McCain Warns Trump

[bostonangler]

McCain Warns Trump on Putin as Transition Shows Signs of Disarray

By JASON HOROWITZ, HELENE COOPER, JENNIFER STEINHAUER and ADAM GOLDMANUPDATED 4:31 PM

The jockeying for power in the incoming administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump and on Capitol Hill is exposing frayed nerves and lingering anger — but also the seeds of new leadership in both parties.

McCain to Trump: Don’t get cozy with Putin.

Senator John McCain issued a blunt warning on Tuesday to President-elect Trump and his emerging foreign policy team: Don’t try another “reset” with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump described Mr. Putin as a strong leader and suggested that the United States and Russia might join forces in fighting the Islamic State. Mr. Putin congratulated Mr. Trump on his election in a phone call on Monday and discussed working together to combat terrorism and resolve the crisis in Syria, according to the Kremlin’s account.

That was too much for Mr. McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who cautioned the incoming administration not to be taken in by “a former K.G.B. agent.”

“The Obama administration’s last attempt at resetting relations with Russia culminated in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and military intervention in the Middle East,” Mr. McCain, the newly re-elected Arizona Republican, said in a statement.

“At the very least, the price of another ‘reset’ would be complicity in Putin and Assad’s butchery of the Syrian people,” he added. “This is an unacceptable price for a great nation. When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side of those fighting tyranny. That is where we must stand again.”

Jobs by the thousands, but few takers.

Rebekah Mercer, the scion of a powerful family of conservative donors and a member of Mr. Trump’s executive transition committee, has had little success in her mission to solicit names and résumés for potential administration posts, according to a person familiar with her outreach efforts.

Ms. Mercer, 42, the daughter of the New York investor Robert Mercer, has told Republican operatives and members of previous administrations that she was having trouble finding takers for posts at the under secretary level and below. She also made it clear that the transition team was more than a month behind schedule and on a tight timeline, the person said.

The Mercer family has invested tens of millions of dollars in conservative causes and is considered especially close to Stephen K. Bannon, the chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign who was named as his senior presidential adviser. Mr. Mercer reportedly invested $10 million in Breitbart, the right-wing news site previously run by Mr. Bannon. Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, also previously oversaw a “super PAC” financed by the Mercer family.

Harry Reid: Democrats must defend the defenseless.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the outgoing minority leader, took to the Senate floor Thursday with a slew of stories about bullied children, racist attacks, and anti-Semitic acts, unholstered to bash Mr. Trump, his new hobby. “His election sparked a wave of hate crime across America. This is a simple statement of fact,” Mr. Reid said before imploring Democrats to stand as a force against Mr. Trump.

Reins at House Republican campaign committee change hands

Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio was named the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s campaign arm for House candidates, succeeding Representative Greg Walden of Oregon. In a statement, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan called Mr. Stivers “a talented leader.”

Trump team’s long memories are impeding the transition.

Eliot A. Cohen, who wrote one of the “Never Trump” pieces this year that called Mr. Trump’s view of American power and influence in the world “wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle,” said in an interview on Tuesday that a Trump transition aide had asked him for recommendations for the national security team.

But when Mr. Cohen, a former national security official in George W. Bush’s administration, suggested the caveat that many foreign policy hands would enlist only if there were credible people leading national security agencies and departments, he said he received a vituperative email in response.

The tone of the email surprised him, he said, expressing a level of vengefulness at odds with an administration that is trying to fill important national security positions with qualified people.

“They think of these jobs as lollipops,” Mr. Cohen said. “I think we’re on the verge of a crisis here.”

A filibuster threat against John Bolton, as Rudolph Giuliani rises.

With John Bolton, the former United Nations ambassador, emerging as a finalist for a senior national security post, even secretary of state, Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said on Tuesday that he would do “whatever I can” to block him.

Such opposition is improving the stock of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, to lead the State Department, but Mr. Paul is not so sure about him either, citing Mr. Giuliani’s “worrisome ties to foreign governments” on CNN.

