Month: March 2019

He just wants to be loved by the media

by digby

He always has:

Even as Trump wages almost daily attacks on individual reporters and news organizations, and often seems bent on undermining the very idea of independent news media, behind the scenes, he arguably has the most frequent, most informal, and most sustained personal interactions with reporters and commentators of any president since the days of Kennedy and Bradlee (as well Joseph Alsop, Charles Bartlett and other journalists of that era who enjoyed special access to JFK).

The media figures Trump talks to informally go beyond his well-documented phone calls with sympathetic commentators like Hannity and Lou Dobbs. His media roster includes regular, if less-publicized engagement with beat reporters and executives at the New York Times, the Washington Post and, on occasion, POLITICO.

Phone calls or Oval Office mind-melds in this White House do not happen only as the result of longstanding and sporadically granted interview requests—that is the norm among recent presidents—but also on a more impromptu basis, sometimes initiated by Trump rather than reporters. In some cases, Trump has known journalists—like Maggie Haberman of the New York Times—for many years, giving a natural ease to their relationship, but in several other cases Trump has established a rapport with reporters, such as the Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey or Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs, he has only come to know after following their work as candidate or president.

Some reporters, in background accounts, describe being called by Trump at bars and cable television studios.

These interactions, according to people with firsthand or close secondhand knowledge of them, reflect a keen awareness by Trump of individual personalities in the sea of beat reporters covering him, and a fixation on key figures at powerful news organizations. He’s quizzed some reporters on their romantic lives. He knows what book projects are underway by various Washington reporters, is participating in several of them and soaks up intelligence of what the books are likely to say. (He gave an interview to POLITICO’s Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer for a book to be released this spring, and another to POLITICO’s Tim Alberta for one to be released in the summer.) While Trump has kept his distance from the Washington social scene—he rarely goes out except to dinner at his own nearby hotel—he is often current on the gossip that flows in these settings.

The main theme of presidential conversations, of course, is not social frivolities but the same subject that animates Trump on Twitter and in public remarks: what a great job he believes he is doing, and his conviction that he is not getting enough credit.

In all these conversations, Trump toggles back and forth between on-the-record, on-background, and off-the-record—betraying a fluency with reportorial rules of engagement that is more typically found in operatives than in principals. Those who cover the White House say they often perceive that Trump—if he could—would shed the restraining influences of schedulers and handlers and do even more direct outreach with journalists. This is a president, after all, who not that long ago used to call reporters at the Page Six gossip column several times a week to share tips or try to shape items, according to veterans of the New York Post.

There do not seem to be examples of beat news reporters having the kind of sustained engagement with Trump enjoyed by ideological fellow travelers like Hannity. At the same time, there is much more regular connection between this group than most readers and viewers assume with a president who regularly says journalists are “the enemy of the people.”

This is really rather pathetic. He calls them fake news and his followers spit on the “enemies of the people” but in private he grovels for their attention, deperately trying to get them to love him so he’ll get good press.

I mean, it’s not hard to believe that the press corps would fall for it. They often do. It’s a testament to how odious and corrupt he is that it doesn’t work.

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The administration reassuring evangelicals about “middle east peace”

by digby

We’ve had a lot of discussion in recent days about groups influencing US government officials about Middle East policy. But we haven’t talked much about this group:

Ahead of the launch of President Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, the White House has been engaging with Evangelical leaders to reassure them about the plan.

Evangelicals are a crucial part of Trump’s political base and senior officials in his administration, like Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo, are Evangelicals. 

Most U.S. Evangelicals are strong supporters of Israel, and many Evangelical leaders are stanch allies of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

On Thursday a group of Evangelical leaders arrived at the White House for a briefing with Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt.

