Svoboda | Graniru | BBC Russia | Golosameriki | Facebook
Featured

Knives out for Reince

Carolyn Kaster / AP

From the NYT's Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush:

On Friday evening, a somewhat shellshocked president retreated to the White House residence to grieve and assign blame. He asked his advisers repeatedly: Whose fault was this? ... Increasingly, that blame has fallen on Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, who coordinated the initial legislative strategy on the health care repeal with Speaker Paul D. Ryan, his close friend and a fellow Wisconsin native, according to three people briefed on the president's recent discussions.

And from Politico's Tara Palmeri:

Counterpoint from BuzzFeed's Adrian Carrasquillo:

Why it matters: There's been an ongoing campaign from people outside the Trump administration — including people who regularly have the president's ear — to get rid of Priebus.

Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

The Trump slump

Vice President Pence tries to stop Trump from leaving, after he neglected to sign executive orders on trade in the Oval yesterday. That's National Trade Council adviser Peter Navarro at left / AP's Andrew Harnik

It's Day 72 of President Trump, and he hasn't had a good day since his address to Congress. That was over a month ago, on Feb. 28.

Like Carter ... words

Many Republicans who were giving him the benefit of the doubt are beginning to despair. Astonishingly, almost all his wounds are self-inflicted.

"This is becoming The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight," said an outside adviser to the West Wing. "It's starting to remind people of the Carter administration."

The Mar-a-Lago summit with China's President Xi next week is a chance to look statesmanlike. But D.C. looks bleak, with the Russia brouhaha robbing Trump of potentially triumphant moments like this week's announcement of his Energy Independence Policy, and the creation of a Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.

Week 10 was the second disastrous week in a row, following the health-care implosion.

David Gergen told CNN's Anderson Cooper: "We've ... never, ever had a president in the first hundred days whose White House is so embroiled in controversies that are increasingly suspicious. ... [T]he Flynn story says there is a fire."

Show less
Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

Family Matters: The Ivanka/Jared wing rises

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner during Trump's news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the East Room on March 17 / AP's Andrew Harnik

Of all the dramas inside the White House, none touches in intensity and consequence the growing belief that moderate, cosmopolitan, former Democrats are hijacking the America First boss.

Family bonds won't break

You see this in the daily flow of two kinds of highly orchestrated stories:

  • The first are leaks about how Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Gary Cohn, the central players in the centrist cabal, are opposed to controversial policies championed by the America First gang, led by Steve Bannon. Hence, all the glowing stories about Jared's calm demeanor and growing influence and Ivanka'a focus on women issues.
  • The second are the endless string of anonymous staffers smack-talking the other side in the media. Cue this morning's Politico story, "Kushner's privileged status stokes resentment in White House." It can be summed up with one sentence: "[P]eople ... say Kushner can be a shrewd self promoter, knowing how to take credit — and shirk blame — whenever it suits him."

Sound smart: Trump remains torn, but most believe family bonds bind too tight to break. It's no coincidence that in the past week alone, these four things happened:

  • Ivanka took official White House role.
  • Jared expanded his portfolio to basically include the entire government.
  • Reince Priebus' deputy resigned.
  • Trump started calling more Democrats.

Maggie Habmerman tweeted yesterday ... "The NY wing vs national wing matters less as chronic infighting and more as a ... death battle over who can move the president in a game of inches."

Show less
Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

This week in Trumpland: Nunes, those tweets, and a brand new phone

Axios

Even though no week in Trumpland can be totally quiet, this one seemed relatively subdued! The tweets were (mostly) on topic, and the only foreign leader to visit was Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

Take a trip to Trumpland. ... words

(White) House Intel Committee: The Devin Nunes saga took an even weirder turn this week when it emerged that his sources for his allegations of incidental collection of Trump team communications were inside the executive branch. So to recap: Trump tweets about how Obama wiretapped him, Nunes gets info about the Trump team getting swept up in surveillance of foreign officials, and Nunes tells Trump about it — but Nunes' news came from White House employees! Or, for the big picture, check out our handy timeline because this is one story that isn't going to recuse itself anytime soon.

