"The president continues to call … Stephen K. Bannon, from his personal phone when Kelly is not around." https://t.co/T7kLGDTfIH
— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) September 1, 2017
The nuns in my childhood parochial school were not fans of self-esteem. One of the first things they taught us (right after handing out little blue Baltimore Catechisms, which were just on the verge of being declared obsolete) was that if we’d done something wrong, we should feel terrible about ourselves. Guilt and shame were God’s way of discouraging us from persisting in bad behavior. Donald Trump, of course, is incapable of either guilt or shame… but at least I can take pleasure in seeing that he’s not enjoying his ill-gotten office!
President Trump spent the final days of August dutifully performing his job. He tended to the massive recovery from Hurricane Harvey. He hit the road to sell his tax-cut plan. And he convened policy meetings on the federal budget and the North Korean nuclear threat.
Behind the scenes during a summer of crisis, however, Trump appears to pine for the days when the Oval Office was a bustling hub of visitors and gossip, over which he presided as impresario. He fumes that he does not get the credit he thinks he deserves from the media or the allegiance from fellow Republican leaders he says he is owed. He boasts about his presidency in superlatives, but confidants privately fret about his suddenly dark moods.
And some of Trump’s friends fear that the short-tempered president is on an inevitable collision course with White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly.
Trump chafes at some of the retired Marine Corps general’s moves to restrict access to him since he took the job almost a month ago, said several people close to the president. They run counter to Trump’s love of spontaneity and brashness, prompting some Trump loyalists to derisively dub Kelly “the church lady” because they consider him strict and morally superior…
Meanwhile, people close to the president said he is simmering with displeasure over what he considers personal disloyalty from National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, who criticized Trump’s responses to a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. He also has grown increasingly frustrated with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has clashed with the president on issues including Afghanistan troop levels, the blockade on Qatar and Cuba policy…
Friends used to be able to call the White House and be patched directly through to Trump; now those calls are routed through Kelly and do not always make it to the president. Friends used to drop by the West Wing when they had time to kill, wandering to the Oval Office to say hello; now they must have an official appointment — and a clear reason — to visit.The changes are largely welcomed by senior administration officials, who say the president’s time is too valuable to be wasted on chitchat and hangers-on.
But Trump sometimes defies — and even resents — the new structure. He has been especially sensitive to the way Kelly’s rigid structure is portrayed in the media and strives to disabuse people of the notion that he is being managed. The president continues to call business friends and outside advisers, including former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, from his personal phone when Kelly is not around, said people with knowledge of the calls.
“Donald Trump resists being handled,” said Roger Stone, a former Trump adviser and longtime confidant. “Nobody tells him who to see, who to listen to, what to read, what he can say.” Stone added, “General Kelly is trying to treat the president like a mushroom. Keeping him in the dark and feeding him s— is not going to work. Donald Trump is a free spirit.”…
I personally hope Trump’s “free spirit” gets to share a Supermax cell with Roger ‘Ratfvcker’ Stone.
This whole personal device being used for government work thing seems familiar https://t.co/7VL1i5Q7V0
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) September 1, 2017
Everyone who voted for Trump because they were fake-outraged about the security of Hillary IT practices is gonna be so not mad about this. https://t.co/SfwcPBgg21
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) September 1, 2017
"Steve, I only have a minute before Kelly comes knocking" pic.twitter.com/XYkuxoLVjZ
— Randy Phelps (@RandyLPhelps) September 1, 2017
TenguPhule
But her emails! //
rikyrah
We really should have had a BJ pool about how long Kelly would last??
Wallis Lane
This just makes me picture Trump on the phone with his pals doing a version of “Telephone Hour” from “Bye Bye Birdie”:
“Hello Mister Kelly, this is Stevie Bannon, can I speak to Donald J. Trump.”
“What’s the reason for the treason, what’s the word, jailbird.”
satby
Good morning, since I won’t be around later to say it.
Continuing to root for injuries and jail time for everyone even peripherally associated with Drumpf, his family, and his administration. Except for Barron, I consider the kid a hostage.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
“President Trump spent the final days” link seems to be empty or broken.
sharl
@Steeplejack: The two long excerpts combined in A.L.’s blockquote box appear to come from a recent WaPo piece: During a summer of crisis, Trump chafes against criticism and new controls (by Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker; August 31 at 6:31 PM). I didn’t do a word-for-word visual comparison, but looks pretty close.
Amir Khalid
We all foresaw this when John Kelly was first appointed to the Chief of Staff job. Kelly is inevitably going to get fired for doing his job right. Imposing discipline on the White House was always going to require imposing it on POTUS, who is the most undisciplined person there, the ultimate source of its current state of chaos, and who lashes out at those who urge discipline upon him.
Anne Laurie
@Steeplejack: Better now?
Steeplejack (phone)
@sharl:
I got that. I had seen the story previously. I was pointing out the broken link so she could fix it.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Anne Laurie:
Yes, it works now.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Confounds the Science
Hello darkness my old friend.
