Friday, May 17th
Last update07:12:50 AM GMT
Political Glance
In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government.
Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.
The Trump administration has enlisted senior members of the intelligence community and Congress in efforts to counter news stories about Trump associates' ties to Russia, a politically charged issue that has been under investigation by the FBI as well as lawmakers now defending the White House.
Acting at the behest of the White House, the officials made calls to news organizations last week in attempts to challenge stories about alleged contacts between members of President Donald Trump's campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, U.S. officials said.
The White House abruptly dismissed a senior National Security Council aide on Friday after receiving reports that he had publicly laced into the president and his senior aides, including son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump at an event hosted by a Washington think tank.
The aide, Craig Deare, was serving as the NSC's senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Earlier in the week, at a private, off-the-record roundtable hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center for a group of about two dozen scholars, Deare harshly criticized the president and his chief strategist Steve Bannon and railed against the dysfunction paralyzing the Trump White House, according to a source familiar with the situation.
President Trump’s approval rating is at 39 percent, according to a new poll.
The latest Pew Research Center poll released Thursday shows Trump at a historic low compared with prior presidents in their first weeks in office.
The poll found just 39 percent approve of his job performance while 56 percent disapprove.
President Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with its ambassador to the U.S. before the president took office last month even though officials claimed he didn’t, The Washington Post reported late Thursday night.
Current and former U.S. officials told the Post about the conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. When asked in an interview with the Post Wednesday if he had discussed sanctions with the ambassador, Flynn repeatedly said, “No,”
The president’s 3 a.m. phone call is typically a metaphor. It’s a symbol of the president’s ability to handle a crisis. But in the case of President Donald Trump, it appears to be a revealing reality.
According to the Huffington Post, Donald Trump recently placed a late-night phone call to Mike Flynn, his national security adviser, to ask if a strong dollar or a weak dollar is better for the U.S. economy. In the early rounds of commentary on television and Twitter, several people have mocked the president for staying up late, pondering questions that might appear on an Econ 101 exam.
But this conversation, if it’s true, is concerning for completely different reasons.
TVNL Comment: Strange question, despite the hour, from this 'fabulous' business success.
President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order requiring that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be removed.
"This will be the largest ever cut by far in terms of regulation," Trump said during a signing ceremony.
Trump signed the order, which he said was "a big one," following a meeting with small business leaders. During the meeting, Trump said the "American dream is back," adding that he wants to end regulatory discrepancy between small and big business.
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