The White House begins to normalize things a bit. Steve Bannon is dropped from the list of NSC regulars.
I find it quite interesting that he was theoretically on there solely to keep an eye on Flynn. It seems more likely that McMaster said, “Get him off it, or I quit.” Maybe it just means they trust McMaster more than they trusted Flynn.
Duplicate post
Coupled with this
it looks rather positive overall.
It basically doesn’t make that much difference: if Trump decides to make particular foreign policy, military actions he will probably still be involved. Instead it just means he won’t see specialized intelligence reports.
Who says Trump can’t be pragmatic?
Bannon had no business being in some areas. He’s a social media type of guy, best used for strategy to win elections, and getting an idea of what matters most to the voters.
Merged duplicate threads.
[/moderating]
One of the more amusing aspects of the Trump WH is that, where the Obama and Bush admins obviously tried hard to get all their spokes people on the same page with the same take on whatever the news of the day is, Trump just kinda lets each surrogate come up with their own spin. So we have various WH statements that Bannon was just there to keep an eye on Flynn, that he was just there to undo some nefarious scheme by Susan Rice and so he isn’t needed anymore, that he was just there to re-organize it and now that’s done, etc.
Its pretty clear in any case that the real reason is McMaster doesn’t want him there, but the Trump admin would probably have an easier time obfuscating that fact if they at least bothered to settle on one lie.
Do you know who else liked to have parallel subordinates so they could keep an eye on each other?
Jesus?
That didn’t really work out well.
That’s more of a triumvirate.
Peter. Paul and Mary?
That’s the answer, my friend.
I hope that’s it. I can’t help being skeptical of the idea that Trump would let McMaster dictate to him.
A more true-to-character scenario is that McMaster would say ‘it’s him or me’ and Trump would reply with advice about doors and their propensity to hit backsides when those backsides are passing through.
So I’m hoping it’s a complete change of character and that Trump did let McMaster ultimatum him. I’m hoping it’s not, instead, that forethought was given to How it Would Look if Bannon missed a lot of meetings and then Something happened and people started saying ‘where was Bannon during all those meetings he missed?’
This way, Bannon is free to do whatever he needs to be doing, with no awkward ‘where was he when he was supposed to be in the meetings?’ questions to answer.
From the Washington Post:
op·er·a·tion·al·ize
So, Susan Rice put the NSC into use and Bannon shut it down?
Yay?
White house said he was only there in the first place to monitor Flynn. If that’s true:
[ol]
[li]Why does your National Security Advisor need monitoring?[/li][li]Why was he still on the NSC after Flynn left?[/li][li]Why’d you leave the DNI and CIA off initially and only put them back now?[/li][/ol]
Which has the potential to make him more dangerous. With out hearing the SC first hand, this will allow Bannon’s conspiracy mind to go full throttle. Which he will then of course whisper into Trump’s ear.
It was widely assumed that getting to pick his own people was part of the deal when he agreed to sign on. And note it isn’t just Bannon that’s leaving, several NSC positions are changing hands. So I suspect this is part of a deal that was struck back when McMaster agreed to replace Flynn.
Plus McMaster and Mathis have been part of the worlds 2nd largest bureaucracy all their lives, so I don’t think its particularly surprising that they’re pretty quickly outmanuvering Bannon, Miller, Flynn* et al. in the most recent rounds of administration infighting.
Now if they can just shuffle Kushner off to head some harmless committee somewhere, we might make it through the next four years without stumbling into a nuclear war.
*(of course Flynn was a General as well, but he seems to have alienated everyone he worked with before getting kicked out, so I think its safe to say he’s pretty bad at playing these games).
Simplicio, I hope you’re right about all of it (and not just about the fact that McMaster is capable of outmaneuvering the Trump-chumps).
Kushner could stick to heading the Office of Nepotistic Innovation, charged with finding new titles to be awarded to himself, his wife, Don Jr. and Eric, Tiffany, etc. That would keep him busy.
Now I’m seeing reports that Bannon is out and the amazing Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, is in. So, the NSC has gone from evil to stupid.
Just so everyone remembers, Perry is the guy who didn’t even know that the Department of Energy is the department in charge of the nation’s nuclear weapons. When he was nominated, he thought it was about going around pushing America’s oil and gas industries. Given that he was governor of Texas, that makes sense. Hell, it’s possible that Trump himself thought the Energy Secretary was in charge of the oil business when he nominated Perry.