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Early last week, a friend who is generally supportive of President Trump offered his view that the president had only one move remaining firing special counsel Robert Mueller.

By weeks end, my friend had a different view: The president is in a box without a clear escape hatch. Im not sure how he gets out of this, he said wearily.

Those conversations bookend the worst week of the Trump presidency, which ended with another shake-up. By removing Reince Priebus as chief of staff and replacing him with Gen. John Kelly from Homeland Security, Trump aims to bring a semblance of military order and discipline to the White House.

Given Trumps respect for Kelly, the move could mark an important turning point in focusing the presidents time and efforts. Too many days have been squandered by leaks and conflicting and even contradictory messages.

But to understand the complexity of Trumps challenge and the limits of what Kelly can fix, it is useful to divide the presidents problems into two baskets.

The first basket includes the low moments of last week the collapse of the ObamaCare repeal effort, Anthony Scaramuccis profane attack on Priebus and Steve Bannon and the fact that Trumps declaration of a ban on transgenders serving in the military caught the Pentagon off guard.

Kelly, if Trump lets him, could fix or prevent all that.

Yet as significant as those events were, the problems in the second basket are potentially more serious. They center on the rupture between Trump and leading Republicans over Mueller and the presidents battering of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Trump repeatedly calls the probe a witch hunt and has discussed firing Mueller, while most Republicans trust Mueller and are willing to let his investigation run its course.

Similarly, GOP leaders like and respect Sessions and believe Trumps attacks on him are unfair. They dont believe Sessions deserves to be fired.

One sign of the rupture came from Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary committee, who said in a Wednesday tweet that the panels schedule is set for the year and there is no time to confirm a new Attorney General.

The point was clear: Trump shouldnt even think about firing Sessions.

The next day, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina upped the ante, saying, any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency unless Mueller did something wrong.

He added that he will introduce legislation to block any attempts to fire the special counsel without judicial review and said he was certain all Democrats and many Republicans would support him.

The sense that Trump is being curbed and isolated was bolstered when bipartisan, veto-proof majorities in both houses agreed on legislation that requires congressional approval to lift the latest round of sanctions imposed on Russia. Until now, the president could unilaterally remove them.

Trumps predicament recalls a scene in Ernest Hemingways novel, The Sun Also Rises.

How did you go bankrupt, one character asks another, who responds: Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.

So it is with Trump. Problems, some of them self-inflicted, that looked temporary and manageable have been compounded over time and are reaching a crisis point. Most important, he is losing flexibility to act just as Mueller expands his probe into Trumps business empire as well as his 2016 campaign.

Various reports say the special counsel, who is amassing a small army of prosecutors, is going through Trumps career, including his taxes and property sales, to find any connections with Russians that might indicate collusion in the election.

I also believe Muellers aggressiveness helps explain Trumps stepped-up attacks on Sessions, whose recusal led to Muellers appointment.

When Sessions, citing Justice Department regulations, stepped aside from any matter involving the 2016 campaign, he put the power in the hands of his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller after Trump fired FBI director James Comey.

More than a month ago, I urged Trump to replace Sessions so he could have someone to oversee Mueller and keep him from going beyond the initial assignment. But the revolt by the former Alabamas Senators colleagues has blocked that path, and Sessions has rejected invitations to resign.

Hence, the conclusion that the president is trapped with no protection or escape from Mueller.

Trump, of course, has been counted out many times in the last two years, but always managed to bounce back. He could do it again because he retains enthusiastic support among most of those who voted for him, and less White House chaos and a big victory on tax reform could fuel another comeback.

As a bonus, strong public support would keep congressional Republicans in his corner.

But the uncertainty about where Mueller is going and what, if anything, he is finding adds a unique dimension to Trumps troubles. Thats what makes this situation so perilous.

Chicago killing itself

The bloody stat of the week, from the Chicago Tribune:

Chicago had 50 more homicides than New York and Los Angeles combined through mid-June, even though it is far less populous than both.

