Thread: "Another Nut Job Here Who Thinks He’s Running Things”

Angry Trump Reportedly Says Of Kelly: “I’ve Got Another Nut Job Here Who Thinks He’s Running Things”

ALLAHPUNDITPosted at 10:01 pm on January 22, 2018




That’s according to Gabriel Sherman, one of many reporters hearing rumblings about POTUS’s displeasurelately with his chief of staff. It’s not really a secret given Trump’s grumpy tweeting on Thursday morning after Kelly called him “uninformed” as a candidate about aspects of immigration policy the day before. We’re now four days removed from that and I still don’t understand what Kelly was doing on Fox News, of all places, undermining Trump’s authority on his bread-and-butter issue. Has he not heard of Steve Bannon? Does he not know what happens to aides who are seen as svengalis, pulling the president’s puppet strings and denying him his due as the very stable genius who’s steering our ship of state?
SEE ALSO: Mulvaney to Dems: What’s DACA worth to you?

Assuming the quote is accurate, this wouldn’t be the first time Trump has described a disfavored deputy as a “nutjob.” That’s the exact word he allegedly used in May during his Oval Office meeting with the Russian foreign minister to refer to the recently fired James Comey. If you believe Sherman, we may be referring to Kelly as “recently fired” soon too.

Donald Trump’s relationship with John Kelly, his chief of staff, fraught from the beginning, may finally have gone past the point of no return. Two prominent Republicans in frequent contact with the White House told me that Trump has discussed choosing Kelly’s successor in recent days, asking a close friend what he thought about David Urban, a veteran Washington lobbyist and political operative who helped engineer Trump’s victory in Pennsylvania. Ivanka is also playing a central role in the search, quietly field-testing ideas with people. “Ivanka is the most worried about it. She’s trying to figure who replaces Kelly,” a person who’s spoken with her said…

Trump has increasingly been chafing at the media narrative that he needs Kelly to instill discipline on his freewheeling management style. “The more Kelly plays up that he’s being the adult in the room—that it’s basically combat duty and he’s serving the country—that kind of thing drives Trump nuts,” a Republican close to the White House said. In recent days, Trump has fumed to friends that Kelly acts like he’s running the government while Trump tweets and watches television. “I’ve got another nut job here who thinks he’s running things,” Trump told one friend, according to a Republican briefed on the call. A second source confirmed that Trump has vented about Kelly, mentioning one call in which Trump said, “This guy thinks he’s running the show.” (A White House official said “it’s categorically false that Trump is unhappy with Kelly. “He’s only ever referred to him as the general, tough, can be rough, and commands respect.)

Urban had been mentioned as a candidate to succeed Reince Priebus in July, before Kelly landed the job. Where would the media get the idea that Trump “needs Kelly to instill discipline” on him? Well, per the Times, from Kelly himself:

Mr. Kelly has made little secret of the fact that he never wanted to be White House chief of staff, and took the job out of the same sense of duty that led him to a four-decade career in the Marines.

In the West Wing, Mr. Kelly seldom allows the staff to forget the dynamic, according to people who have observed him, often positioning himself as a one-man check against dangerous or reckless moves by the commander in chief. His loyalty is not to the president, “but to the Constitution and the country,” he has said, according to two people with direct knowledge of his remarks.

One of Sherman’s sources thought that Trump is less likely to fire Kelly and precipitate a new scramble for a chief of staff than to give him the Jeff Sessions treatment, where he whines about a disfavored deputy periodically on Twitter in hopes that he’ll quit but never quite musters the nerve to pull the trapdoor on him. The problem with trying that on Kelly is that he and Trump are in close quarters every day; Trump can snipe at Sessions and know that it may be weeks before he has to be alone with him but if he insults Kelly he’ll have to account for it to the man himself immediately. And not just any man but a four-star Marine general whom the Times claimed threatened to quit repeatedly early in his tenure (albeit less often recently) in order to get West Wingers to follow orders. As far back as September 1, just around a month after he’d become chief of staff, stories were already appearing in the media about Kelly and Trump grating on each other, with Trump having laid into Kelly so harshly at one point that the general told White House staffers he’d never been spoken to that way in 35 years of public service and wouldn’t stand for it again. God only knows how harsh it got behind closed doors after Kelly’s Fox News appearance last week.