• Among those present were Pastor John Hagee, Pastor Jentezen Franklin, Pastor Paula White and others. Although the meeting was off-the-record many of the attendees tweeted about it.
• A source who attended the meeting said that several of the Evangelical leaders raised concerns about the peace plan, especially about the possibility it will give the Palestinians a capital in parts of East Jerusalem.
• “They didn’t give many details about the plan but they wanted to hear concerns and red lines and answer questions the Evangelical leaders had,” the source said.
• The source added that Greenblatt told the group the peace plan will be fair and can benefit both sides — but both will have to make compromises. The White House declined to comment on this account.
• Joel Rosenberg, an author who heads an evangelical foundation and has attended the meetings, refused to give any details of their content.
• Rosenberg, who is also a personal friend of Pence and Pompeo, says he told the other Evangelical leaders in the meetings that Palestinian President Abbas is never going to make a deal, so there is no need to be too worried that Jerusalem is going to be sacrificed.

Rosenberg said he stressed to the other Evangelical leaders: “We need to allow the President freedom of movement and latitude to present a plan that would allow those Arab states which are more willing than ever to make peace with Israel to move forward. 

We need to give the Arab States the ability to support this. If the Saudis, the Egyptian and others can say that this plan is credible it will open the door for, after the Palestinians say no, to talk about how to move forward with Israel.”

Golly, if I didn’t know better I might think the Trump administration isn’t actually an honest broker in all this. And a big part of the reason is these Real Americans from the heartland. Imagine that.

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QOTD: Kellyanne’s husband

by digby

George Conway: "The president has suggested that members of his own Justice Dept. should be locked up for investigating the president. Now, if people were to get indicted or not indicted, on the basis of whether the president likes them … we would have a banana republic." pic.twitter.com/XmRqhLtlRU— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 9, 2019

I still suspect that this is a good cop-bad cop routine by Kellyanne and her husband to preserve their standing in the GOP establishment after this crsis is over.

I still think she was the “anonymous” NYT op=ed writer…

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 “We may see a hundred-year storm for turnout”

by digby

The New York Times catches up with the Democrats on the trail and finds that a “Beat Trump” fervor is producing big crowds. It looks like people are very excited about this campaign:

They dragged their friends to see Bernie Sanders in Iowa. In South Carolina, their unrelenting selfie requests made Cory Booker late. And in New Hampshire, so many showed up at a church for an event with Kamala Harris that an overflow crowd had to stand outside in the snow.

“I’m super overwhelmed by the number of Democratic candidates that have already come out,” Regan Johnson, a 28-year-old from Omaha, said on Thursday in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Mr. Sanders appeared at the first of three rallies in the state. “Hopefully the excitement continues and we’re able to get a good, viable candidate that can beat Trump.”

As the already large presidential field grows by the week, the enthusiasm that propelled Democrats to a decisive takeover of the House in the midterms is still surging, driving crowd sizes and intensity typically seen in the days before the first caucuses and primaries, not a year ahead of them. Powered by an almost desperate yearning to oust President Trump, and galvanized by the most diverse field in presidential primary history, Democrats are packing into gymnasiums, churches and exhibition halls to hear candidates speak — even if they are far from committed to supporting the candidate they are showing up to see.

The populist message many of the candidates have on offer is resonating: From Northern California to Council Bluffs to the Brooklyn streets where Mr. Sanders was raised, voters are delighting in the calls to spurn big donors, the policies to fight wealth inequality and the promises of relief from college debt and steep medical bills.

Ms. Harris kicked off her campaign in January with a rally in downtown Oakland before more than 20,000 people. Hundreds turned out to see Senator Kirsten Gillibrand last month at Dartmouth College, her alma mater. Even Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who briefly toyed with running for president before bowing out this week, lured a throng of New Hampshire voters to a recent meet-and-greet at a bookstore.

But it is Mr. Sanders’s ability to muster supporters, and his focus at this point on big, showy rallies rather than smaller events like town halls, that perhaps best captures the early 2020 ebullience. At this stage of the race, his events are also doubling as shows of force — supporters filled a Navy Pier hall in Chicago — evoking the strategy of President Trump, whose 2016 campaign gathered momentum in part because of the large rallies he held before similarly boisterous crowds.