 

The floating of Mr. Bolton as one of Mr. Trump’s contenders for secretary of state has baffled members of both parties, because his hawkish foreign policy worldview is so at odds with Mr. Trump’s campaign pitch for less military engagement in the world.

That is one area in which Mr. Paul, one of Mr. Trump’s rivals in the race for the Republican nomination, said he agreed with the president-elect.

“I can’t imagine supporting anyone who hasn’t learned the lesson of the last 20 years,” Mr. Paul said of Mr. Bolton, who was ambassador to the United Nations for George W. Bush during the escalation of the war in Iraq. Mr. Paul called Mr. Bolton “unrepentant.”

Global security consultant leaves the transition.

Matthew Freedman, the chief executive at Global Impact, a consulting firm, was removed from his post overseeing the National Security Council transition after questions emerged about his lobbying ties.

According to a former federal government official, Mr. Freedman had been using his Global Impact email to conduct official transition business. The official said that transition members were advised to use only their ptt.gov email, and that use of a business email was counter to transition policy.

Mr. Freedman has worked as a security consultant for decades, after a brief career with the federal government working for the National Security Council and the Agency for International Development. He started as a foreign government lobbyist in the 1980s, when he joined a company then led by Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, taking up prominent international clients, such as government officials from Nigeria and Argentina, and the dictator Ferdinand Marcos from the Philippines.

Reached by phone, Mr. Freedman declined to comment Tuesday.

A broader lobbyist purge underway?

Photo

 

Vice President-elect Mike Pence arrived at Trump Tower in Manhattan on Tuesday. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

Vice President-elect Mike Pence and Rick Dearborn, a Trump campaign staff member who is close to Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are going over the transition staffing list to make a “very concerted effort to clear house of any lobbyists,” said one transition official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. This means others beyond Mr. Freedman will likely be purged as well.

Two rich investors, two big cabinet posts

Carl Icahn, a business magnate who is close to the president-elect, tipped his hand on Twitter: Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs financier and hedge fund founder, seems to have an inside track to be Treasury secretary; and Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor and turnaround artist, could be Commerce secretary.

And one of them hints at the ‘huge’ tax cut to come?

Mr. Mnuchin, Mr. Trump’s national campaign finance chairman, does seem to have big plans.

Spotted entering Trump Tower on Tuesday, he told reporters, “We’re working on the economic plan with the transition, making sure we get the biggest tax bill passed, the biggest tax changes since Reagan, so a lot of exciting things in the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.”

Mr. Trump has called for deep tax cuts for people at all income levels, consolidation of tax brackets, higher standard tax deductions, the elimination of the death tax and lower corporate tax rates. He has also called for ending “special interest loopholes” and he has said he wants to end the “carried interest” provision that benefits private equity groups.

The estimated cost to the treasury of those plans is more than $5 trillion over 10 years. To put that in perspective, George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 — the largest in history — were a wee $1.35 trillion over a decade.

Ben Carson declines health posts.

Ben Carson spent months trying to persuade voters to elect him president, but, according to his spokesman, he does not think he is qualified to run a federal agency in the Trump administration.

According to the spokesman, Armstrong Williams, who is also Mr. Carson’s business manager, Mr. Trump offered the retired neurosurgeon a “buffet” of job options as a reward for being a loyal ally after dropping out of the race for the Republican nomination.

“The president-elect said, ‘Ben, tell me whatever you want to run, it will be yours,’” Mr. Williams recounted.

But Mr. Carson has no experience running large enterprises, Mr. Williams said, and did not think it would be a wise move to start in the new administration. Mr. Carson had been discussed as a candidate to lead the Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Education, or to be surgeon general.

“He’d be like a fish out of water,” Mr. Williams said.

Is Kellyanne Conway, the victorious campaign manager, out?

Photo

 

Kellyanne Conway spoke at the Wall Street Journal’s C.E.O. Council in Washington on Monday. Credit Al Drago/The New York Times

Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager who was often credited with steadying his roiling political machinery, may not go to the White House, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

Ms. Conway, Mr. Trump’s final campaign manager, sanded down the candidate’s rougher edges in her television appearances, but she has four young children and is weighing what a move to the West Wing would do to them.