One obvious possibility for why this is leaking is skullduggery by pro-amnesty Republicans. Kelly and Stephen Miller have become the chief obstacles in the West Wing to a compromise on DREAMers. Trump seems to want to make a deal but Kelly and Miller, the two core border hawks left in the White House, are reportedly pushing Trump to hang tough. If you’re a Lindsey Graham or Jeff Flake type who’s eager to create daylight between Trump and Kelly, leaking a story like this about tension between the president and his chief of staff is one way to create it. Maybe Kelly will quit, or maybe his own allies will read it and snipe back at the president anonymously, furthering angering Trump and convincing him that he’s better off ignoring Kelly and doing a deal with Graham. If not for Trump’s Thursday morning tweets it’d be easy to dismiss the whole thing and assume that he wasn’t as annoyed by Kelly’s “uninformed” comments as we might think. But the presidential Twitter account don’t lie.

According to Sherman, Trump’s also been chattering to friends lately that the polls are wrong and his approval rating is actually in the high 50s. All righty. Exit question: Who’s going to end up replacing Kelly? Urban would be qualified, I’m sure, but waaaaay too low-profile for the colorful cast of characters in the West Wing. And I’m not sure he has a sufficient crony quotient to satisfy Trump, despite having led his campaign in Pennsylvania. Trump’s had two personality mismatches as his chiefs of staff: Priebus was a yes-man but also a creature of the RNC, not an old-school Trumpist, while Kelly is a disciplined alpha male who came over from the military. What Trump probably wants this time (which is different from what he needs) is a true supplicant whom he knows well and trusts. I keep thinking Corey Lewandowski or Chris Christie will end up in the role, but Kellyanne Conway’s right there in the West Wing already and she checks most of the necessary boxes. When does Conway take over?

https://hotair.com/archives/2018/01/...tm_campaign=nl

Good! Now maybe Trump will fire that Bush era open borders zealot Gen John Kelly along with his pro-Amnesty DHS Chief Kirstjen Nielsen!

The judgmental way general Kelly looks at the president at times is a bit unnerving.

Fire Kelly...get Sheriff Joe Arpaio in there!

(Mr. Urban is part of the establishment, so he has been working as part of the pro-amnesty swamp. He worked for the liberal republican turned democrat Senator Arlen Specter who included in the 2006 proposed amnesty legislation that the United States would consult with Mexico before we built a wall.

Choosing David Urban would probably be going from bad to bad or worse. If Ivanka is involved, not a positive thing.)

David Urban

David Urban joined the Trump campaign in its early days working as an advisor in the Pennsylvania and Indiana primaries. After helping secure primary victories in those states, Mr. Urban moved to the Republican Convention in Cleveland where he served as the campaign’s senior political liaison at the convention. After the convention, Mr. Urban was named as a Senior Advisor on the campaign, leading the Trump campaign to a historic victory in Pennsylvania. As the new Administration was being sworn in, Politico named Mr. Urban as one of the 30 most powerful people in President Trump’s Washington. Mr. Urban currently serves as the President of the American Continental Group (ACG), a consulting firm, as well as a political commentator on CNN.



Mr. Urban has been referred to by both The New York Times and Politico as a “Prominent Republican/GOP lobbyist,” a “Mover and Shaker” by Campaigns and Elections Magazine, a “Top Influencer” by Politics Magazine, and a “big named lobbyist” by CNN. Roll Call identified “Urban [as] a member of Washington’s community of influential Republican moderates and pragmatists,” and The Hillhas named Mr. Urban as a “Top Lobbyist” who has “mastered the art of working Capitol Hill’s hallways.” In a profile of Mr. Urban, Philadelphia Magazine said that “when [Urban] talks, Members of Congress listen.”


