Trump 40: Donald Trump and the Chamber of Incompetence

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s attempt to strong-arm Congress is actually a sign of his weakness"

Spoiler

Suing a committee chairman and his own accounting firm. Telling people who don’t work for him anymore that they can’t testify to Congress. Having his personal lawyer tell the Treasury Department not to release Trump’s tax returns to Congress. These are all actions President Trump has taken against Congress in the past few days, evidence that he’s going full-court to stop lawmakers from investigating him.

It’s an unprecedentedly brazen move for a president. But Joshua Huder, a fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, says it’s actually a sign of Trump’s weakness.

Past presidents have negotiated behind the scenes with Congress when they don’t want to turn over information. They’ve relied on influential allies on Capitol Hill to help make their case. Trump is forced to take the most extreme measures because he doesn’t have enough soft power to do that, Huder argues. As a result, Trump is forcing himself into high-profile legal and political battles he has a real risk of losing.

"The president lacks a lot of informal modes of influence,” Huder said, “and he can't convince the allies he does have."

Trump’s weakness has manifested itself in other ways that have cost him politically.

Trump spent nearly all of his political capital at the beginning of this year trying to get Congress to fund a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. He failed when enough Republicans joined with Democrats to pass a spending bill that didn’t include the amount of money he wanted. The longest shutdown in federal government history failed to win over lawmakers to Trump’s side — or any new money for his wall. (And let’s not forget that presidential candidate Donald Trump campaigned on Mexico paying for the wall, another place where his negotiations seem to have fallen through.)

To make good on his central campaign promise, Trump declared a national emergency and took money from elsewhere to do it. The consequence? A lengthy, time-consuming legal battle that could go all the way to the Supreme Court.

“Look, I expect to be sued,” he said in February when he announced the emergency declaration. “We’ll win in the Supreme Court.”

Trump is likely to lose the many legal fights he has picked with Congress over that branch of government’s right to see his tax returns and financial statements and to issue subpoenas to his former top aides. (Though to the extent this is all a delay tactic to the 2020 presidential election, Trump may succeed.)

Still, the president is engaging in extremely risky legal battles just as his support in Congress appears to be eroding, if ever so slightly.

Trump recently wanted to try again to repeal Obamacare; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refused. Trump suddenly got rid of most of his top immigration officials — top Senate Republicans went on Fox News and publicly warned him to stop. He wanted to nominate Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve — pushback from Republicans had him drop the idea.

To some degree, Trump’s strong-arming tactics with Congress reflect his personality. Trump’s M.O., long before getting into politics, has been to threaten and intimidate to get his way.

“It’s a Trumpian way of negotiating,” Larry Kudlow, a Trump friend and current White House economic adviser, once said. “You knock them in the teeth and get their attention. And then you kind of work out a deal.”

But Trump would probably prefer not to have to go to such extremes with Congress right now. Instead of messaging ahead of the 2020 election, he’s forcing himself into high-profile legal battles that will keep these politically dangerous stories in the news. All because, Huder argues, he had no other choice.

 

[fraurosena]

The most appalling part of this horror story that spouts from his disgusting mind is that there will be BT’s out there that actually believe it.

Here he is actually saying it:

 

Edited April 28, 2019 by fraurosena

[Howl]

JFC.  I don't know what the implications are for this.  It makes zero sense, but we can be sure that somehow it benefits the Trump Crime Family. 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Howl]

@fraurosena, this is a response to Trump from a NICU nurse who helps families who have lost newborns through the bereavement process. I retweeted it and hope anyone who reads it will retweet is as well.

For non tweeters, this is the unroll for her thread: Thread: As a NICU nurse, I served on the “Bereavement Team.”

 

Edited April 28, 2019 by Howl

[fraurosena]

First the reiteration of the good people on both sides and the praising of Robert E. Lee earlier this week. Then there was the snub of the no.1  NFL (?) player, now this. Does anyone need more proof of his racism and white supremacism?

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 Racist redistricting, immigration, housing policies are one thing but snubbing a black teacher does nothing but showcase how dumb and petty he is. Congratulating the number two white NFL pick at least highlights that the white dude lost to a black guy. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

6 hours ago, fraurosena said:

First the reiteration of the good people on both sides and the praising of Robert E. Lee earlier this week. Then there was the snub of the no.1  NFL (?) player, now this. Does anyone need more proof of his racism and white supremacism?