Some 2,000 people, many from neighboring Omaha, came to see Mr. Sanders in Council Bluffs on Thursday, erupting more than once into now-familiar chants of “BER-nie! BER-nie!” As a band played tunes in an exhibition hall that smelled of freshly popped popcorn, small children amused themselves on a makeshift bed of winter jackets as a group of adults looked on.

On Friday night, an overflow crowd of more than 1,300 turned out to see the Vermont senator in Iowa City.

Early polling data underscores the displays of grass-roots enthusiasm: A recent University of New Hampshire survey showed that more than 60 percent of Democrats said they were “extremely interested” in the primary, significantly higher than they reported at this stage in each of the last three cycles. Overall, half of those polled in the state said they were “extremely interested” in the primary.

While the energy has been uplifting for many of the candidates, it has also posed something of a challenge for anyone looking to gauge early-stage popularity: Because voters are showing up in such high numbers and cheering so enthusiastically, even for lesser known candidates, the traditional measures of excitement — crowd size, noise — no longer distinguish individual contenders. (Two candidates who have yet to join the race, Beto O’Rourke and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, are expected to bring big crowds in their own right.)

“In past cycles, you were there for Edwards, you were there for Barack Obama, you were there for Hillary, you were there for Bernie,” said Sean Bagniewski, the chair of the Polk County Democratic Party in Iowa, which includes Des Moines. “All of our Democrats take the prospect of defeating Donald Trump so seriously that it’s almost like everybody is on the same team.”

The early grass-roots enthusiasm is also buoying email lists and fund-raising numbers. Ms. Harris’s campaign, for instance, boasted that it had raised $1.5 million in its first 24 hours. And Mr. Sanders’s campaign said it had collected $10 million from 359,914 donors in its first week, an extraordinary number that underscores the power of his small-dollar donor base. His campaign also says that more than one million people have signed up as volunteers.

Although many people have not yet decided which candidate they will support, political watchers say the level of engagement is comparable to what they typically see much closer to the primaries and portends high voter turnout.

Michael McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida who studies voting data, said he believed enthusiasm and voter turnout were correlated.

“We already know interest is running high given so many other indicators, so I expect turnout will run high for the 2020 primaries on the Democratic side,” he said in an email. In the general election, he added, “We may see a hundred-year storm for turnout.”

This is very good news. There was always the chance that the relentlessness of Trump and the overwhelming political coverage would cause people to turn away. It’s so tempting sometimes. But apparently they are not doing that so the chances are far greater that Trump will be defeated.

Remember, it’s not enough for Democrats to win. They have to win big and they have to overcome voter suppression in states designed to thwart them in the electoral college. 2000 and 2016 have made that clear.  So this is good news.

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This story gets weirder and weirder

by digby

Mother Jones has more on that suspected human trafficker who hangs out a Mar-a-lago with the Trumps:

The latest Trump political donor to draw controversy is Li Yang, a 45-year-old Florida entrepreneur from China who founded a chain of spas and massage parlors that included the one where New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft was recently busted for soliciting prostitution. She made the news this week when the Miami Herald reported that last month she had attended a Super Bowl viewing party at Donald Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club and had snapped a selfie with the president during the event. Though Yang no longer owns the spa Kraft allegedly visited, the newspaper noted that other massage parlors her family runs have “gained a reputation for offering sexual services.” (She told the newspaper she has never violated the law.) Beyond this sordid tale, there is another angle to the strange story of Yang: She runs an investment business that has offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family. And a website for the business—which includes numerous photos of Yang and her purported clients hobnobbing at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach—suggests she had some success in doing so.