Instead, she may remain on the outside, as a voice for the new administration on television or with a new “super PAC” set up to support the president-elect’s activities.

Democrats are not immune from the disarray.

Amid rising calls for change in Democratic leadership, House Democrats decided in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday to postpone their leadership elections until Nov. 30.

After last week’s bruising loss, there have been rumblings among some Democrats that perhaps a new leader should replace Representative Nancy Pelosi of California in the role she has held since 2003. Some members have urged Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio to run, and he is considering it, his office said Monday.

Mr. Ryan, a former football player from the Youngstown area, is in stark contrast with Ms. Pelosi, an affluent scion of a Baltimore political family long ensconced in San Francisco, one of the country’s most liberal bastions.

But House Republicans are all smiles.

Photo

 

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, center, at a House Republican leadership meeting, spoke to the news media in Washington on Tuesday. Credit Al Drago/The New York Times

Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who was renominated to his position by his colleagues on Tuesday, gushed at the Capitol, “Welcome to the dawn of a new united Republican government,” noting that his team is working carefully with Mr. Pence on a common agenda.

Mr. Ryan added that he saw no problem with Mr. Trump’s children serving in the administration, saying the president-elect was “so successful because he’s surrounded himself with good people.”

Long gone are all those qualms about endorsing Candidate Trump or campaigning for him.

[Whatshername]

Quote

By JASON HOROWITZ, HELENE COOPER, JENNIFER STEINHAUER and ADAM GOLDMAN

Dang... so much wild speculation and outright lies... it took 4 people to write it!   

[bostonangler]

21 minutes ago, Whatshername said:

Dang... so much wild speculation and outright lies... it took 4 people to write it!   

It's just a news article, don't get your panties in a wad.

 

B/A

[Jaxinjersey]

2 minutes ago, bostonangler said:

It's just a news article, don't get your panties in a wad.

 

B/A

Where'd it come from, B/A???

[Whatshername]

 

11 minutes ago, Jaxinjersey said:

Where'd it come from, B/A???

Same place as this crap...  

Can you feel the “disarray” “shake-ups” “chaos””uncertainty” and “turmoil” of the Trump administration? Yeah, neither can I.

November 15, 2016 BFH 

According to the NY Times we should be worried, very worried. The Trump transition team has ground to a halt and it’s a complete mess and the sky is falling...

[Jaxinjersey]

48 minutes ago, Whatshername said:

Dang... so much wild speculation and outright lies... it took 4 people to write it!   

Ahhh, yes.... four people for four words... "The New York Times".   Makes sense now.  Thanks WHN!

[RV ME]

25 minutes ago, Jaxinjersey said:

Where'd it come from, B/A???

Probably one of those right leaning Republican sites.

[MyLadiesDaddy]

New York  WHAT? John WHO? 

I love to make predictions and so this is gonna be one of those times. Give six months and the only idiots crying about a Trump Presidency will be the LYING LAMESTREAM COMMUNIST MEDIA. With the minor few exceptions of course. 

[pokerplayer]

14 minutes ago, Jaxinjersey said:

Ahhh, yes.... four people for four words... "The New York Times".   Makes sense now.  Thanks WHN!

I really like reading your posts Jax. You stay calm even when attacked and most often make a lot of sense.

Kudos my friend

pp

[Whatshername]

17 minutes ago, Jaxinjersey said:

"The New York Times"  

 

17 minutes ago, RV ME said:

Probably one of those right leaning Republican sites.

 

Well one thing's for sure... dishonest, left-leaning RINO's    the NYTimes!

[Jaxinjersey]

1 minute ago, pokerplayer said:

I really like reading your posts Jax. You stay calm even when attacked and most often make a lot of sense.

Kudos my friend

pp

Thanks PP... I appreciate your noticing!  I have a lot of practice... and just let objectivism be my primary voice.  And when I'm drinking... it only gets more fun!!! 

