"OK, you hang up."
"No, *you* hang up!"
"OK, OK. We'll both hang up at the same time!"https://t.co/TC3NsbGF9r pic.twitter.com/XI6exDlHAy— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) February 10, 2017
Olivia Nuzzi, who got her first big news break by attracting Anthony Weiner’s attention, provides an entertaining read for NYMag — “Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus Want You to Know They Are Friends“:
… Plenty of savvy media observers see obvious intent in the gush of leaks now coming out of the White House. “If you read between the lines in some of the anonymous quotes,” Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Obama, said, “it’s clear that Bannon, [Jared] Kushner, and Priebus are spending half their time blaming each other and the other half ensuring they don’t get the blame.”
But Bannon and Priebus said these impressions are wrong, and that rumors and reports that they are furiously leaking to gut each other and gain more sway with Trump are mostly media inventions. Any leaks come from lower down the totem pole. The truth, they said, is that they are rather chummy.
Bannon and Priebus spoke with me on a prearranged conference call, joined by Katie Walsh, Priebus’s deputy, and Lindsay Walters, deputy to press secretary Sean Spicer. For about 25 minutes, talking into Walsh’s cell phone on speaker mode, Bannon and Priebus performed a buddy comedy, finishing each other’s sentences and swearing up and down that they are good friends who work together well — and constantly.
“I’m quite aggressive, and Reince is a calming influence on hey — bang bang bang, here’s how we ought to think about doing that,” Bannon said, explaining how their personal styles complement each other.
“We talk a lot, pretty much all day long,” Priebus said. “And then we communicate at night —”
“Until we fall asleep,” Bannon interjected with a laugh.
Priebus cut in, “Until somebody falls asleep … You fell asleep last night.”
“I did,” Bannon said.
“I think, like, a quarter to 11,” Priebus added.
“I did,” Bannon said.
“He became unresponsive,” Priebus laughed.
Claims to the contrary, Priebus said, are upsetting to both of them. “It bothers us because it’s not true, and we actually like and care about each other a lot. So it’s sort of like, if we were just sort of colleagues that kind of tolerate each other every day, maybe it wouldn’t bother us. But because it’s the total opposite — and we’re sitting here, and we’re friends and we’ve kind of been to hell and back ten times together and we like each other — so then we see these things, yeah, it bothers us because it sort of hurts our friendship, and it’s not truthful.”…
But there’s a bipartisan perspective that what’s happening isn’t normal. Steve Schmidt, who served in the George W. Bush White House, told me that the tactics employed by Trump officials — like leaking as a means of harming the competition within — would have been “unthinkable” in the Bush or Obama administrations. “What you’re seeing here is a total lack of discipline and an utterly chaotic process,” he said, comparing it to Game of Thrones. Jon Favreau, the former director of speechwriting for President Obama, had a different reference. “Every White House has its share of leaks and infighting,” he said. “But this is like Hunger Games shit.”…
True or not, paranoia has certainly set in among vulnerable members of the administration and those within its orbit, the most worried of whom have focused their frustrations and concerns on Priebus. They’ve nicknamed him “Rancid,” the creature of the swamp they thought they were going to drain…
Remember, Priebus represents the lowest-common-denominator Permanent Republican Party, the people who will do anything as long as it helps them hang onto power. Bannon represents the “alt-right” white nationalists and nihilists, who will do anything for lulz. Consensus conclusion: Rooting for injuries!
Mnemosyne
Reading between the lines, Bannon finally passed out.
And doesn’t Priebus sound like an abused wife in denial? He only beats me because he loves me so much!
rikyrah
Two loathesome creatures ???
sukabi
Good Lord. I wonder if Bannon and Rancid Pen!s know they came off as “friends with benefits” in that piece…
An image I really didn’t need.
sukabi
Help…comment stuck in moderation…
Calming Influence
If I were anyone important in this White House, I’d be checking all my meals with a Geiger counter.
Amir Khalid
Everything I see, hear, and read about Trump — inept, uncouth, quarrelsome and unprepared for office — and his administration tells me that he and it are headed for an imminent collapse with horrible consequences. Yet I believe he and it will be allowed every opportunity to muddle through simply because no one one wants to live through that collapse.
By the way, I do believe Trump’s Platonic ideal of a high official in government is someone a lot like The Cigarette-Smoking Man — who works mostly outside the system, ignores its rules, and has absolute power. He certainly seems to think the Presidency gives him absolute power.
Amir Khalid
And as for Bannon and Priebus: they really suck at pretending they like each other, don’t they?
amk
Ryan
They didn’t nickname Rancid. That nickname was given to him years ago, not long after he became chair of the RNC IIRC.
efgoldman
@Amir Khalid: Hey, Amir. Long time no speak!!
Someone else mentioned you were back. I’m glad.