Two more clues about tRump's reasons for snubbing him. 

 And

[GreyhoundFan]

He's the bigliest: "President Trump has made more than 10,000 false or misleading claims"

Spoiler

It took President Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claims in The Fact Checker’s database, an average of eight claims a day.

But on April 26, just 226 days later, the president crossed the 10,000 mark — an average of nearly 23 claims a day in this seven-month period, which included the many rallies he held before the midterm elections, the partial government shutdown over his promised border wall and the release of the special counsel’s report on Russian interference in the presidential election.

This milestone appeared unlikely when The Fact Checker first started this project during his first 100 days. In the first 100 days, Trump averaged less than five claims a day, which would have added up to about 7,000 claims in a four-year presidential term. But the tsunami of untruths just keeps looming larger and larger.

As of April 27, including the president’s rally in Green Bay, Wis., the tally in our database stands at 10,111 claims in 828 days.

In recent days, the president demonstrated why he so quickly has piled up the claims. There was a 45-minute telephone interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News on April 25: 45 claims. There was an eight-minute gaggle with reporters the morning of April 26: eight claims. There was a speech to the National Rifle Association: 24 claims. There was 19-minute interview with radio host Mark Levin: 17 claims. And, finally, there was the campaign rally on April 27: 61 claims.

The president’s constant Twitter barrage also adds to his totals. All told, the president racked up 171 false or misleading claims in just three days, April 25-27. That’s more than he made in any single month in the first five months of his presidency.

About one-fifth of the president’s claims are about immigration issues, a percentage that has grown since the government shutdown over funding for his promised border wall. In fact, his most repeated claim — 160 times — is that his border wall is being built. Congress balked at funding the concrete wall he envisioned, and so he has tried to pitch bollard fencing and repairs of existing barriers as “a wall.”

Trump’s penchant for repeating false claims is demonstrated by the fact that The Fact Checker database has recorded nearly 300 instances when the president has repeated a variation of the same claim at least three times. He also now has earned 21 “Bottomless Pinocchios,” claims that have earned Three or Four Pinocchios and which have been repeated at least 20 times.

Trump’s campaign rallies continue to be a rich source of misstatements and falsehoods, accounting for about 22 percent of the total. The rally in Green Bay on April 27 was little different, with claims that covered a range of issues:

— He exaggerated the size of trade deficits with Japan, China and the European Union and falsely claimed the United States loses money from such deficits.

— He said he had “nothing to hide” from the Russia investigation but refused to testify under oath.

— He continued his practice of inflating the jobs created under his administration by starting the count from the election, not his inauguration.

— He launched a series of exaggerated or false attacks on Democrats, including claiming the Green New Deal will require every building in Manhattan be replaced (no) and saying Democrats support the killing of healthy babies that have been born (no).

— He overstated the possible impact of the new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico in myriad ways and trashed the North American Free Trade Agreement, even though the differences are modest.

— He took credit for funding a program — the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative — his administration tried to eliminate.

— He made a series of false claims about immigration, such as “open borders bring tremendous crime” (there is no documented link between illegal immigration and crime).

— He claimed he passed the biggest tax cut in history (no) and he said he had cut the estate tax to “zero” (no).

— He said he was one vote away from repealing Obamacare (no).

— He falsely said the United States paid for “almost 100 percent” of NATO (no), that Saudi Arabia inked $450 billion in deals with the Trump administration (no) and even that the United States subsidizes the Saudi military (U.S. aid amounts to $10,000 a year).

— He even claimed that he insisted the new embassy in Jerusalem be made of Jerusalem stone even though ever since the British mandate in then-Palestine, municipal laws have required that all buildings must be faced with this local form of limestone that has a warm, golden hue.

 

[formergothardite]

Another reason Trump doesn't want to give out the teacher of the year award. 

Quote

Last year, Trump awarded the honor to Mandy Manning, who teaches English to refugees and immigrants in Washington state. At the White House event, Manning handed Trump a letter from a Rwandan immigrant student that urged the president to “take care” with his language about immigrant and refugee communities. She also wore a pin that read “Trans Equality Now.”

There is no way this didn't make him furious and he isn't going to risk this year being another time where someone chides him for being terrible. 

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/26/trump-skip-national-teacher-of-the-year-award-ceremony-1386862

[AmazonGrace]

Tough guy is afraid of teachers.