Thanks again my northern friend! 

[pokerplayer]

22 minutes ago, pokerplayer said:

I really like reading your posts Jax. You stay calm even when attacked and most often make a lot of sense.

Kudos my friend

pp

A rubie for making a compliment to a fellow poster must mean LGD or Shabs is in the house !!

Bring them on you 2, I have chain mail on for defense.

pp

Edited November 15, 2016 by pokerplayer

[pokerplayer]

Great article B/A. Thanks for posting

pp

[divemaster5734]

2 hours ago, bostonangler said:

McCain Warns Trump on Putin as Transition Shows Signs of Disarray

 

John McCain sold his soul for membership to the globalist's.

He married into the CFR, and has been a traitorous RINO hiding behind a media endorsed label "maverick".

I very much respect his service record, but as for the last 10 years, not so much.

Harry Reid, Pelosi, clinton, and Oscumbag have all "warned" Trump as well as the McDonnell/McCain commie con camps.

McCain doesn't carry the weight he did when he was busy sucking up to Bush, and all he is doing is humiliating himself.

 

 

[SgtFuryUSCZ]

***///

Exactly right, DIVEMASTER.... we were saddened to see a fellow Veteran go over to the dark side...

Trump's words regarding his opinion of this war hero were tough,

but ya had to know what was behind it... see, Trump knows the awful truth, too.

 

The MSM tore Trump up for it... but they knew better and didn't dare drag it out too far for fear

of one of theirs being exposed for what he had really become... 

Trump wasn't all wrong... he just said it wrong.

[MyLadiesDaddy]

5 hours ago, SgtFuryUSCZ said:

***///

Exactly right, DIVEMASTER.... we were saddened to see a fellow Veteran go over to the dark side...

Trump's words regarding his opinion of this war hero were tough,

but ya had to know what was behind it... see, Trump knows the awful truth, too.

 

The MSM tore Trump up for it... but they knew better and didn't dare drag it out too far for fear

of one of theirs being exposed for what he had really become... 

Trump wasn't all wrong... he just said it wrong.

Don't we all sometime's 

[SgtFuryUSCZ]

5 hours ago, ladyGrace'sDaddy said:

Don't we all sometime's 

***///

True dat....!  And sometimes when we do it here, we get castigated as well... it's a human thing !

[Shabibilicious]

14 hours ago, pokerplayer said:

A rubie for making a compliment to a fellow poster must mean LGD or Shabs is in the house !!

Bring them on you 2, I have chain mail on for defense.

pp

I don't give negs, pookie......I'm above such silliness.  I leave it to the really deep thinkers who believe negs are not only acceptable, but serve an essential purpose.  Some have even written large daunting op-eds defending the mastery of negging.    Don't let your paranoia define who you are......you can beat it.  

GO RV, then BV

[Charlene]

John McCain, the proven rino, can suck rotten eggs for all I care.  

[Shabibilicious]

7 minutes ago, Charlene said:

John McCain, the proven rino, can suck rotten eggs for all I care.  

Rotten eggs would have been a delicacy during those 6 years he spent in a P.O.W. cage protecting his subordinates.  As always, just a veteran's opinion.   

GO RV, then BV 

[Whatshername]

I think it's fair to say that McCain has done great service AND great DISservice to this country.  My respect for the man is a wash at best.  He's just an old, stale, career politician who needs to go IMO.

[Shabibilicious]

50 minutes ago, Whatshername said:

I think it's fair to say that McCain has done great service AND great DISservice to this country.  My respect for the man is a wash at best.  He's just an old, stale, career politician who needs to go IMO.

This is a statement I agree with.  McCain has run his course.  It's time for him to ride off into the sunset of retirement....thanks for the service.  Some comments just happen to crawl up my sensitive veteran spine when I hear them though.  This is why I have always thought a stint in the military should be a requirement for any person seeking the office of POTUS....Dems, Repubs and all other parties alike.  It will never happen, but I can still hold onto the dream.  

GO RV, then BV