of Trump voters believe that Trump won the popular vote.
29% of Trump voters believe that the California vote should not be included in the popular vote.

Trump’s Picks

The Trump picks for his cabinet and his top advisors consist of some of the worst corporate offenders to be found. By “draining the swamp” Trump seems to have referred to his draining some of the swamp around the country and then bringing this scum to Washington, D.C.

Trump’s proposed cabinet is best defined by the phrase “the fox is guarding the hen house.”

His list of proposed appointees includes three generals and a number of millionaires and billionaires. His choices represent those most opposed to the work of the very agencies that they will presumably lead.

They include:

Chief Strategist: Steve Bannon.

Bannon chaired the Trump presidential campaign and has run the news site Brietbart. Breitbart is known as the home of the “alt-Right.” Stories on the site include: “Bill Kristol: Republican spoiler, renegade Jew,” “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy,” “Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?” and “Gay rights have made us dumber, it’s time to get back in the closet.” Bannon has often been accused of being an anti-Semite but denies this charge claiming he is just a United States nationalist. Bannon was a Goldman Sachs banker.

Chief of Staff: Reince Priebus. Priebus is the chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Priebus said his goal is “to create an economy that works for everyone, secure our borders, repeal and replace Obamacare and destroy radical Islamic terrorism.” On Cuba Priebus stated that “We’re not going to have a unilateral deal coming from Cuba back to the United States without some changes in their government’s repression, open markets, freedom of religion, political prisoners. These things need to change to have open and free relationships. And that’s what President-elect Trump believes and that’s where he is going to head.”

White House Counsel: Donald F. McGahn II

McGahn served as legal counsel during the Trump campaign. He had served as a Republican appointed member of the Federal Election Commission. In that role he helped defeat Democratic efforts to control the influence of money in elections. He has been quite successful in helping Republican legislator facing ethics and fund-raising concerns. His uncle, Paddy McGahn, has been a good friend of Trump although has had a few differences over the years.

Press Secretary: Sean Spicer. Spice was the Republican National Committee chief strategist.

Spicer is a Navy Reserve commander. Spicer worked as the assistant U.S. Trade Representative for media and public affairs in the President George W. Bush administration. Spicer cast doubt on the Intelligence community assessments of Russia's attempts to influence US elections. Spicer has become famous for inventing “alternate” facts while supporting Trump. He and Conway sometimes equal Trump in making false statements.

Counselor to the President: Kellyanne Conway.

Conway is a Republican pollster and has acted as a major spokesperson for Trump on television. She managed the Trump campaign during the general election. Before that she was an advisor to several candidates and did polling as well. She worked on reaching out to women. She was a regular commentator on cable news programs who became famous for always avoiding the issue being discussed and instead attacking Hillary Clinton.

Chief Policy Advisor: Stephen Miller

Stephen Miller attended Santa Monica High School and Duke University. At both he was a well known racist, gun lover, and writer of right-wing hate pieces. He wrote many of Donald Trump’s speeches during the presidential campaign. He is also a major author of Trump’s illegal Anti-Muslim travel ban. In support of Trump he has stated “The president’s powers...represent the apex of executive authority.” Miller served as “national campus coordinator, president, and co-founder” of a group, launched by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He claimed that the its mission was to end “the efforts of the radical left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values and disarm this country as it attempts to defend itself in a time of terror." After working for Michelle Bachmann, Miller took a communications job with Senator Jeff Sessions in 2009.

Budget Director: South Carolina Congressman Mick Mulvaney:

Approved by Senate on February 16, 2017 by party (except McCain voting Nay) of 51-49

Mulvaneyis a founder of the House Freedom Caucus – often referred to as the “Shutdown Caucus” for their willingness to shut down the government rather than raise the U.S. debt limit. He has been a strong advocate for slashing the federal government even more than most of his Republican colleagues would support. He has opposed some of their proposals and is considered one of the most outspoken tea party advocates.He is one of those Republicans that believe that science is some sort of plot by a group of leftists who only seek an excuse to take profits from large corporations intent on extracting oil, selling DDT, and generally making a profit despite the cost to the environment and the health of the people of the world. Mulvaney’s role in the new administration will be to help move spending requests through the Republican-controlled Congress.