[GreyhoundFan]

58 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Tough guy is afraid of teachers.

Yes, because many educated people won't blindly follow him.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is awful:

 

[47of74]

Tough guy is afraid of teachers.

He’s afraid of anyone who doesn’t kiss his ass and call it ice fornicating cream.

[Dandruff]

5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Tough guy is afraid of teachers.

I pity every teacher he ever had.

[Audrey2]

My sixth grade teacher used to be fond of saying you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

The Donald Trump version is: you can lead a horse to water pry its mouth open dunk its head underwater but unless and until it decides to swallow the horse is going thirsty. When it comes to learning things, Donald Trump has been thirsty his whole life!

[GreyhoundFan]

"For a man who considers himself to be a dealmaker, Trump is avoiding a lot of deals"

Spoiler

Though it is headed by a man who considers himself one of history’s greatest dealmakers, the Trump administration lately has been doing its best to avoid making deals.

The possibilities in foreign policy for a master negotiator are legion: There are Iran and North Korea with their nuclear programs; Venezuela, whose bankrupt regime presides over a major humanitarian crisis; and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Trump once described as ripe for a “deal of the century.”

Yet in recent months, U.S. policy has seemingly been aimed not just at preventing accords on these problems but also at precluding bargaining by our would-be closer in chief.

Take the case of Iran. When he withdrew the United States from the multilateral deal limiting Tehran’s nuclear program, Trump said he was “ready, willing and able” to negotiate a new accord and confidently predicted that the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was “going to want to make a new and lasting deal.”

Nearly a year later, Trump has done less bargaining with the Islamic republic than any president in the past 40 years. Not only is his administration not known to be talking with the regime about its nuclear program or its aggressions in the Middle East; it also has taken only minimal action to free the several U.S. citizens that Iran has unjustly imprisoned.

Instead, U.S. policy seeks to apply crushing pressure to the regime without offering it a way out. Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a bid to take Iranian oil exports “to zero” by threatening sanctions on the remaining buyers. The gambit might not work, but if it does, Tehran will face a potentially devastating economic crisis. And by Pompeo’s account, it could gain relief only if it meets a list of 12 demands adding up to a 180-degree reversal of its foreign policy.

As a practical matter, notes Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, “Washington’s present approach makes possible two scenarios, neither of which is promising.” Either Iran “digs in,” prompting the Trump administration to redouble its pressure; or it decides to resume its nuclear program to gain some leverage. Either way, Vaez argues, the non-negotiating strategy opens “a fraught and dangerous path.”

The administration has taken a similar approach to Venezuela, where it has imposed a drastic sanction against the regime of Nicolás Maduro — a ban on oil trade with the United States — while rejecting negotiations with his government. U.S. strategy is to force the Venezuelan military to remove Maduro and work out a transition plan with the opposition’s alternative government. But the generals have not budged, leaving Venezuelans to face a catastrophic decline in already dire living conditions.

As for the deal of the century, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and envoy Jason Greenblatt are expected to roll out their long-awaited Mideast peace plan in a month or two. But the administration has already sabotaged it by delivering a series of body blows to the Palestinians, from cutting off funding to the Palestinian Authority to moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Trump’s team seems to think it has given the Palestinians a necessary softening up. But those who know them better, such as longtime U.S. Mideast negotiator Dennis A. Ross, say it has merely triggered the deeply ingrained Palestinian penchant for defiance. Their leaders have refused to talk to Trump’s envoys since last year — and it’s probable they never will.

Then there is North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, with whom Trump has portrayed himself as negotiating. Only he hasn’t, really. At their last meeting in Hanoi, Trump proposed that the North Korean leader agree to surrender Pyongyang’s entire nuclear arsenal, plus its chemical and biological weapons, a whopping nonstarter. When Kim refused and made his own one-sided offer, Trump walked away.

The North Koreans had reason to be confounded. Before the summit, there were indications the administration would be open to a more incremental deal, in which North Korea would give up some of its nuclear capacity in exchange for limited U.S. concessions. When Trump instead struck his all-or-nothing stance, the regime blamed Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton. Pyongyang has since demanded that Pompeo be dropped from future talks.