Yang, who goes by Cindy, and her husband, Zubin Gong, started GY US Investments LLC in 2017. The company describes itself on its website, which is mostly in Chinese, as an “international business consulting firm that provides public relations services to assist businesses in America to establish and expand their brand image in the modern Chinese marketplace.” But the firm notes that its services also address clients looking to make high-level connections in the United States. On a page displaying a photo of Mar-a-Lago, Yang’s company says its “activities for clients” have included providing them “the opportunity to interact with the president, the [American] Minister of Commerce and other political figures.” The company boasts it has “arranged taking photos with the President” and suggests it can set up a “White House and Capitol Hill Dinner.” (The same day the Herald story about Yang broke, the website stopped functioning.)

The short bio of Yang on the website, identifying her as the founder and CEO of GY US Investments, shows her in a photo with Trump bearing his signature. It says she has been “settled in the United States for more than 20 years” and is a member of the “Presidential Fundraising Committee.” According to the Herald, Yang is a registered Republican, and since 2017 she and her relatives have donated more than $42,000 to a Trump political action committee and more than $16,000 to Trump’s campaign. Her Facebook page, which was taken offline on Friday, was loaded with photos of her posing with GOP notables: Donald Trump Jr., Rep. Matt Gaetz or Florida, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, among others.

On a page displaying a photo of Mar-a-Lago, Yang’s company says its “activities for clients” have included providing them “the opportunity to interact with the president, the [American] Minister of Commerce and other political figures.”

There were pictures of their clients posing with Trump Jr and Eric at a recent New Year’s Eve party.

We’ve been through a “chinese donor” scandal with the Clinton administration. A big Democratic donor named Johnny Chung was revealed to have been funneling money from the Chinese government into Democratic campaign coffers. The DNC returned all the money.

There was a slight difference, however. The money wasn’t going into Clinton’s pockets. These people seeking access are paying huge bucks for access to the president and his family by buying expensive tickets to private events at Mar-a-lago, which the Trump family personally profits.

Also, I don’t think Johnny Chung was a human trafficker who had run brothels that the president’s pals all visited.

More at the link. It’s quite an operation.

HR1: Smell the fear
by Tom Sullivan

You couldn’t surround yourself with as many skeevy characters as Donald Trump does if you worked at it. It’s a rare talent he has. Sure, some of them are family, but others are Trump Organization employees and Mar-a-Lago hangers-on. Even his cabinet secretaries and staff are real prizes.

Trump began his presidency promising to “drain the swamp” of Beltway sleaze. Instead, he’s grown it with “a particularly toxic blend of corruption and plutocracy.” Grow or die, right?

On Friday, House Democrats bought in big legislative pumps as a first step toward actually doing something about the swamp. Corruption in Washington, D.C. promises to stop it.

The “For The People Act” (H.R. 1), a broad anti-corruption and election reform package passed the House Friday on a party line vote of 234 to 193. The bill would require presidential and vice-presidential candidates to release their taxes (a swipe at Trump) and stiffen government ethics enforcement. It would also would make voter registration automatic, enable public financing of candidates for president and Congress by matching small-dollar donations, and include provisions to end partisan gerrymandering and a requirement for paper ballots, among other reforms.

The New York Times Editorial Board explains that a far as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is concerned, H.R. 1 is “the Merrick Garland of reform legislation.” McConnell has already refused to take up the bill in the Senate, calling it a power grab by Democrats.

The Board writes:

H.R. 1 would put an end to at least some of the vile voter suppression practices that Republicans have embraced in recent years. Which goes to the heart of the party’s opposition.

Well before President Trump erupted on the scene, Republicans made the calculation that, with demographics trending against them, their best strategy was to make voting harder rather than easier, particularly for certain nonwhite segments of the electorate. Across the nation, they have pursued voter restriction tactics with vigor. Any effort to expand access to the ballot box sets off alarm bells within the party.

Panic may be more like it. Dozens of right-wing groups signed a letter issued in January by the Conservative Action Project that distorts the bills provisions as an attack on the First Amendment and “individual voter integrity” (a new twist on the voting integrity frame; they need their base to take this personally).

