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Key figures purged from Trump transition team

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L

Loudninja

Member
The bloodletting in President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team that began with last week’s ouster of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie escalated Tuesday with new departures, particularly in the area of national security, as power consolidated within an ever-smaller group of top Trump loyalists.

Former congressman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) announced that he had left his position as the transition’s senior national security adviser. Rogers, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the leading candidate for CIA director, was among at least four transition officials purged this week, apparently because of perceived ties to Christie.

As turbulence within the transition team grew, some key members of Trump’s party began to question his views and the remaining candidates for top positions. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Trump’s efforts to work more closely with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin amounted to “complicity in [the] butchery of the Syrian people” and “an unacceptable price for a great nation.”

Trump met Tuesday with incoming vice president Mike Pence, who replaced Christie at the head of the transition Friday, to discuss Cabinet and top White House personnel choices. Little to no information was released by the transition office, leaving a clutch of reporters gathered in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York to hustle after team members passing between the front doors and the elevators.

As he had during the campaign, Trump appeared to be increasingly uncomfortable with outsiders and suspicious of those considered part of what one insider called the “bicoastal elite,” who are perceived as trying to “insinuate” themselves into positions of power.
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Those in the inner circle reportedly were winnowed to loyalists who had stuck with Trump throughout the campaign and helped devise his winning strategy. They include Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), former Breitbart News head Stephen K. Bannon, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and members of Trump’s family, including son-in-law Jared Kushner.

“This is a very insular, pretty closely held circle of people,” said Philip D. Zelikow, a former director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia and a senior figure in the George W. Bush transition. “Confusion is the norm” for transitions, he said, “but there are some unusual features here, because they’re trying to make some statements.”

“They feel like their election was a lot of the American people wanting to throw a brick through a window,” Zelikow said. “They want to make appointments that make it sound like glass is being broken.”
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“It became clear to me that they view jobs as lollipops, things you give out to good boys and girls, instead of the sense that actually what you’re trying to do is recruit the best possible talent to fill the most important, demanding, lowest paying executive jobs in the world,” Cohen said.

Rogers’s departure coincided with word from Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whose possible selection as secretary of state comforted more mainline Republicans, that he was unlikely to be chosen.

“Has my name been in the mix? I’m pretty sure, yeah. Have I been having intimate conversations? No,” Corker said in an interview. “Do I understand that it’s likely that people who’ve been involved in the center of this for some time, and have been surrogating on television, are likely front-runners? I would say that’s likely, yes.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...4e2a36-ab6b-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html
 
F0rneus

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
FZZ said:
Someone explain this to me because I'm dumb

what does this all entail
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Trump is giving high ranked positions to people who were friendly to him, not those who actually are fit for the job. Now the people who were the friendliest to him? They are batshit insane. Gas the Jews level of insane. And since they were the only people who propped up Donald...he's naively rewarding them.
 
D

deadbeef

Member
FZZ said:
Someone explain this to me because I'm dumb

what does this all entail
Click to expand...

This is evidence of the amount of influence that a few specific collaborators are having on the formation of the Trump government. They are dumping the moderates and establishment Republicans.
 
S

Shadybiz

Member
FZZ said:
Someone explain this to me because I'm dumb

what does this all entail
Click to expand...

I THINK....I think it means that they don't know what the fuck they're doing, and not getting great talent in.

I'm just imagining Benny Hill music playing in the background.
 
N

Netherscourge

Banned
Kayhan said:
Christie grovelled for nothing?
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Did Christie know Trump's son-in-law was the son of the man he threw in jail when he was an AG? Or was it something he discovered AFTER he gave Trump his support?

That's what I'm wondering.

If so, why would he think Trump would just accept him and ignore his son-in-law's wishes/contempt for Christie?
 
H

hao chi

Member
The transition team should just take their time with this and let Obama and Diamond Joe hold down the fort in the meantime. Seriously, take as long as you guys need!
 
S

saelz8

Member
Anyone with even 2% a semblance of sanity is getting purged. They clearly don't know what they are doing, so this is going to lead to even more unqualified further-right bonkers people getting positions. They will accept and see it as a opportunity, where a reasonable and measured person would not accept or apply.
 
A

Aselith

Member
Trump-shell-game.jpg
 
K

K.Jack

Knowledge is power, guard it well
Why do I solidly feel, that Trump's presidency may destroy from within the Republican party?

This shit's crazy man.
 
D

Dabanton

Member
So who didn't like Chris Christie? Was it Pence?

“If he picks John Bolton, then I’ll support John Bolton. If he picks Rudy, I’ll support Rudy,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said.
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Lol what is Lindsey Graham smoking?
 
L

Lo-Volt

Member
FZZ said:
Someone explain this to me because I'm dumb

what does this all entail
Click to expand...

That the executive branch will be "pure," but will lose out on experienced individuals from different factions of the party. Basically, a lot of Republicans might find themselves out in the cold, or on a collision course with the White House.

Another article on this subject included a tweet from Eliot Cohen, a former staffer at the State Department during the George W. Bush years. who spoke to the Trump team about a job. Cohen was basically abused over the phone; "you guys LOST". This 'safe pair of hands' basically said to stay away from the new administration.
 
D

Dabanton

Member
Draxal said:
Ivanka's husband, as for Christie supporting Trump, it was meant as a big FU to Rubio.
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That makes sense. Christie must be steaming. Lose all dignity, bowing and scrapping for Trump, and then get jettisoned before they take power.

The team Pence and Trump are putting together may actually be more terrifying than the George W Bush years.
 
M

Makonero

Member
BronsonLee said:
I honestly wonder how it turns out if they just go full fucking crazy and try to freeze out the moderate Republicans
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That definitely appears to be the case. I know people saying that his means Trump's biggest enemies over the next four years will be Republicans. I'm not convinced but it would be great if true.
 
S

ShockingAlberto

Member
Netherscourge said:
Did Christie know Trump's son-in-law was the son of the man he threw in jail when he was an AG? Or was it something he discovered AFTER he gave Trump his support?

That's what I'm wondering.

If so, why would he think Trump would just accept him and ignore his son-in-law's wishes/contempt for Christie?
Click to expand...
He knew. He assumed it didn't matter.

Christie is not a smart man.
 
R

RainForce

Banned
Sounds like he's going to alienate the party even more. Could that theoretically drive people to be more left/moderate?
 
T

Toxi

Banned
RainForce said:
Sounds like he's going to alienate the party even more. Could that theoretically drive people to be more left/moderate?
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Depends on how much we get fucked up the next few years.

But generally these people coming to power does the opposite.
 
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