Aisle be damned

Dueling headlines from America the confused:

Americans arent getting married

Support for polygamy at all time high

Truth about DeBs lies

This time, and this time only, you can trust him. Mayor de Blasio is telling the truth when he says: Read my lips: I dont care.

That was his reaction when reporters caught him in yet another lie. After the Post reported that police had been ordered to sweep the homeless from subway stations before the mayor took a brief ride, he and his team denied it.

When The Post produced the NYPD memo to prove it, his press secretary said the memo was probably fake, and the mayor offered his I dont care response.

Perhaps it was a Freudian slip that he began with read my lips, which was the phrase President George H.W. Bush used when he pledged no new taxes.

Of course, tax hikes soon followed.

De Blasios habit of dishonesty is becoming legendary. Reporters are still waiting for the list of donors who didnt get what they wanted from his City Hall a list he first promised in May of 2016 and several times since.

My guess is there is no list because there are no donors who didnt get favors.

The mayors chronic deception presents the New York Times with a problem. The Gray Lady routinely calls President Trump a liar, but never uses the L-word for Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Andrew Cuomo.

Now that de Blasio clearly qualifies, will the Times play it straight and call him what he is?

Sure when hell freezes over.

Continue reading here:
Donald Trump is becoming trapped - New York Post

WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. President Donald Trump (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)Win McNamee Getty Images

President Donald Trump hinted that he may end a key Affordable Care Act subsidy that makes insurance accessible to poorer Americans, a move that may critically destabilize health-insurance exchanges.

The administration has previously floated the idea to halt subsidies that help insurers offset health-care costs for low-income Americans, called a cost-sharing reduction, or CSR. In a tweet on Saturday, Trump hinted at ending that program.

If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon! the president said in a tweet on Saturday.

It was unclear if Trumps message means he also plans to directly target subsidies that are available to health insurance policies for some Congressional staff members. The White House declined to comment further on Trumps tweet.

A months-long effort by Senate Republicans to pass health-care legislation collapsed early Friday after Republican John McCain of Arizona joined two of his colleagues to block a stripped-down Obamacare repeal bill. McCains no vote came after weeks of brinkmanship and after his dramatic return from cancer treatment to cast the 50th vote to start debate on the bill earlier in the week. The skinny repeal bill was defeated 49-51, falling just short of the 50 votes needed to advance it. Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also voted against it.

For more on the efforts to repeal the ACA, click here.

Ending the CSR subsidies, paid monthly to insurers, is one way that Trump could hasten Obamacares demise without legislation, by prompting more companies to raise premiums in the individual market or stop offering coverage. The administration last made a payment about a week ago for the previous 30 days, but hasnt made a long-term commitment.

Responding on Twitter, Andrew Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Obama administration, said the impact of cutting off subsidy payments will be felt by the middle class who will pay more to subsidize low income.

The next payments are due Aug. 21. On Friday, health-care analyst Spencer Perlman at Veda Partners LLC said in a research note that theres a 30 percent chance Trump will end CSR payments, which may immediately destabilize the exchanges, perhaps fatally.

Americas Health Insurance Plans, a lobby group for the industry, has estimated that premiums would rise by about 20 percent if the CSR payments arent made. Many insurers have already dropped out of Obamacare markets in the face of mounting losses, and blamed the uncertainty over the future of the cost-sharing subsidies and the individual mandate as one of the reasons behind this years premium increases.

Moments after the Senate voted down the Republican bill on Friday morning, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called on Democrats to offer their ideas for moving forward with health care. But he warned, Bailing out insurance companies, with no thought of any kind of reform, is not something I want to be a part of.

A survey in April by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation showed that 61 percent Americans believe Trump and Republicans are responsible for future problems with the ACA, while 31 percent said President Barack Obama and Democrats would be at fault.

Excerpt from:
Donald Trump Hints at Ending Subsidy That Gives Health Care to the Poor - Fortune

Donald Trump has made late-night TV great again, daypart writers came to TCA to discuss.