But Paul Waldman presents a reverse-engineered list of H.R. 1’s provisions to highlight why McConnell and Republicans oppose it:

• If registration were easier and more people who are not registered now did so, that would mean Republicans would lose more elections.
• If it were easier for people with disabilities to vote, Republicans would lose more elections.
• If the practice of voter caging were outlawed, Republicans would lose more elections.
• If we cracked down on deceptive practices and voter intimidation, Republicans would lose more elections.
• If we let those with criminal convictions who have served their time vote, Republicans would lose more elections.
• If we mandated paper trails for ballots to ensure accuracy, Republicans would lose more elections.
• If more Americans were able to vote early if it’s convenient for them, Republicans would lose more elections.
• If more Americans could vote by mail if they chose, Republicans would lose more elections.
• If secretaries of state couldn’t administer their own elections, as Brian Kemp did in Georgia last year, Republicans would lose more elections.

In Republican terms, a power grab.

Democrats still have a problem defining their brand. Republicans are helping immensely by undermining their own.

Friday Night Soother

by digby

Mountain Lion cubs!

The Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden recently welcomed a litter of orphaned Mountain Lion cubs. The cubs, two males and a female, are approximately ten-weeks-old and arrived at the OKC Zoo in late January after being rescued from the wild.

Born in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Mountain Lion cubs were found by game officials with the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks. Realizing the cubs’ mother was deceased and they were too young to survive on their own, game officials immediately intervened and began providing 24/7 care for the orphaned cubs. They also contacted the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) to locate a permanent home for the litter because recovered cubs cannot return to the wild according to South Dakota state protocol.

Learning of the cubs’ situation, the OKC Zoo made the decision to take in the litter and provide a forever home for both male cubs at its Oklahoma Trails habitat. The female cub will be relocating to AZA-accredited Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Texas later this summer, but will remain with her brothers at the OKC Zoo until then.

“By bringing these orphaned cubs to the OKC Zoo and providing them with the care, veterinary monitoring and enriching environment needed to thrive we are ensuring their survival.” said Tyler Boyd, OKC Zoo animal curator. “Since it opened in 2007, Oklahoma Trails has been home to Mountain Lions, and we are excited to watch these brothers grow and become beloved ambassadors for the habitat. We want to connect our guests to the importance of caring for native wildlife and wild places, and communicate why it’s vital to protect both.”

The male cubs were given the names Toho, meaning “cougar god”, and Tanka, from Wakan Tanka meaning “great spirit” in the Lakota language. The female cub has been named, Tawakoni, which is inspired by the Wichita tribe and means “river bend among red sand hills.”

According to the Zoo, all three cubs are in good health and weighed 9-10 lbs. at their last check. Once the cubs complete their 30-day quarantine at the OKC Zoo’s Joan Kirkpatrick Animal Hospital, they will be on public view at the Oklahoma Trails exhibit.

The Mountain Lion (Puma concolor) is known by many names including catamount, cougar, panther or puma. Native to the Americas, Mountain Lions once roamed most of the United States including Oklahoma, but now the largest populations inhabit the western U.S.

Impressive in size and strength, Mountain Lions are considered apex predators meaning they are not prey to any other animals. These large carnivores are built for hunting and actually help control deer and other animal populations from reaching unhealthy levels. Adults are recognized for their solid tawny coats but cubs are born with spots that vanish before they are a year old. Cubs are also born with blue eyes that change to yellow around 16-18 months old.

Via Zooborns

Shine headed for the ice floe

by digby

We all know that “leaving to work on the campaign” is just a dodge. Thats the ice floe for staffers (with NDAs) who have lost favor with Trump and Javanka but for some reason can’t just be kicked to the curb.
In this case it’s Bill Shine, former Ailes fixer and sean Hannity’s best bud. I’d imagine he’s “going to the campaign” in order to keep Sean happy:

Mr. Shine came into the White House with great fanfare last year, hired after an inglorious departure from a high-profile role at Fox News, where he had been the right-hand to Roger Ailes.