Immediately before joining ACG, Mr. Urban served for five years as the Chief of Staff for United States Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA). Acting as the Senator’s senior advisor on legislative, political, media, and administrative matters in Pennsylvania and Washington, Mr. Urban was Senator Specter’s direct representative to the Senator’s Pennsylvania constituents as well as other Members of Congress, senior executive branch officials, ambassadors, and other officials of foreign governments. Mr. Urban represented Senator Specter as a part of the Senate Republican leadership and oversaw the Senator’s interests before the Judiciary, Appropriations, Veterans’ Affairs, and Environment and Public Works Committees.



From 1994 through 1997, Mr. Urban was an attorney in private practice. Mr. Urban’s diverse experiences in the law range from litigation involving director and officer corporate liability matters to structuring complex public bond financings for large health care systems. An active member of the Pennsylvania Bar, Mr. Urban is admitted to practice before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.



From 1986 through 1991, Mr. Urban served as an artillery officer in the United States Army’s storied 101st Airborne Division. Illustrative of his distinguished record of consistently high performance during his time in uniform, Mr. Urban was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious achievement while engaged in combat operations against Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.



Mr. Urban earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point, a Master of Government Administration degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Juris Doctor from the Temple University School of Law.

Mr. Urban has lectured at various universities, serving as an adjunct professor at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University.



https://www.acg-consultants.com/david-urban/

Choosing David Urban would probably be going from bad to bad or worse. If Ivanka is involved, not a positive thing.)

Seriously, get the jarvankas OUT OF THE WH! They are know nothing spoiled rich kids. kushner go have another conversation with lindsey graham - we abhor you and your giraffe neck democrat wife - she is not our kid! We did not vote for her! Go cry "daddy", be pushy elsewhere!

He Could Be Trump’s ‘Swampiest’ Pick Yet

Lobbyist David Urban would bring a mix of experience and baggage into the White House if he’s selected as chief of staff.

Lachlan Markay

06.01.17 1:00 AM ET



As Donald Trump once again weighs a shake-up his senior staff, a rumored candidate for the White House’s top job threatens to further derail Trump’s pledge to “drain the swamp.”

Veteran Republican lobbyist and Capitol Hill staffer David Urban is said to be in the running for a senior White House post, possibly replacing chief of staff Reince Priebus. Urban would bring to the West Wing not just a wealth of political experience but a roster of recent lobbying clients with business before the federal government and large sums riding on major administration policy decisions.


Urban’s hiring would underscore the degree to which Trump has not just failed to slow the revolving door between policymaking and Washington’s influence industry, but has, to a far greater degree than his predecessor, stacked his administration with the types of special interests that Trump pledged to purge from the halls of power.


Urban, formerly the top aide to the late Sen. Arlen Specter, was an early adviser to the Trump campaign and a key engineer of its upset victory in Pennsylvania. After the election, Urban was floated as a possible replacement for Priebus at the helm of the Republican National Committee. With a White House staff shakeup on the horizon, Urban is now in the running to take Priebus’s White House post, according to a Tuesday report from Axios.


If he makes the move, the White House will be forced to reckon with the potential ethics issues raised by Urban’s impressive roster of lobbying clients—nearly three dozen of them in 2017 alone, according to congressional disclosure forms—as it presses policy changes that dovetail with those clients’ interests.
Neither Urban nor White House press secretary Sean Spicer responded to a requests for comment on news that Trump is eyeing Urban for a senior post.


Urban’s name was first floated as a potential White House hire in late March. Since then, his firm, the American Continental Group, has signed seven new clients, according to congressional disclosure forms. All of them enlisted Urban personally.

Urban has worked to affect Medicare and Medicaid drug reimbursement rules on behalf of a pharmacy trade association as the White House and Congress hammer out details of a health care reform package. He represents major federal contractors such as General Dynamics, which signed a defense procurement dealwith Saudi Arabia ahead of Trump’s visit to the country last week. In April, Urban signed a company that solicits foreign investment in exchange for U.S. visas—a program criticized over widespread fraud allegations, and employed to great effect by the family of Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.


