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Trump

Hillary’s Massive Blame Game, Trump Puzzling on Paris, Biden Back in the Game

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are once again relieved that Hillary Clinton is not president after she once again blames everyone and everything but herself for losing to Donald Trump. They are also puzzled as a flurry of lobbying in favor of the climate deal takes place after Turmp supposedly decided to withdraw from it. And they react to former Vice President Joe Biden starting a new Super PAC and fueling speculation that he may run for president in 2020 in a primary that could feature many elderly Democrats.

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Missile Test Success, Clapper’s Collusion Clarity, Climate Deal Confusion

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer the successful test of a missile defense system targeting intercontinental ballistic missiles. They also appreciate former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper once again confirming that he saw no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. And they are excited by initial reports that President Trump plans to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, but are confused after Trump himself suggests a decision has not yet been made.

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Breaking Down the Budget Battle

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President Trump’s budget proposal for the coming fiscal year is coming under fierce criticism from Democrats and the media but a House Budget Committee member who spent 20 years as a college economics professor is impressed by Trump’s goals while warning that the president will need to address entitlement spending at some point.

The Trump administration released it’s $4 trillion budget proposal while Trump himself was overseas.  It calls for robust increases in national security spending while calling for considerable cuts to various government departments.  Democrats have labeled the budget as cruel and likely to cause children to die.  Republicans warn the final appropriations bills probably won’t look much like the Trump plan.

Rep. Dave Brat, R-Virginia, spent 20 years as an economics professor at Randolph Macon College.  He believes Trump is generally on the right track.

“Overall, I’m impressed,  It’s got the big pieces in the right place,” said Brat.  “The major piece I like is the policy aimed at getting three percent growth.  That will solve a lot of problems going forward,” said Brat, while praising the policies Trump is clearly emphasizing in the budget.

“It pluses up the military.  It tries to clean out the swamp.  It reduces some bureaucracy.  It balances in 10 years.  All of these are good conservative policies,” said Brat.

Brat says the Trump plan is a great improvement over what the Democrats are proposing.  In fact, he says they have no solutions at all.

“As a visionary document, we’re moving in the right direction.  Across the aisle on the Democrat side, they haven’t even ever put forward a budget that balances, not even in a 75-year window,” said Brat.

Brat and other Republicans admit getting what they want in the appropriations process won’t be easy since Senate rules require at least eight Democrats to approve any spending bills.  But while Democrats can gum up the process, Brat is acutely aware that voters will not accept failure when it comes to fiscal discipline.

“We should compromise but we shouldn’t give away the store.  In my view, the other side has given away the store too often.  On our side, we need to clean up some of this, rearrange the (entitlement) programs so the kids get sustained benefits over their lifetimes.  We’ve got to get the economy moving and some of that requires discipline,” said Brat.

“So our side gets hit hard but we need to step up to the plate and take it.  That’s our job and the American people expect us to get it straight,” said Brat.

But what about Democrats alleging children will die as a result of the Trump budget?  That allegation was especially targeted towards a proposed $800 billion in Medicaid cuts.  Brat says that’s dishonest reporting of the facts.

“The Democrats call them cuts.  They’re cuts from the baseline.  Medicaid still keeps increasing.  It just doesn’t increase at the pace it was going at, and that pace is bankrupting the country,” said Brat.  “Lot of politics going on right now but not much substance offered by the other side.  They’re great at hurling the insults but they’re short on the economic studies,” said Brat.

He also says White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney made it very clear how he want about finding places to cut in the Fiscal 2018 budget.

“He said, ‘Look, there’s no mystery.  It’s just like running a business.  You look at each of these programs one by one by one and you compare the benefits against the cost.’  He made it very clear the safety net is not in question,” said Brat.

Brat says Democrats and Republicans need to realize that calling for a trillion dollars in cuts is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Some on the left are giving us a hard time over trying to save a trillion dollars or so, but even if we save one trillion that leaves you with another hundred trillion dollar shortfall with Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, etc,” said Brat, who says failure to address the key entitlements will make 10-year spending cuts seem like loose change.

“Either you reform them and update them or else the kids get nothing.  The left is acting like ‘draconian’ cuts are going to hurt people.  Those cuts are nothing in comparison to the mandatory piece,” said Brat.

He says the clock is ticking loudly and time is short before entitlements engulf the entire budget.