Initially, people in the White House — particularly those close to John F. Kelly, then the White House chief of staff — described Mr. Shine favorably, saying that he brought a mature presence to the team and, unusually for the White House, did not seem interested in seeking credit for himself.

But as time wore on, Mr. Shine never developed a close relationship with Mr. Trump. The president frequently criticized him to other advisers, saying that his own press coverage had not improved, according to several people familiar with Mr. Trump’s comments. And he was seen as ineffective, developing few ideas.

He attached himself to Ivanka Trump, and tried to help out with her media coverage. But an ABC News interview that she did included a question about how she and her husband obtained their security clearances, which multiple White House officials said rankled her.

Mr. Shine had spent more than a year searching for another job after he was ousted from Fox amid the scandal surrounding Mr. Ailes and allegations of sexual harassment. The White House became his potential for redemption, and for returning to the center of the action.

But Mr. Shine had increasingly been out of sight during key moments, including when the government shutdown began at the end of December. His wife, Darla, never relocated to Washington, and he was open about finding the travel away from her difficult.

As the president tweeted about legislators leaving town at the end of December, Mr. Shine was in Hawaii on a vacation with his wife. More recently, after telling people he was traveling to Vietnam for the president’s summit meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, last week, Mr. Shine ended up staying behind.

The skuttlebut had been that Shine couldn’t get a job after Fox fired him in the wake of the massive sexual harassment scandals that he helped to cover up. Hannity got him the job in the White House but Trump and kiddies aren’t happy with him. Of course. He was supposed to magically make everyone overlook the mass catastrophe they call a presidency and worship him like a God. Nobody can do that, especially Shine who’s only previous claim to fame had been producing Hannity’s show and cleaning up Roger Ailes sexual misconduct.

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Combat mercenaries for Trump

by digby

Eric Prince is one of the most malevolent figures in American life. His history as a mercenary who ran a murderous “contracting” firm in Iraq is well known. He was also with the Trump family on election night. They’re that close.

The Intercept’s Mehdi Hasen had the chance to interview him recently and asked him about the Russia investigation:

Toward the end of the interview, I raised the issue of “Russiagate” and the special counsel’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Putin government. Prince was grilled by the House Intelligence Committee over a secret meeting he had in the Seychelles with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian oligarch described as a “messenger” to Putin by Prince’s friends in the UAE; the meeting was on January 11, 2017, nine days before Trump’s inauguration. “It lasted one beer,” he told me flippantly, in reference to the Dmitriev meeting, which has been described by U.S., European, and Arab officials as “an apparent effort to establish a backchannel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump.”

But why didn’t Prince tell members of Congress about his other secret meeting, in Trump Tower in August 2016? Especially if it was about a sensitive foreign policy issue like Iran?

“I don’t believe I was asked that question,” he replied.

Not true. I reminded him that he had been asked by a member of the House Intelligence Committee whether he had any “formal communications or contact with the campaign.”

The Blackwater founder then switched tack. He “did” inform the committee about the meeting, Prince told me. Why wasn’t it in the transcript of the hearing then, I countered? “I don’t know if they got the transcript wrong,” he said. Later in the interview, in response to a question from the audience, he doubled down: “Not all the discussion that day was transcribed, and that’s a fact.”

Got that? First, he said he wasn’t asked; then he said he told them about it; then he claimed that they made a mistake with the transcript; then he claimed that it was said off the record.

My understanding — based on a conversation between one of my Al Jazeera English colleagues and a staffer connected to the Intelligence Committee, and also based on public comments made by Rep. Eric Swalwell about Prince being “not truthful” with Congress — is that the off-the-record sections of the transcript contain zero references to the Trump Tower meeting, which was later revealed by the New York Timesand (reluctantly) confirmed to me by Prince on “Head to Head.”

This is a major problem for this major ally of the president. It is, of course, a crime to lie under oath; it is also a crime to lie to a congressional committee, whether you are under oath or not. “Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell,” Vox notes, “was convicted of lying to a Senate committee during the Watergate scandal.”