Urban’s firm also has a murky relationship with Goldman Sachs, the investment banking giant whose alumni include Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and White House deputy national security adviser Dina Powell. ACG inked a lobbying contract with Goldman on April 1, then canceled it the same day. Urban told Politico that the filing was made in error, but would not elaborate on the relationship.


Urban’s current clients also include a Mexican company seeking to minimize trade restrictions and preserve a landmark free trade agreement that Trump has pledged to dismantle. His move to the White House, if it happens, would occur right as the White House plots changes to that free trade agreement, and weighs a new trade regime for the U.S.’ southern neighbor.


Mexican automotive parts manufacturer Rossini International hired ACG on April 1, enlisting Urban and another of the firm’s lobbyists to work on border and taxation issues.

Rassini owns production facilities in Ohio and Michigan and it uses American materials in plants on both sides of the border, where the company manufactures automotive suspension and brake components. In a sense, the firm embodies criticism of Trump’s recent hostility toward foreign automotive importers: Many, such as the German automakers that the president singled out last week, have significant manufacturing operations in the United States.


But Rassini, like other Mexican and Canadian importers, stands to lose out if the president rolls back the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), though Rassini president Eugenio Madero told shareholders in November that he didn’t think Trump would pursue a wholesale U.S. withdrawal from the agreement, as he pledged on the campaign trail.


The company has also battled efforts, by way of another Washington lobbying firm, to impose U.S. taxes on foreign-sourced manufacturing inputs. Known as the border adjustment tax, the idea, floated by congressional Republicans, wasdropped from a White House tax proposal less than three weeks after Rassini hired Urban’s firm.


If Urban joins the White House, he will do so as the administration weighs another major policy change with the potential to advance or inhibit the goals of one of Urban’s newest clients.


His lobbying work not only threatens to pit Urban against Trump campaign promises but also an ethics pledge imposed by a January executive order on all incoming administration officials barring them from working on issues that might affect a former lobbying client.


The pledge prohibits presidential appointees from participating in policy-making decisions affecting a “discreet and identifiable class of persons”—say, Mexican importers—with a direct interest in those decisions. Barring a waiver to the pledge’s “revolving door” provisions, Urban would likely be prohibited from working on significant segments of the administration’s trade agenda at a time when that agenda is front and center.


Urban’s extensive lobbying work means he’d be under similar restrictions with respect to a host of other policy areas. In 2017 alone, he has represented 35 different companies and trade associations, touching on issues including immigration, trade, retail, banking, defense, real estate, gambling, pharmaceuticals, information technology, health care, energy, education, telecommunications, construction, transportation, and even LGBT issues.


As Trump’s top staffer, Urban would oversee a White House agenda seeking changes in a number of those policy areas, potentially setting him up for a clash with the language of Trump’s ethics rules. Those rules are far softer than ones imposed by President Obama, whose version of the ethics pledge, which prohibited appointees from serving in agencies they had recently lobbied, would likely have barred Urban from serving in the White House at all.


To the extent that Trump’s ethics pledge would constrain Urban’s work, the White House could opt to waive the provisions of the pledge to allow him to more freely carry out his duties. Dozens of former lobbyists have secretly received waivers to the pledge, allowing them to work in the administration on the precise issues on which they lobbied, and to potentially advance the legislative and regulatory interests of their former clients.


The White House promised to release a list of ethics pledge waivers this week after the Office of Government Ethics pointedly demanded the information. As of Wednesday afternoon, it had not done so.


https://www.thedailybeast.com/he-cou...piest-pick-yet

really wish trump would get his executive act together before picking the jerks he has picked and put us thru all the trauma - democrat daughter & swamp creatures included.

Originally Posted by artist

really wish trump would get his executive act together before picking the jerks he has picked and put us thru all the trauma - democrat daughter & swamp creatures included.

Amen Brother! Don't Forget Globalist, Internationalist McMasters who was recommended to Trump ----BY----McCain! I don't think Trump understands that the whole DC is a swamp of globalists who hate his guts--and ours.