Pleading the Flynn-th: And to make things on Russia even worse, news came out on Thursday that Michael Flynn wanted immunity before testifying before the Senate's Russia prove. That got turned down as "wildly preliminary," but stay tuned over the weeks in Trumpland to come. Of course, both Trump and Flynn have insinuated over prior months that one would only request immunity if one had committed a crime, so that's not the best look. A periodic reminder to Trumpland: abide by the #1 rule of Twitter and never tweet. (Of course, FBI Director James Comey did that and look where it got him.)

War on Freedom Caucus: Of course, not tweeting would be very against the Trumpland brand. And after last week's failure of Trumpland, POTUS set his Twitter sights firmly on the Freedom Caucus, who helped to bring down AHCA before it even reached the House floor. Trump lumped the far-right group of representatives in with Democrats and pledged to "fight" them in the 2018 midterms. He went so far as to send his budget director to tell Mark Sanford that he can expect a primary challenge. And you thought walking the Appalachian Trail was stressful…

Changing DC's climate: Well, the Department of Energy banned its climate office from using the phrase "climate change" in official communications. But Trumpland's hottest take of all this week might have been the executive order rolling back a slew of Obama-era climate initiatives. Chief among them was an undoing of the EPA's signature Clean Power Plan. It also rolled back carbon metrics and allowed for new leasing for coal projects on federal lands. It was pretty far reaching, so check out a rundown of all the impacts here.

"Siri, tweet the failing @nytimes": President Trump got an iPhone, finally ditching his ancient — and and notably unsecured — Samsung Galaxy. For the closest watchers of Trumpland, that makes discerning the president's personal tweets a little more difficult since a "Twitter for Android" tag always guaranteed that Trump tapped out the message himself. Somehow, we'll all still figure it out.

Trump is staying put at the White House this weekend —putting his nose to the grindstone before hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago next weekend…

via GIPHY

Show less
Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

5 ways to make a winning Trump magazine cover

Bubba Atkinson / Axios

Magazine illustrators have had a heyday with President Trump. When it comes to fashioning iconic magazine covers, there are 5 great techniques: The golf treatment, destruction of American iconography, the Donald Washington, put'm with Putin and the supernatural face manipulation.

See for yourself

1. The golf treatment

2. Destruction of American iconography

3. Donald Washington / George Trump

4. Put'm with Putin

5. Supernatural facial manipulation

Show less
Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

Migrant crisis in Niger

Adam Ferguson (@AFergusonPhoto) / The New York Times

Sobering narrative, arresting images, cool tech (a group photo that lets you hover to read an individual story) ... In Sunday's N.Y. Times, a special section on the migrant crisis in landlocked Niger, in the hump of Africa, "The Road to Nowhere," by Dionne Secrecy, West Africa bureau chief:

More than 130,000 people have amassed along this desert highway outside Diffa, Niger — National Route 1. They now call its barren, sandy shoulders home. All of them have been chased from their villages by Boko Haram, the Islamist militant group that kidnaps and kills indiscriminately in a campaign of violence that has lasted eight years. The New York Times spent weeks documenting the stories of people living along this road, interviewing more than 100 residents. ...

Fewer than half of the 137,000 children estimated to be living in the region are in school. ... Unicef has set up 27 small schools along the road. In one, students from Niger, whose national language is French, are being taught in English.

Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

Third of voters grade Trump 'F'

Here's the letter-grade breakdown of voters on Trump in latest McClatchy-Marist Poll:

  • A: 15%
  • B: 22%
  • C: 15%
  • D: 15%
  • F: 32%
At same time in Obama presidency, 55% graded him A or B and 11% graded him F.

One more stat: 59% of voters said Trump's behavior as president was embarrassing.

Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

Trump on trade: words vs actions

Andrew Harnik / AP

The New York Times highlights how Trump isn't living up to his rhetoric on trade.

  • Executive orders: the Times said they're "unlikely to effect a major change" in manufacturing or trade
  • TPP: a Trump adviser told the Times yesterday it will serve as a "starting point" for new deals
  • NAFTA: changes to the deal will be modest
  • China: no specific plans announced and no steps taken to label China a currency manipulator
Why it matters: The mixed record on trade is a sign of the battle within the administration between America-first nationalists like Steve Bannon and advisers pushing more measured steps such as economic council director Gary Cohn and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross
Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

White House releases up to 180 personal financial disclosures

Adrian Gray via Flickr CC

The White House announced today it would release up to 180 people's financial disclosures, including former Goldman Sachs executives, Trump family members, and investment bankers.