Your outlook on American politics has always been clear-eyed and oh, so, accurate.
After 200am on the East Coast. I’m to bed.
? Martin
Apologies for Politico, but I thought this was an interesting read.
I’d noted somewhere along the way that Russia’s LGBT laws and attitudes were pretty closely in step with the south, but it never really dawned on me in any broad way that US Christians see that alignment even more strongly.
But it seems to me that a plausible theory right now is that the WH is largely operated by Flynn and Bannon, both of whom have a clash of civilizations worldview between Christianity and Islam. Trump is an empty vessel to carry that message. Trump won over evangelicals despite his personal behavior, and he has this odd favoritism for Russia. I can see Flynn convincing Trump that Russia is the natural ally to defeat ISIS, and Trump going all-in on that viewpoint. I can see Bannon convincing Trump that immigration and abortion bans will be popular. And I can see Putin waiting arms-open for these guys to bring millions of intolerant Christian Americans to view Putin and his policies in the same way that our founders looked at France and their move toward democracy.
Chet Murthy
@Ryan: my fave nick for the creep is RNC PR BS
? Martin
@Amir Khalid:
I think that’s the decision we face. Do we aim for a spectacular flame-out, or a slow smoldering extinction? Personally, I’m for the former. Whatever crisis we’re going to stumble into before everyone decides enough is enough, let’s fucking get it over with so we can get on with the repairs. I don’t want a 4-year long slow-rolling accident. So yeah, go ahead and let his cabinet get barely confirmed. Let’s get them onto their business of stealing the silverware. Let’s just go ahead and repeal ACA and get this angry mob moving. The reason I’m okay with repealing the ACA, is that as David notes, the GOP are simply going to starve it to death until it collapses under it’s own weight. People are going to suffer either way, but I’d rather the GOP get blamed for the collapse than Obama. And the sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can fix it.
? Martin
Holy shit, this is so true
?BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin: OMG.
RandomMonster
Given the fact that Bannon usually looks like he just walked out of an episode of the Walking Dead, I’d say it’s just a matter of time before someone finds him somewhere in the West Wing, hunched over Priebus’s freshly killed corpse, tearing at entrails with his teeth.
Major Major Major Major
@? Martin: @?BillinGlendaleCA: wow. The Worst Person I Know Well(tm) has the same smile whenever he has to force a veneer of baby boomer tolerance over disgust and contempt.
Major Major Major Major
@RandomMonster: have you seen his treatment by The Onion?
RandomMonster
@Major Major Major Major: That is a thing of beauty
Major Major Major Major
@RandomMonster: they have another one about the White House staff reminding everybody not to leave the lid off the trash or else Bannon will get in it.
RandomMonster
@Major Major Major Major: Dog bless the Onion!
Mary G
@Amir Khalid: Add me to the horde of Juicers who are happy to see you commenting again. I remember November 8, the day that will live in infamy, and you begging us not to elect Voldemort, and people saying “don’t worry , Amir, we got this.”
Then hell froze over and here we are. I agree with Martin, rip the bandage off quickly. Doesn’t seem like it will take all that long, with the astounding level of malevolent incompetence on display.
Major Major Major Major
Well, I’m finally home from a gaymer event, sitting on the couch with a big ol cat on my lap and watching Travelers. Fun night, good antidote to the week.
Good late evening, y’all.
Brachiator
@? Martin:
I don’t understand how you think that “we” have any influence over what is happening, or will be in position to do cleanup.
The sad thing is that even with all the screwups, Trump and the Republicans have only just begun.
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: They’re patting each other on the back, looking for the spot to stick the knife.
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: hey, I emailed you about part 2 btw.
prostratedragon
From “The Pearl Fishers’ Duet”:
‘Ceptin I don’t think that’s a goddess …
Raven Onthill
Sigh. Don’t want to sleep, am so angry.
Just spent a bit of the evening looking through a book of Dorothea Lange photographs. The ones of the people displaced by the depression of the 1930s hurt, and then there was the photograph of Lange photographing a crowd of Japanese internees, and her excellently composed and lit photograph of two Japanese children wearing id tags as they waited to be sent to one of the camps. No fair! That book was supposed to be full of pictures of the past.
Also give Kwak’s Economism a very favorable review (five stars!)
But, oh the dreams Trump is killing.
& go see Hidden Figures!
NotMax
FYI.
Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire
@NotMax: This guy doesn’t know shit about the FAA or air traffic control. Just talking out his ass again.
? Martin
@NotMax: Nice. Pilots know fuck-all about how to do air traffic control.
hellslittlestangel
Reince: I’m gonna do a Night Of The Long Knives on you!
Steve: No, I’m gonna do a Night Of The Long Knives on you!
Keith P.
At least there isn’t much question as to which one is the top and which is the bottom.
Applejinx
@? Martin: I don’t know. Be damn careful what you wish for.