Securities and Exchange Commission Head: Jay Clayton

Approved by a vote of 61-37-2 on May 2, 2017

Jay Clayton is a Wall Street lawyer who has represented Goldman Sachs and Barclays. He is expected, according to President Trump, to “undo many regulations which have stifled investment in American businesses, and restore oversight of financial industry in a way that does not harm American workers.” He helped Goldman Sachs get through regulatory scrutiny. His wife works at Goldman Sachs. With this and other appointments, Trump’s regime will have the power to change the way Wall Street is regulated (or not regulated).

Attorney General: Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions.

Approved by vote of 52-47 on February 8, 2017 with Democrat Manchun voting Yea.

Sessions was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Trump. Sessions is a leader in Congress in opposition to comprehensive immigration reform. Sessions wrote in a 2015 Washington Post opinion piece: "... What we need now is immigration moderation: slowing the pace of new arrivals so that wages can rise, welfare rolls can shrink and the forces of assimilation can knit us all more closely together." Sessions is also a climate change skeptic and even believes that “Carbon pollution is CO2, and that's really not a pollutant; that's a plant food, and it doesn't harm anybody except that it might include temperature increases.” He was blocked in 1986 from becoming a federal judge due to charges of racism stemming from his calling a black assistant U.S. attorney “boy” and joking that he thought Klan members were "OK, until he learned that they smoked marijuana."

Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson.

Tillerson was approved by a vote of 56-43 on February 1, 2017.

Tillerson is the head of Exon Mobil. Exon Mobil has a history of funding climate change denial and committing human right abuse around the world. Tillerson himself has made deals for Exon Mobil with repressive governments around the world including Equatorial Guinea in West Africa and Nigeria. He is a friend of Putin in Russia, made friends in Vietnam (which has not made China happy), challenged and lost oil rights in Venezuela, and made a deal in Iraq directly with the Kurdish administration in the north. Exon Mobil operates on six continents and has a stock market value in excess of $360 million. In short, Exon Mobil is the equivalent of a nation itself. According to Tillerson, American policy should be based on securing affordable access to energy and “where it comes from should be of little consequence to us, if it’s reliable.” Since the United States imposed sanctions on Russia’s oil industry in 2014 over its intervention in Ukraine, Exon Mobile has billions of dollars in deals that can’t move forward until the sanctions are lifted.

CIA Director: Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo.

Pompeo was approved by a vote of 66-32 on January 23, 2017.

Pompeo is a leader of the Tea Party in Congress. One of Hillary Clinton’s chief opponents in the Benghazi investigation. He has called for the continuance of bulk collection of domestic calling records. He has denounced the 2009 decision to close CIA black-site prisons as well as a requirement for interrogators to follow the Army Field Manual. Pompeo has received $357,000 in campaign contributions from the Koch brothers.

National Security Advisor: former General Michael Flynn.

Resigned on February 13, 2017 due to lying to Trump concerning contacts with Russia regarding sanctions.

Flynn was fired as chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency by President Obama. Flynn has made many hateful comments regarding Islam and believes in a wide range of far-right theories. In the introduction to the book “The Field of Flight,” Flynn wrote that radical Islamists: "are not alone, and are allied with countries and groups who, though not religious fanatics, share their hatred of the West, particularly the United States and Israel." The introduction continued, "Those allies include North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba and Venezuela." His son even claimed that Hillary Clinton was running a pedophile ring out of the back room of a Washington pizza parlor. General Flynn has also praised Breitbart’s racist Milo Yiannopoulos. Flynn said, in an October 2015 interview with the New York times that the CIA has “lost sight of who they actually work for.” “They work for the American people. They don’t work for the president of the United States.” Trump has echoed the message in response to the C.I.A report that Russia interfered with the U.S. election that the C.I.A. people involved are “the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction/”

Director of National Security: Dan Coats.

Coats is a former Indiana senator. He also served as ambassador to Germany under George W. Bush. He is known to be strongly anti-gay. He helped Bush sell the Iraq war. He was banned from entering Russia in 2014 as a reprisal for backing U.S. sanctions against Russia following the annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine.