Advisers bad-mouth Nielsen as a ‘never Trumper’
Advisers bad-mouth Nielsen as a ‘never Trumper’
The president, who demands the loyalty of his aides, is increasingly disenchanted with his homeland security chief.
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA and ELIANA JOHNSON
05/11/2018 04:28 PM EDT
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Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen is the latest senior administration official to bear the brunt of the president’s obsession with keeping “never Trump” Republicans out of his administration. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s frustration with Kirstjen Nielsen, which boiled over Wednesday in a Cabinet meeting tirade, has been growing for weeks — stoked by associates who have privately made the case that she’s a closeted “never Trumper” who still doesn’t fully back his agenda.
Trump’s advisers have been increasingly criticizing the Homeland Security chief in private conversations with the president, arguing that she isn’t doing enough to improve border security and noting that she wasn’t a vocal Trump supporter during the campaign, three people familiar with the internal discussions told POLITICO.
As a result, Trump has come to believe that Nielsen — who considered quittingthis week after the president berated her over an uptick in migrant arrests — is not focused enough on carrying out his immigration agenda, one of the people said. The president has told friends that he believes chief of staff John Kelly, with whom he has a strained relationship, foisted his deputy Nielsen upon him, according to two of the people, complaining that he didn’t know what he was getting.
“He was surprised, after Kelly pushed for her nomination, to learn that she was a Bushie in the 43 administration and was not a Trump supporter during the campaign,” one former administration official said.
For now at least, Nielsen is staying put. Fox News reported Friday afternoon that Trump called Nielsen this week to implore her not to quit. And White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters on Friday the president still backs Nielsen: “As we’ve said many times before, if the president no longer has confidence in a Cabinet member, he’ll let you know.”
A DHS spokesman said Nielsen “is committed to carrying out President Trump’s security-focused agenda of securing our borders, enforcing our immigration laws and empowering DHS front-line personnel to do their jobs.” Nielsen said in a statement Thursday that she shares Trump’s “frustration” about unauthorized border crossings and “will continue to direct the department to do all we can to implement the president’s security-focused agenda.”
She’s the latest senior administration official to bear the brunt of the president’s obsession with keeping “never Trump” Republicans out of his administration, a preoccupation that hobbled efforts to recruit appointees to the State Department and National Security Council early in Trump’s presidency because of the number of experienced George W. Bush administration alumni who signed letters opposing him during the campaign.
Nielsen doesn’t appear to have publicly criticized Trump during the campaign or since. She served on the White House Homeland Security Council under George W. Bush, worked as a consultant advising private companies and government officials on infrastructure and cybersecurity before joining the Trump administration as chief of staff to Kelly at DHS. She followed Kelly to the White House as his deputy in July 2017.
Nielsen struggled to find allies in the West Wing as she helped Kelly impose order in the aftermath of Reince Priebus’ ouster, earning the nickname “Nurse Ratched” from her colleagues—a reference to the vicious head nurse who presided over the asylum in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
But Trump’s apparent distaste for her dates back to late 2017, after he nominated her to succeed Kelly at DHS. Nielsen told senators during her confirmation hearing that government officials “owe” DACA recipients a permanent solution and added, “There is no need for a wall from sea to shining sea.”
On the surface, Nielsen’s comments seemed mundane. Her quip about the border wall was almost a verbatim recitation of then-DHS Secretary Kelly’s remarks from earlier that year and Trump himself had been pushing Congress to find a long-term answer to DACA.
Trump’s conservative supporters nonetheless pounced — and the president himself was listening to their complaints. Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs, who regularly speaks privately with the president, called Nielsen’s comments “outrageous” during his prime-time show and his guest, former White House aide Sebastian Gorka, added, “She has a track record before coming into government of being pro-open borders.” Ann Coulter dubbed Nielsen an “open borders zealot.”
Trump, in the words of one person close to him, was “livid” about conservatives’ reaction to Nielsen. Last week, Axios reported that Trump had considered pulling her nomination, prompting Kelly to threaten to quit. The president’s relationship with Nielsen, who increasingly has become the face of his immigration policy, never fully recovered.
“The department is crumbling, and she is actively being undermined by Trump appointees, and career folks simply do not like her,” said one former Bush administration official who worked with Nielsen, who added: “No one on the outside has any sympathy for her. She treated people the same way she’s being treated.”
Annie Karni contributed to this report.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/11/kirstjen-nielsen-never-trumper-white-house-loyalty-583914
Trump Allies Slam DHS Secretary Nielsen as ‘Never Trumper’
by JOHN BINDER
13 May 2018
Washington, D.C.
1,820 comments
President Trump allies in the White House privately slam Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as a “Never Trumper,” a new report alleges.
According to sources with Politico, Trump’s allies in the administration are not keen on Nielsen’s running of DHS, allegedly calling her a member of the failed “Never Trump” movement.
The Politico report claims that “associates” of Trump make “the case that she’s a closeted ‘never Trumper’ who still doesn’t fully back his agenda.”
Breitbart News was the first to report on Nielsen’s ties to the Never Trump movement last year. For example, former Bush official Tom Ridge praised Nielsen as a “homeland security veteran” and “a patriot” during her nomination process for the job. A year before, Ridge was one of 95 Republican establishment former national security officials who signed a letter opposing Trump in 2016 for his “America First” agenda.
Another example is Nielsen’s friend, former Bush official Frances Townsend, who praised her as well for the DHS nomination, calling her “tough as nails.” During the 2016 presidential election, though, Townsend signed a letter with other national security bureaucrats where she called Trump “so utterly unfitted to the office.”
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DHS pick has allied herself with the national security establishment that tried to derail Trump's victory.
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The sources tell Politico that Trump, like his advisers, is increasingly put off by Nielsen’s running of DHS where illegal immigration has soured at the U.S.-Mexico border for months.
One former White House official says Trump feels as though Chief of Staff John Kelly forced Nielsen on him for the DHS job, prompting Trump to want to rescind her nomination after he found out that she had a history of working for President George W. Bush.
Politico reports:
Trump’s advisers have been increasingly criticizing the Homeland Security chief in private conversations with the president, arguing that she isn’t doing enough to improve border security and noting that she wasn’t a vocal Trump supporter during the campaign, three people familiar with the internal discussions told POLITICO. [Emphasis added]
As a result, Trump has come to believe that Nielsen — who considered quitting this week after the president berated her over an uptick in migrant arrests — is not focused enough on carrying out his immigration agenda, one of the people said. The president has told friends that he believes chief of staff John Kelly, with whom he has a strained relationship, foisted his deputy Nielsen upon him, according to two of the people, complaining that he didn’t know what he was getting. [Emphasis added]
“He was surprised, after Kelly pushed for her nomination, to learn that she was a Bushie in the 43 administration and was not a Trump supporter during the campaign,” one former administration official said. [Emphasis added]
Breitbart News chronicled Nielsen’s history and record on immigration during her nomination process, exposing the depths to which she previously supported open borders.
Nielsen has allegedly come under fire by Trump and his advisers as illegal immigration has continued to skyrocket at the southern border. As Breitbart News reported, Nielsen supposedly was planning to quit after being berated by Trump on immigration during a cabinet meeting but was “implored” not to leave the administration by her close ally, John Kelly.
Last week, Nielsen went as far as to plead with foreign nationals to use the Ports of Entry to seek asylum during congressional testimony, despite the border being inundated with more than 30,000 asylum-seekers over the last three months of 2017.
One immigration expert who spoke to Breitbart News called Nielsen’s pleading for more asylum-seekers a “colossal mistake” that was “negligence in testimony.”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...never-trumper/