It’s funny you should say this because I was just downstairs reading various BJ posts and thinking, ‘some of these guys have always been there’. Like Elliott Abrams… it seems to me that ‘we’ go all in on a particular worldview, that America ‘was already great’, a whole thing that’s exemplified by our Democratic candidate this last time, and the whole idea seems to be ‘we’re totally not shit! we’re soooo much better, they’re the bad guys, we’re so awesome trust us!’
And it obviously didn’t work, but should it have worked? Our CIA has had regime change crap going on for decades and decades, and then we’re all shocked when WE are cheated. We let politics get in the way of basic environmental decency (I still think we were setting up to try and export fracking all over the world since it’s kind of our thing: they’ll never trust us now, and maybe that’s appropriate). We pursue trade agreements and alliances very much with an eye to how they can cement our global dominance (Obama’s done a fair amount of that, not least with the TPP), sometimes obviously with the understanding that we’re all answering to giant multinational corporations now, and we don’t step back and ask ‘is any of this remotely okay?’.
There’s nothing BUT scab. Be careful what you wish for, the amount of damage we could get is hard to conceptualize.
To take the softer, gentler path is to maybe begin to ask questions about where the hell we are going in this handbasket anyway. I see people enthusiastic about wrecking the handbasket and being FREEEE! to go our own way with the good politicians and wise, responsible CEOs and corporations!
What are you going to do when it’s just shit all the way down, it’s all Elliott Abramses, and we get out of the handbasket to learn we’re falling into a tank of toxic waste? Or a minefield, since war is one of the things on the table when we’re heading into a Crusade against a world religion?
I guess I’m really not. As I see it, our institutions and governance are already so compromised and tainted that I don’t think we’ll survive the result of that. My best case scenario looks like people in power going ‘ooo fuck, that’s not gone well!’ and trying to cover up the complete shitshow that is our country, by making a lot of concessions and adjustments so they can keep people pretending. We would have had that if Trump had lost. It seemed like a problem, until we seriously consider the alternative.
? Martin
Oroville Dam should now be about 10 inches from overtopping. Looks like it’ll spill over around 8AM. They currently have 55,000 cubic feet per second flowing down the spillway. Once it overtops, they’ll have an additional 40,000 cubic feet per second flowing down the emergency spillway. I can’t imagine the river can absorb that much water for very long before it hits flood stage.
? Martin
@Applejinx: My experience is people don’t really wake up and act until things get bad enough to force them to expend the energy. A smoldering fire don’t change anything. A flameout does.
But I totally take your point. It’s not something to wish for. Both options are terrible. But at the same time, we keep repeating this same mistake.
XTPD
@? Martin: TBH, ever since Allen/VandeHei left (and even before them, when Grunwald became assistant editor) only Shafer and Lowry have proved consistently unreadable.
liberal
@Raven Onthill: Kwak was one of the best commenters on the 2008 debacle.
liberal
@? Martin: Big threat isn’t dismantling the ACA or large-scale corruption, horrible as those are, but rather war.
Anyone want to give odds on us getting into a hot war with Iran in the next four years?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Seems like the Democrats could easily get Bannon fired. Just talk about how “Bannon is really running the show behind the scenes” every time they’re in front of a camera and Trump will lose his shit and fire the guy, because the one thing he can’t abide is someone else stealing his thunder. He tweeted about it earlier this week when there were some Bannon is running things stories in the press. Keep that in the press and on the TeeVee he watches 24/7 and he will lose it. Worth a shot.
NeenerNeener
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Yeah, if enough of the world goes “Mean Girl” on Trump he’s bound to crack.
retiredeng
@NotMax: Small mind. Trump can’t see air traffic control is different than piloting a plane just as juggling chainsaws is different than sawing down a tree.
ET
There is no way that a milquetoast representation of the party establishment is chummy with a flamethrower Anarchist.
sdhays
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Heck, if SNL does a skit on that every week, Bannon will be probably gone in a month, especially if a woman like Rosie O’Donnell plays him. I saw something about the Dump White House interviewing new press secretaries already.
randy khan
@NotMax:
So if you click the link in the linked article to see the full story on the Trump meeting with the airlines, it gets even worse. And at the end he throws in how he’s going to make air travel, trains, and roads much better. I was half-expecting him to add that highway rest areas will all become spas.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Oh good lord, like this is nothing new – one always delegates the actual backstabbing to proxies.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@? Martin: Seriously, politics aside, it’s obvious from the body language this man is lying. Why don’t so many people not see that?
Stan
“Never believe a rumor until it has been officially denied”
This is all the proof we need that they hate each other.
rachel
It’s the truth in the sense that each is hoping for the day he can use the other for chum.
sukabi
@retiredeng: well yeah… If a low t mediocre conman can be president a pilot can certainly run the faa…