It’s time for him to tweet again….
mai naem mobile
I don’t know if a front pager had.posted this but Kris Kobach was on MSNBC with Ali Velshi anf Stephanie Ruhle. He’s just such an asshole. I didn’t know he was running for KS gov and I bet the POS will win.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/stephanie-ruhle-and-kris-kobach-get-into-heated-debate-over-daca-im-sorry-sir-no/amp/
BTW am I the only one who’s never saw Stephanie Ruhle before MSNBC? I don’t know where’s she from but NBC would have been better promoting her and Tamron Hall instead of wasting all that money on Megan Kelly
raven
@mai naem mobile: She’s been on quite a bit for a couple of months.
JMG
My favorite part of the Trump-Kelly articles is where Trump is quoted as saying “Now I have time to think.” In the context of the articles, he’s complaining.
hellslittlestangel
You presidency is bad and you should feel bad!
Betty Cracker
Good morning, peeps. Glorious three-day weekend ahead, and the updated track for Hurricane Irma looks promising; most models now show it hooking hard north and west and possibly missing land altogether. Huzzah!
I’ll be leaving home later this morning to spend a few days at the beach with my sister and a couple of old friends we’ve known since childhood.
Despite living within walking distance of a beach and frequently visiting other beaches, I’m really not a beach person because I burn easily. But I am looking forward to seeing and possibly photographing shore birds. I will go for walks on the beach early in the morning and at sunset.
I’m putting together a playlist for the trip, which is a pleasant task. Also planning the two meals I’m in charge of over the weekend: a breakfast and a dinner. I’m thinking some sort of pasta for the latter and perhaps croque madames for the former.
I hope everyone has a great Labor Day! (Except Trump. Hope that sumbitch is miserable!)
bystander
@mai naem mobile: I think Ruhle started out in an investment bank and left there for financial reporting at Bloomberg. I never watch Bloomberg, but I think that’s where her tv career began. She and Ali Velshi appear to work well together, and they did a nice double slapping team maneuver on a couple of rightwing economic doubletalkers.
Raven
@Betty Cracker: It’s 62 here and sposed to be a high of 80! 6pm kickoff !!!
Betty Cracker
@Raven: Great football weather. I’m so goddamned mad about the stupid Gators, I could spit nails. Le sigh.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Betty Cracker:
Is there any other kind?
Betty Cracker
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
JGabriel
@satby:
Children with father’s who were over 50 or 60 at conception tend to have much higher rates of schizophrenia and autism. Add in the social isolation that comes from having crazy parents, and the presidential security bubble, and, yeah, the difference between Barron and a hostage seems pretty negligible.
JGabriel
@mai naem mobile:
The great Gazooglepedia says:
ET
This post title was ringing a bell though I am not sure you intended it to – Death Cab for Cutie’s Pity and Fear.
Well
Vhh
@mai naem mobile: Kansas finally blew off their wingnut governor Brownback who wrecked their budget and economy with tax cuts for business and the rich. The GOPer legislators overrode his veto and raused taxes, so Brownback’s taking a Trump gig as Ambassador for Religious Freedom, whatever that is. If they vote in Kobach, they’ll get more of the same, plus expensive legal bills for his unconstitutional voter suppression activities.
mai naem mobile
@JGabriel: Ruhle is really good. I am glad she’s on MSNBC but she should be replacing any nber of morons on CNBC who can’t atop giving CEOS tongue baths. I thought maybe she was from CNN. She has that CNN feel to her. I don’t have Bloomberg.
Mr. Prosser
The article said that Trump “pines for the days.” I doubt he pines, that would put him on the level with a Norwegian Blue, which even when laying on the bottom of a cage is more competent than Il Douche.
Amaranthine RBG
Max Boot spent the first 1 or 15 years of his career as a Chamber of Commerce shill at the WSJ.
Then he wrote a book and became a national security “expert”.
Always a bit disconcerting seeing such a reprehensible person promoted in the nominally leftist blogosphere.
sdhays
@Amir Khalid: It’s not even the discipline that will end Kelly’s term, it’s that the credit for imposing discipline will not go to the shit-flinging baby monkey in the Oval Office but “the help”. If the media was saying how brilliant Donald Trump is for imposing discipline on his White House, Kelly could last, even with Trump chafing at the new strictures. But since everyone knows that Trump is a shit-flinging baby monkey, they know that he’s not the source of the discipline and therefore deserves no credit for it.
So Trump gets nothing out of this personally (no fawning praise, just regarded and as an upset, incontinent, infant primate), and he doesn’t give a shit about his “job” or “the country”, so he will end it eventually, probably around the time indictments start getting handed out and he realizes that fake discipline isn’t going to save him and his cronies from the po-po.
NMgal
@rikyrah: Dead thread, but… when the appointment was announced, I went on record with friends (and maybe here, not that I’m a frequent commenter) for 63 days. That was July 28, so we got, what, 36 days under our belt… carry the two…. 27 days to go!