So I couldn’t help but ask the defensive Prince: Did he not worry that Mueller might send him to prison for not telling the truth, as he did with Gen. Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, and others?

“Nope,” he replied, giving me that dead-eyed stare once again, “not at all.”

This is far from over, however. Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee under its new Democratic chair, Rep. Jerry Nadler, sent out requests for documents to “81 agencies, individuals, and other entities tied to the president” — including Prince — as part of its sweeping investigation into alleged corruption and abuse of power by the president and his associates. In December 2018, Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee told the Daily Beast that the former Blackwater boss had been “discredited” and that they planned to recall him before their panel “even if we have to subpoena him.”

Will Prince have better answers for them than he had for me?

I doubt it.

He is undoubtedly very sure of a pardon. They all are.

The fact that Erik Prince is a trump insider should make everyone who thinks Trump is some kind of non-interventionist think again. Prince wants to privatize warfighting. Of course Trump likes that idea.

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Trumpies gotta make a living

by digby

Trump is running his business out of the White House. It’s only fair that the cronies to whom he’s handed sinecures in the government should be allowed to make an extra buck on the side as well, amirite?

Lynne Patton, a longtime Trump family associate who made a controversial appearance at last week’s House hearing with Michael Cohen, says she has the President’s blessing to follow in his footsteps as a reality TV star, even as she serves as a high-ranking federal housing official.

Patton’s appearance on a still-developing show about black Republicans would come during her tenure as the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s regional director for New York and New Jersey, which provides rental assistance to more than 800,000 vulnerable households and homeless services to more than 80,000 people.

Asked if she has Trump’s approval, Patton said, “Yes.”

“I would never have even asked HUD if I hadn’t first asked the Trump family,” said Patton, who planned Eric Trump’s wedding, in an interview with CNN.

Patton has signed an agreement to work with the show’s production company, said Leslie Oren, a spokeswoman for Truly Original, the New York-based creators of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” and other reality TV and documentary series.

“We are in very early development on this and part of that process is figuring out creatively what the show will be,” Oren said. “It has not yet been pitched to networks but we expect that to happen soon.”

Patton told CNN that HUD lawyers “had no problem with me filming after work hours.”

“Look, they know I tend to put my foot in my mouth. They were a little concerned that maybe with some alcohol I might be a little too freewheeling on a show like this,” said Patton of the Trump family.

“I think that’s what everybody hopes for on a docuseries or reality show. But they were very supportive,” said Patton, who has spoken openly about her former struggles with drug addiction.

Trump hosted NBC’s “The Apprentice” for 14 seasons, and last hosted “Celebrity Apprentice” in February 2015 before his presidential run.
[…]
She was introduced to the first family by [Michael] Cohen, and became ingratiated in Trump’s world. She was among the speakers at the Republican National Convention in 2016 and was a campaign surrogate. After the election, Patton began working at HUD, where her tenure has been marked by outspoken and controversial personal tweets. Patton called White House correspondent April Ryan “Miss Piggy” on Twitter, for which she later apologized.

This week, after TV news cameras scrambled to keep up with Patton during a tour of dilapidated apartments in the nation’s largest public housing project in Queens, Patton seemed surprised that the reality show had become such “a big deal.”

She said she turned down the offer when first approached by the production company shortly after the 2016 election. In August, she was approached again and decided to reconsider.

“They convinced me that this was not a hair pulling, table flipping reality show,” she said.

Patton said HUD ethics officials told her “they had no problem with me filming after work hours.” She said she wants to complete her work to improve conditions in public housing before doing the show and needs to maneuver around federal rules capping a secondary income at $28,000 a year.

“They’re trying to pay me more than that per episode,” she said.

She’s a genuine Trumpie, isn’t she?

The idea of a Trump administration official being in a reality show is just perfect. I can imagine that Trump himself is very jealous that he can’t make money doing the same thing. If he wins a second term I won’t be surprised if he actually does it.

It would be broadcast on Fox, of course.

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