North Koreans are not known for rational political analysis, but in this case, they may be on to something. Bolton has a decades-long record of favoring force over diplomacy, while Pompeo has made a militantly uncompromising position toward Iran a trademark since his first election to Congress. It’s notable that the two don’t figure in the one notable negotiation in which the administration is engaged — with China over trade terms.

Trump’s first national security team, led by H.R. McMaster, Jim Mattis and Rex Tillerson, was devoted to curbing his most reckless impulses. Could it be that his second is trying to ensure that he makes no compromises?

 

[fraurosena]

Of course he’s suing. Anything to delay the inevitable. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

A good snarky piece by Dana Milbank: "Let’s impeach Trump for being such a great president"

Spoiler

“If I’m guilty of anything, it’s that I’ve been a great president and the Democrats don’t like it.”

— President Trump, discussing
the Mueller report on April 26

Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Donald John Trump, president of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for being a “great president”:

Article I: Donald John Trump has been a great president for anti-Semites.

Jew haters have enjoyed record greatness during the Trump presidency. Saturday’s deadly attack at a California synagogue came exactly six months after a massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

The great times for anti-Semites come after Trump joked about Jews being money-grubbing, tweeted an anti-Semitic image, declined to call off supporters threatening anti-Semitic violence, and echoed anti-Semitic tropes about “globalists” while stoking conspiracy theories about prominent Jewish Americans, particularly Jewish American George Soros, who was sent a bomb by a Trump backer.

Article II: Donald John Trump has been a great president for white supremacists.

Trump famously said there were some “very fine people” among the white supremacists who came to Charlottesville in 2017 for a white-nationalist rally at which armed neo-Nazis carried torches, chanted “Jews will not replace us” and killed a counterprotester.

Trump said last week he was greatly misunderstood and was referring to people who “felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general.” (It apparently did not diminish their fine-people status to march alongside torch-carrying Nazis at a white-supremacist rally.)

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said Sunday that Trump’s original response was better than great: “darn near perfection.”

Article III: Donald John Trump has been a great president for North Korea.

Trump’s embrace of Kim Jong Un as a great, “honorable” man gave legitimacy to the repressive dictator and nuclear menace. Now, The Post reports Trump’s team promised to pay Kim a great sum — $2 million — for the release of hostage Otto Warmbier.

Article IV: Donald John Trump has been a great president for Russia.

Trump’s greatly amusing lawyer Rudy Giuliani recently said “there’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians” for electoral help. And Trump has thwarted attempts to protect the country from more great Russian attacks in 2020.

Article V: Donald John Trump has been a great president for the rich.

A new Post-ABC poll finds that 60 percent of voters say the country’s great economic system mainly benefits those in power. Trump has cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations and hired hundreds of former corporate lobbyists.

Article VI: Donald John Trump has been a great president for fact-checkers.

The Post’s Fact Checker reported Monday that Trump has made 10,000 false or misleading claims as president — a great many. Just this weekend, he alleged that under Democrats’ beliefs, a newborn baby is swaddled “beautifully and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.” He also announced that if Democrats try to impeach him, “I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court,” which does not decide impeachment.

Article VII: Donald John Trump has been a great president for lawyers.

As Trump pushes the bounds of legality to ever greater elasticity, and his lawyers to ever-greater creativity, Fox News’s Andrew Napolitano, previously a stalwart Trump defender, now says the Mueller report exposed “unlawful, defenseless and condemnable” actions by Trump. Trump now labels Napolitano’s previously great legal thinking “very dumb.”

Article VIII: Donald John Trump has been a great president for disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday that measles cases hit an outstanding 25-year high. Trump, who had previously spread fears that vaccines cause autism, has presided over the loss of health insurance by 7 million people — one of the greatest drop-offs in U.S. history.

Article IX: Donald John Trump has been a great president for trade rivals.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) says Trump’s great steel tariffs are a “tax on Americans,” and he has threatened to kill Trump’s renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement. This follows the recent report that the U.S. trade deficit in goods was the greatest — highest — in history last year.

Article X : Donald John Trump has been a great president for illegal immigration.

Customs and Border Protection reported that last month’s apprehensions along the southern border hit a great, 12-year high.

Article XI: Donald John Trump has been a great president for “bullshit.”

Trump publicly uttered “bullshit” three times in the last two months. While leading this great assault on presidential norms, he has also presided over the greatest increases in federal debt during a peacetime expansion, the greatest turnover of presidential staff and the greatest rises in sea levels.