“Those mandatory programs will account for 100 percent of all federal revenues in about 15 years.  That’s not a typo.  All federal revenues will be spent only on the mandatory.  That means there’s no money for the military, transportation, running government,” said Brat.

With that kind of looming fiscal crisis, Brat says the only path forward is to get every able-bodied adult into the workforce, and that’s where tax reform and tax cuts come in.  He says the demonizing of so-called supply side economics is bizarre.

“That term is used as a pejorative right now in D.C., supply-side tax cuts.  I taught economics for 20 years.  The demand side is all the people out there called consumers.  The supply side is also everybody out there that works for a living in business.  That’s the supply side,” said Brat.

He says it’s time for Washington to embrace the supply side again, since pumping up the demand side was a major flop.

“We’ve tried demand side stuff.  We’ve had bailouts, etc. that pumped money back into people’s pockets.  It gives you an instantaneous jolt, but if you’re serious about getting the economy growing you better incentivize business.  Trump probably won the election on that,” said Brat.

Brat believes doing tax cuts and tax reform right will set the stage for economic growth, which is the best hope for avoiding fiscal disaster in the near future.  He says tax cuts give businesses reason to hire, thereby beefing up the labor participation rate and bringing in more federal revenues through taxes.

“If we solve that one it’s huge,” said Brat.  “I think a lot of the worries go away if we get this economy rolling again.”

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Lessons from Montana, Coptics Slaughtered Again, Bloom County Blunder

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss Republican Greg Gianforte’s win in the special Montana congressional race a day after he roughed up a reporter and how Democrats are still looking for their first win at the ballot box in the Trump era .  They also mourn the Islamist slaughter of dozens of Coptic Christians in Egypt and point out the West is still oblivious to the fact that we are at war.  And they’re stunned that anyone actually fell for the fake letter to Bloom County cartoonist Berkeley Bloom that was supposedly sent to him by President Trump’s lawyer.

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Montana Meltdown, Loose Lips Shame U.S. Intel, Impeachment Election?

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to reports – and audio – of Montana GOP House candidate Greg Gianforte getting physical with a reporter, who claims Gianforte body slammed him and broke his glasses.  They also shake their heads as Manchester police stop sharing intelligence on Monday’s bombing with U.S. officials after several sensitive items were made public.  And they groan as Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has already decided that the 2018 midterm elections will be all about whether to impeach Trump because he is just so very sure that Robert Mueller will recommend impeachment, Trump won’t resign and Republicans won’t pursue impeachment on their own.

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Manchester ‘Carnage,’ Trump Targets ‘Losers,’ Resisting the Fortress Mentality

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to the horrific terrorist attack that killed at least 22 people and was aimed at young concertgoers in Manchester, England.  They also discuss President Trump’s characterization of terrorists as “evil losers” and some of the social media reaction to the deadly blast.  And they point out how difficult it is to stop an attack like this and why the instinct to turn every public gathering place into a fortress is not the right answer.

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Trump’s Terrorism Speech, Virginia Looking Blue, Trump & the Sword Dance

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After offering an alternative explanation for why some graduates walked out of Vice President Mike Pence’s commencement speech at Notre Dame, Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud President Trump’s speech imploring Middle East leaders to do their part to stamp out terrorists.  They also grimace as polling shows either Democrat running for governor in Virginia winning the general election by double digits.  And they wonder what the Secret Service was thinking when they gave the green light to the elaborate sword dance in Saudi Arabia involving President Trump and members of his cabinet.

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‘Swamp’ Aligns Against Trump on Climate Treaty

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President Trump is running out of time to make good on his promise to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement on climate policy obligations, and the delay is largely due to many different interests imploring him to back away from his campaign pledges.

As Trump embarks on an ambitious eight-day trip to the Middle East and Europe, the pressure is only growing on him to keep the U.S. committed to the Paris deal.  However, Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Christopher C. Horner, who served on Trump’s transition landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency, says all Trump needs to do is make good on his word.

“We have to go back to the campaign and remember that a decision was made and it was to get out,” said Horner.  “He gave reasons why.  He said this would give others control over our energy use, how much we could use the things that are reliable and affordable, as well as the massive wealth transfer.  He made the decision.”

The Competitive Enterprise Institute released an advertisement last month urging Trump to stay true to those campaign promises.