Even so, they, like late-night show hosts, seemed squeamish celebrating, and insisted they take no particular joy in the banquet of material served up each morning, noon and night by the former reality-TV star.

The President Show head writer Christine Nangle, for instance, said her typical first response to a Trump tweet is, Were all going to die.

I dont want this job, Nangle joked.

Full Fontal with Samantha Bee writer/correspondent Ashley Nicole Black said she reacts to Trump with a day-long stomach ache, adding that, for the option of poking fun of Hillary Clintons pantsuits and policies I would give anything.

I find it exhausting, chimed in The Jim Jefferies Show writer Jason Reich.

The panel included no one from any of the broadcast late-night programs because it was taking place on one of the cable days at TCA.

Trump has been a positive in that he has put a spotlight on part of our culture and part of our country that a lot of people did not know existed, Nangle said, playing into the long-held belief by, say, everybody else, that media would be well served spending more/any time outside of New York, Washington, and Los Angeles.

When Trump won on television, and everyone was, How did this happen?! this is how, she said, explaining media ignored a whole segment of people who feel this way.

What satirists can do is go deeper into that part of country a lot of people did not even think existed, she told TV critics, some of whom write for outlets in that part of the country.

This man did not come out of nowhere, Nangle said, adding, That has been valuable.

On the other hand, there is a certain amount of preaching to the choir going on, they acknowledged. We are not going to put a Full Frontal with Samantha Bee ad on Fox, Black said, taking up the media talking point that the real problem with the country is that media diets are so separated.

But, the writers insisted, they do, when called for, call out MSM Trump love to bash. The panel reminisced about breathless press reports of a previously undisclosed second meeting of Trump and Russian ruler Vladimir Putin at G20.

Late-night writers were not so undie-bunched as, say, CNN and MSNBC, when they learned Trump walked over to where Putin was sitting, next to Melania Trump, at the G20 dinner party. He spoke to Putin for nearly an hour with only Putins translator present, Trump having not brought his Russian translator with him to the clambake. Its our job to continue to challenge even people we agree with, The Daily Show writer Hallie Haglund said.

Asked if they make an effort not to be All-Trump-All-The-Time, Full Frontals Black said, Its tough to do a segment on the impact of a bit of legislation that happened in the distant past, for instance, when Trumps new White House Communications director just said, Someone wants to suck their own dick.

View post:
Late Night Writers Love/Hate That Donald Trump Has Made Their Daypart Great Again TCA - Deadline

One Long Island lawman who definitely would have been cheering when President Trump told cops in Suffolk County on Friday to be rough and please, dont be too nice with those they arrest is former Suffolk County Chief of Police James Burke.

Burke was unable to attend the speech because he is presently Inmate 87450-053 at the Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex, having been sentenced just before the 2016 election to a 46-month term on charges that began with battering a handcuffed prisoner who had stolen a duffle bag of porn and sex toys from the trunk of his department car. The beating had turned savage when the prisoner, Christopher Loeb, had the temerity to call Burke a perv.

Burke also admitted to conspiring to obstruct justice by mounting a cover-up. He pressured the cops who were present to commit perjury and he became so worried about anybody else blabbing to the feds that he pulled three uncommonly skilled, knowledgeable and effective Suffolk County detectives from the joint Long Island Gang Task Force just as it was making considerable progress against MS-13.

By one count, the trio was instrumental in locking up 27 gang members in connection with 12 murders, along with numerous assaults and robberies over two years period before Burke removed them from the task force in 2012.

Detective John Oliva, widely viewed as the most knowledgeable of the three regarding MS-13, was transferred to a local precinct. He went from working a gang homicide to investigating the theft of a gumball machine from outside a shop.

Another of the detectives was Robert Trotta, who has gone on to become a Republican county legislator. He firmly believes that if he and his two comrades had just been allowed to continue their work in the task force, MS-13 would have been decimated on Long Island long before Trump was prompted to come.

One hundred per cent, Trotta told the Daily Beast on Saturday.