ProPublica, the AP, and the NYT are sharing a Google drive link of the documents drop since the White House isn't posting them publicly. Running list below:

The names: ... words

The big ones so far:

  • Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist earned between $1.4 and $2.5 million in the last year and had assets valued between $10.7 and $48.6 million when he joined the administration, via WSJ and CNN. $545K of his earnings came from Mercer-linked entities. As Bloomberg noted, Bannon owns no stocks.
  • Reince Priebus, WH Chief of Staff, earned $1.4 million last year, $325K of which came from the Republican National Committee, and holds no major assets, per USAToday.
  • Kellyanne Conway earned over $800K from her consulting firm, per NYT.
  • Ivanka Trump & Jared Kushner are worth between $240 and $741 million, per NYT and AP. Trump retains a stake in Trump International in DC, which means they still are reaping rewards from their business empire.
  • Sean Spicer earned $260K last year at the Republican National Committee, with total assets and income valued at $6 million, per USAToday and NBC.
  • Stephen Miller earned a little over $120K last year serving as an adviser to his parents' real estate company while he served as an unpaid advisor to Trump's campaign, according to Politico.
  • Gary Cohn, Trump's economic adviser and former Goldman Sachs banker, has between $252 to $611 million in assets, per NYT.
  • Peter Navarro, Trump's trade czar, made $240K last year as a professor at UC Irvine, per Politico.
  • Dina Powell, who serves on the National Security Council, made between $1.08 and $6 million last year, per Politico and NBC. Her assets stand at over $9 million, according to USAToday.
  • Donald McGahn, chief White House Counsel, was paid $2.4 million at Jones Day, where his clients included Trump, the NRA, and Aaron Schock (the Illinois lawmaker charged with federal corruption), according to Politico.
  • Michael Ellis, who reportedly shared intel on Trump surveillance with House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes, owes more than $30K in student loans, per Politico.
Note: Officials are required to disclose sources of income above $5,000 in a year in the last two calendar years, and other assets are required for just the most recent year. These releases do not include the POTUS or the VP.

Other names that have popped up:

  • John Eisenberg
  • Jessica Ditto
  • Bill McGinley
  • Julia Hahn
  • Sebastian Gorka
  • Joseph Hagin
  • Jason Greenblatt
  • James W. Carroll
  • Hope Hicks
  • Gregory Katsas
  • Thomas Bossert
  • Reed Cordish
  • Makan Delrahim
  • Thomas Bossert
  • Boris Epshteyn
  • Kathleen McFarland
  • Jeremy Katz
  • Timothy A. Pataki
  • Benjamin Howard
  • George Gigicos
  • Stephanie Grisham
  • Stephen Munisteri
  • Ashley Marquis
  • Joyce Y. Meyer
  • Chris Liddell
  • Uttam Dhillon
  • Helen Ferre
  • Justin Clark
  • Jennifer Pavlik
  • Omarosa Manigault
  • Shahira Knight
  • John D. McEntee
  • Alexander Gray
  • Jennifer Korn
  • Andrew D. Koenig
  • Joseph Lai
  • James W. Carroll
  • Vincent Haley
  • Kenneth Juster
  • Ann Donaldson
  • Robert T. Goad
  • Scott Gast
  • Carlos Diaz-Rosillo
  • Ryan Jarmula
  • Mallory Hunter
  • Marc Short
  • Gerrit Lansing
  • Reed Kordish
  • Joseph K. Kellogg

Did I miss any? Any tips? Email me!

Show less
Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner worth at least $240 million

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner during Trump's news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the East Room on March 17 / AP's Andrew Harnik

Part of the White House disclosure dump coming out tonight includes the assets of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner:

  1. The upper estimate, from the NYT: Ethics filings show Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are worth as much as $741 million, and she has kept a stake in Washington's Trump Hotel.
  2. The lowball number, from the AP: "[H]olding onto scores of real estate investments — part of a portfolio of at least $240 million in assets — while they serve in White House jobs ... Jared Kushner, Trump's senior adviser, resigned from more than 260 entities and sold off 58 businesses or investments..."
  3. Ivanka kept her share in the Trump Hotel in DC, "earning between $1 million and $5 million from January 2016 to March 2017."
Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

China's ride-hailing giant employs more women than Uber

Courtesy of Didi Chuxing

Uber released its first diversity report this week, which revealed that just like the rest of Silicon Valley, it struggles to hire as many women as it does men, especially for high-paying technical jobs or senior positions.

However, Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-hailing giant that acquired Uber's local business last year, has done a better job in that department than Uber (and Silicon Valley), according to data provided by the company:

  • At Didi, 40% of the company's 7,000 employees are women, and they fill 37% of technical jobs.
  • In comparison, 36.1% of Uber employees worldwide are women, and fill 15.4% of technical jobs.
  • It should be noted that in Asia, 42.5% of Uber's employees are women, the region where it has the most gender parity.

50-50 leadership: Unlike Uber, which is looking to hire a No. 2 executive to lead with CEO Travis Kalanick, most likely a woman as a response to the company's recent sexism scandals, Didi Chuxing already has both a man and a woman running the company—CEO Cheng Wei and president Jean Liu.

Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

NYC Mayor vows to close Rikers Island

Julie Jacobson / AP

New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio said he intends to close the troubled Rikers Island jail complex, probably within the next 10 years.

Advocates want to close the jail due to violence, poor supervision, subpar medical care, and corruption in the jail. After a civil litigation settlement in 2015, monitors were hired to oversee the city's progress in adding surveillance cameras and stricter rules on the use of force.

Instead de Blasio wants to open smaller jails throughout the city, which advocates say will better be able to provide services to inmates. This proposal, however, may receive pushback from the neighborhoods that would be affected. The mayor said the change would require cutting the jail's occupancy in half. There are currently 10,000 jailed.

Flashback: de Blasio used to call proposals to close Rikers "noble" but too expensive. The change of heart comes because the number of people serving time at Rikers has dropped from its high of 15,000.

Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

Carvana speeding into public markets

Carvana has filed for an IPO, making it the third company to do so on Friday (following Cloudera and Frontier Airlines). This is the Phoenix-based company that lets people buy used cars online, and then pick them up from what looks like the world's largest vending machines.

Keep reading ... words

Top line: The company's revenue and losses both grew substantially last year. Revenue was up from $130 million to $365 million, while net loss climbed from $37 million to $93 million. A majority of its unique views (54%) came via mobile.

The offering: Carvana plans to trade on the NYSE, with Wells Fargo serving as lead underwriter. It is filing to raise $100 million, but that's likely a placeholder figure.

TV time: Normally we wouldn't post a company's promotional video but, come on, this is a vending machine for cars!

Show less
Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

McCaskill to vote "no" on Gorsuch, sealing filibuster

Susan Walsh / AP

Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, just got the last "no" it needed so the Democrats can meet the vote threshold to filibuster his nomination. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) wrote a Medium post about her decision today:

I remain very worried about our polarized politics and what the future will bring, since I'm certain we will have a Senate rule change that will usher in more extreme judges in the future.

Why it matters: Republicans will now have to get rid of the 60-vote filibuster threshold for judges, or allow Gorsuch's nomination to fail.

Link copied to clipboard.
Featured

Frontier Airlines files for IPO

David Zalubowski

Low-cost airline Frontier today filed for an initial public offering, which means it likely plans to go public sometime in May. The Denver-based company last year flew 14.9 million passengers through 59 airports in the U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean.

Top line: The Denver-based carrier's income statement reflects its budget sensibilities, with $200 million in net income on $1.7 billion in revenue. This is up from $146 million of earnings on $1.37 billion in revenue in 2015.

Keep reading ... words

Why the improvement? Three factors jump out. First, the average cost of fuel fell from $1.90 per gallon to $1.59 per gallon. Second, the average number of passengers per departure climbed from 154 to 173. then there is "non-ticket revenue" (i.e., booking fees, baggage fees, on-flight purchases), which jumped from $401 million to $726 million.

Market: Airline stocks have been major beneficiaries of the "Trump Bump," judging by the most popular airline ETFs. Budget airline rival Southwest recently hit an all-time high, while Spirit Air remains well below its 2004 highs (but still is up for the past year).

Show less
Link copied to clipboard.

Trending

Axios in your Inbox

Latest Newsletters

Follow Axios