What has changed?  Horner says a lot of different interests are pushing him to accept the status quo.

“The brakes were put on it because different influences came into play.  There were what I’ll call swamp considerations, which were not obviously considerations in the campaign.  In fact, he ran against the swamp.  Once he got here, those interests are considerable,” said Horner.

Horner says there is a long list of people and interests looking pressuring Trump to keep the U.S. in the agreement.

“(There are) tremendous business lobbies, tremendous resistance among (the government) holdovers.  I could tell you blow by blow about a lot of these officials as well as some Trump appointees.  But as you also know, some family members are feeling and exerting what we’ll call Manhattan social pressures to not have to defend keeping this promise,” said Horner.

Some businesses and industries are at the forefront of protesting climate-inspired restrictions, but Horner says much of big business is on board with the climate agenda for multiple reasons.  He says a lot of big companies are eager for the federal subsidies that come with compliance with the Paris accords.

“The reason is simple.  When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you’re guaranteed Paul’s enthusiastic support and sometimes it was Paul’s idea.  So you’ve got this base of industry support, the ones who would benefit,” said Horner.

He says those same businesses also see more restrictive policies as an advantage against the competition.

“They love instituting policies that are barriers to entry to new participants or that smaller competitors can’t handle as well.  Some businesses were publicly saying in news reports that, ‘We’ve planned for this so we need this to happen,'” said Horner.

Even among Trump’s top diplomats, there is deep division on the issue.

“The UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is reportedly very strong on this, even though, as I’ve said before, State will do what’s in the State Department’s interest and (withdrawing from the accords) makes Rex Tillerson’s life more difficult and not easier,” said Horner.

Horner also expects Trump’s time in Europe to be one long lobbying effort to keep the U.S. in the agreement.

“The Group of Seven, the leading economic nations who want – as a State Department cable that I found in litigation shows – they want us to share the pain, to relieve the burden of our competition of not having this agenda saddle our economy,” said Horner.

Published reports suggest multiple deadlines to make a decision on U.S. involvement in the accords have come and gone.  He says that’s largely because Trump is trying to resist the tide aligned against his instincts.

“We’ve got it on pretty good authority what the president still thinks.  He wants out and wonders aloud why he can’t just keep his promise.  He’s surrounded by influencers saying, ‘You can’t do it for the following reasons.’  But some people are saying, ‘You have to (withdraw) for these reasons, the same reasons you said you would,” said Horner.

If Trump relents, Horner says President Obama’s promise that our electricity rates will “necessarily skyrocket” will come true and the cost of everything related to energy costs will also shoot up.

“The price will go up, leaving you with less disposable income and a less resilient lifestyle, less healthy because you’re less wealthy.  There’ll be more hypothermia, more of seniors and the vulnerable dying from energy poverty.  That’s what it’s going to mean for you,” said Horner.

Horner fears that if Trump was going to withdraw the U.S. from the agreement, he would have done so already.  However, he is not giving up hope given Trump’s adamant campaign promises.

If Trump doesn’t make good on that vow, Horner says it will be a strong example of how difficult it is to reverse the tides in Washington.

“It means the swamp isn’t as easily defeated as a lot of people hoped,” said Horner.  “This is really, so far, the ultimate test of his battle against the swamp.”

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Dem Double Standard on Obstruction of Justice

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Democrats, media figures, and even some Republicans suggest President Trump’s alleged request for former FBI Director James Comey to end an investigation into fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn amounts to obstruction of justice, but a former federal prosecutor says what we know thus far does not rise to that level and is no different than Barack Obama’s efforts to exonerate Hillary Clinton.

Andrew C. McCarthy led the prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and plots to blow up other New York City landmarks.  In his latest column for National Review, McCarthy says those purporting outrage now said virtually nothing when President Obama arguably took more egregious actions with respect to Clinton.

“In a few ways, the Obama situation with Hillary Clinton is worse than what we’ve heard about here.  What Obama did was make a very public statement, which is obviously a statement to his subordinates as well as everyone else, that he didn’t want Mrs. Clinton prosecuted and didn’t think she should be prosecuted,” said McCarthy in an interview discussing his column.

“He articulated a legal theory for why she shouldn’t be prosecuted, this claim that she wasn’t trying to harm the United States and that her classified emails, while they exhibited carelessness on her part, were really a small part of a much larger overall picture and had been exaggerated out of proportion,” said McCarthy.