Trotta was at Fridays speech, seated in the second row. He had the wrenching knowledge of what might have been as Trump introduced the parents of teens who had been murdered my MS-13.

A lot of people would still be alive today, Trotta told the Daily Beast. Most if not all of those people's kids would still be alive today. No doubt in my mind.

Perhaps because anybody who was a cop for a quarter century has encountered a well-heeled civilian buff who tries to be one of the guys, Trotta did not take Trump as seriously as others might have when he spoke of being rough with prisoners.

While I dont in any way condone beating prisoners, I think it was more tongue in cheek than serious, Trotta said.

Trotta did allow that the former fiefdom of James Burke was not the venue to make light of such matters.

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Clearly it was the wrong spot for him to say it, Trotta said.

Of course, Trump might have been tipped to that if his Long Island born-and-raised new communications director had bothered asking around rather than calling up a New Yorker writer to talk about a person in the White House having oral sex with himself. Any number of Anthony Scaramuccis fellow Long Islanders might have told him to call Trotta.

Even so, Trump should not have needed anybody to alert him that the message carried a danger, whether or not it was half in jest.

I do think that some overzealous cop might take it as, Oh, the president said I can do it, Trotta said.

One person who should have been at Trumps speech was Oliva, who knew more about MS-13 than anybody. He was forced out of the Suffolk County Police Department altogether after his removal from the task force.

John Oliva should have been sitting next to me, Trotta said.

Meanwhile, a federal investigation continues into a range of other possible crimes by Burke and others. Burke also refused to let his detectives cooperate with the FBI in the hunt for a serial killer who has left at least 10 bodies alongside Gilgo Beach in Suffolk County, among them a child. One question is whether Burke was worried about the feds in general as he seems to have been in pulling the three detectives from the gang task force or more particularly concerned that he might somehow be associated with the killings. Conspiracy theories abound.

What is clear is that three detectives demonstrated five years ago that they knew exactly how to take on MS-13, and that it has nothing to do with getting rough when you put a prisoner in the back of what Trump calls a "paddy wagon or not placing your hand over a prisoner's head so he will not bang it against the door frame when you are putting him in a patrol car.

Imagine the speech Trump could have given if Scaramucci or somebody else on his staff had spoken to his fellow Republican Trotta beforehand.

Imagine if along with introducing the still grieving parents of the murdered teens, Trump had also introduced the detectives who might have prevented the killings in the first place. Imagine the cheers if Trump had then announced that the third member of the trio, Detective William Maldonado, is still on the job and back on the task force.

Imagine if we had a president who learned and thought before he spoke, rather than trying to be of the guys the way as his new hire, Scaramucci.

Instead, we have a president who sounds like as much of a mook as the Mooch.

More here:
Did Donald Trump Know the Police Chief Was One of Long Island's Nastiest Criminals? - Daily Beast

Given the president's childish, churlish behavior, perhaps it's time for him to go into political timeout for a few months and figure things out. Case in point: his recent outburst where he indicated he can pardon anyone he wants to because, well, as president he can do that.

That represents a fascinating bit of illogic, namely that if his staff or cabinet have done something stupid, whether they admit it or not, it's OK, because he'll pardon them.

Admittedly there are forces at work, whether they are the media, adversaries such as Russia abroad, and even political factions at home, who don't like Donald Trump and want him out. However, that doesn't mean the president can act like a smug, spoiled brat.

Instead he's got to figure how best to work with both sides of the aisle while at the same being more judicious in choosing his staff and Cabinet and passing his legislative agenda. It's clear that the president has gotten off on the wrong foot regarding his staff, Cabinet and closest advisers. No president in recent memory has made so many bad choices about those he wants to help him govern the nation.

Of course, all of us could be wrong. In a month or a year or the end of his term in office, we might find he's smarter than we thought and done a fantastic job governing the nation. I think I'll check Las Vegas and see what the odds are that will happen.

Dean Dranias, Plainfield

Here is the original post:
Donald Trump needs a 'political timeout' - Chicago Tribune