He says that same logic was used again a few months later.

“Lo and behold three months later, when Director Comey announced his view that Mrs. Clinton shouldn’t be prosecuted, he adopted precisely the legal reasoning Obama had announced three months before,” said McCarthy.

McCarthy’s analysis follows the breathless reporting of an alleged Comey memo following a February 14 meeting with Trump at the White House.  According to the memo, Trump cleared the room before engaging Comey on the Flynn investigation.

Trump reportedly told Comey, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”  M

McCarthy says that tidbit alone is a far cry from constituting obstruction of justice.

“I don’t think we’re close to being there yet because even though I am sure that then-Director Comey must have found the conversation with President Trump to be awkward and inappropriate, I don’t think there’s anything corrupt about it,” said McCarthy.

First of all, McCarthy says it’s hard to draw any sweeping conclusions from a few scraps of a conversation.

“The most important thing about obstruction of justice is context.  We don’t really have context here.  We have one statement that’s mined out of what must be a larger memo,” said McCarthy.

He says there needs to be concrete evidence of corruption to pursue obstruction of justice allegations.

“Corruption is the heart of obstruction of justice.  The person has to act intentionally, knowing that what he’s doing is wrong, and intend to subvert the truth-seeking process,” said McCarthy.

Trump critics suggest the subsequent firing of Comey after the director refused to back off the Flynn case is evidence of obstruction.  McCarthy says you need a lot more than that.

“I think the corruption that would be involved would be if you were to pressure the FBI to drop an investigation, rig that result and then use it to suggest the person had been exonerated when you knew that you had actually rigged the result and not allowed the FBI to do an investigation,” said McCarthy.

Furthermore, McCarthy says Comey’s actions over the subsequent three months shows he did not consider Trump’s comments as an attempt to obstruct justice.

“Obviously, Comey, who is a highly-decorated and highly-experienced former prosecutor and FBI director and who well knows what obstruction of justice is, he clearly didn’t feel like he’d been obstructed.  If he had, I’m certain he would have resigned and then gone up and down the chain of command and perhaps to Congress to report why he was resigning,” said McCarthy.

“Instead, he ended the conversation.  He did write the memo.  The investigation of Flynn continues.  In fact, we now here that there’s a grand jury in Virginia, so he must not have perceived that he’d been obstructed.  Obviously they weren’t obstructed because they’re proceeding with the investigation,” said McCarthy.

For the same reason, McCarthy says the wringing of hands and panting for impeachment inside the beltway is greatly overblown.

“Democrats will say that Trump fired Flynn because of the Flynn investigation and because of the fact that it hadn’t been closed down and that he did it as a signal to the FBI and the Justice Department that he doesn’t want Flynn proceeded against.  That’ll be their interpretation of it,” said McCarthy.

“The reason I think that’s a loser, even though I understand why they’re making the argument, is that the investigation is continuing,” said McCarthy.

“There’s a lot more to the relationship between the president and the FBI director than a single criminal case, even against a one-time aide of Trump’s in the administration.  There could be a million reasons why the president might want to fire the FBI director,” said McCarthy.

McCarthy says Democrats have been trying to bring down Trump since the day after the election, and perpetual outrage is often an effective way of preventing much from getting accomplished.

“In the long term, what they’re looking at is trying to make it impossible for him to govern so the parts of his agenda, to the extent that they object to them, can’t be implemented and also make it look like his government – and he’s helping them with this by the way – is so chaotic and so in over its head that it helps their electoral prospects in 2018 and 2020,” said McCarthy.

While McCarthy notes that Republicans have a long history of not defending their party’s president during times of controversy, at least compared to Democrats, he sees no actual traction for impeachment despite the growing demands from the left.

“I see the fervor (among Democrats) to want to get a president impeached, but I don’t see any grounds for doing it.  Given what Republican numbers are at the moment, I don’t see any prospect of it,” said McCarthy.

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Trump Wants Arab NATO, Comey Memo, Spicer Watch

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to reports that President Trump wants to create a NATO-like group in the Middle East, involving Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE.  They also dissect what we know of the memo former FBI Director James Comey reportedly wrote about Trump asking him to back off the investigation of Michael Flynn.  And they discuss the speculation swirling around the future of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and explain how Trump is making the work of the communications team much more difficult.

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