Wherefore, Donald John Trump, by being such a great president, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump tightens asylum rules, will make immigrants pay fees to seek humanitarian refuge"

Spoiler

President Trump ordered major changes to U.S. asylum policies in a White House memo released Monday night, including measures that would charge fees to those applying for humanitarian refuge in the United States.

Trump’s directive also calls for tightening asylum rules by banning anyone who crosses the border illegally from obtaining a work permit, and giving courts a 180-day limit to adjudicate asylum claims that now routinely take years to process because of a ballooning case backlog.

The order, announced in a presidential memorandum, comes as the president is seeking to mobilize his supporters with a focus on illegal immigration ahead of his 2020 reelection campaign.

“If the Democrats don’t give us the votes to change our weak, ineffective and dangerous Immigration Laws, we must fight hard for these votes in the 2020 Election!” the president wrote on Twitter after the White House published his order.

The surge of migrants from Central America arriving at the U.S. southern border with Mexico has frustrated the Trump administration, which has been trying various methods to stem the flow, all of them thus far unsuccessful. The proposed changes to the asylum system aim to address one of the most confounding aspects of the surge: Families seeking safe passage using long-standing U.S. asylum protections.

More than 103,000 migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border last month, the highest level in more than a decade. About 60 percent were Central American parents traveling with children who, upon arrival on U.S. soil, have the legal right to request refuge from persecution. 

Their numbers have overwhelmed the government’s ability to hold them in custody and quickly process their claims. Adults who arrive with children are typically assigned a court date and are released into the country, often reuniting with family members and taking jobs while their claims are pending.

Trump in recent weeks has increasingly mocked asylum seekers as fraudsters trying to game the system by making up stories about their hardships and fears of return to their native lands. Though homicide rates in Central America are among the highest in the world, many of those now arriving acknowledge they are fleeing poverty and hopelessness, which are not grounds for asylum protections.

The new White House measures, which call for new regulations in 90 days, follow one week after Trump issued a separate memorandum directing the secretaries of state and homeland security to find ways to combat visa overstays; it is another example of the administration trying to squeeze migration as it argues that the influx of undocumented people amounts to a national emergency.

“The extensive resources required to process and care for these individuals pulls U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel away from securing our Nation’s borders,” Trump’s latest memorandum reads.

The goal of the move, the document states, is “to strengthen asylum procedures to safeguard our system against rampant abuse of our asylum process.”

The memorandum directs Attorney General William P. Barr and acting homeland security secretary Kevin McAleenan to propose regulations within 90 days that would change various aspects of the way asylum cases are handled.

It calls for the United States to charge a fee for asylum applications, and it seeks to ensure that, “absent exceptional circumstances,” all asylum applications will be adjudicated within 180 days of filing. 

The moves would prohibit those who have entered the United States illegally from receiving provisional work permits until they have been approved for relief or protection from removal.

U.S. immigration law grants the attorney general the authority to impose fees on asylum applicants, but does not require such payments, and migrants seeking refuge to avoid deportation have not been charged.

David A. Martin, a former Homeland Security deputy general counsel who helped make changes to the asylum system in the 1990s, said that he had never heard of charging a fee to applicants and that it would be a “bad idea.”

Asylum seekers are fleeing for their lives — fearing torture or death in their home countries — and often cannot afford to survive without assistance in the United States, he said.

“Genuine asylum seekers by definition leave in the most urgent of circumstances,” Martin said. “As a group, they tend to be very short on resources. If you’re going to leave the possibility of refuge for people who legally qualify truly open, you wouldn’t impose a barrier of a fee.”

Charging a fee for asylum claims would put the United States in the clear minority. A study of 147 countries found that the “vast majority” did not charge a fee to apply for asylum, according to a December 2017 report by the Law Library of Congress’ Global Legal Research Center. Some nations charged migrants fees for temporary or permanent protection visas, though migrants could apply for waivers.

Proposing and implementing regulations typically takes months and requires a period of public comment. But Martin said the Trump administration could carry out the changes more quickly if it declares an urgent need.

In February, Trump declared a national emergency to free up federal funding to expand the wall on the nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico. Several lawsuits are pending against the emergency, including one filed by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.

Trump referred to the national emergency in the memo, saying the border situation is growing “increasingly severe.”

Federal law already requires that the government adjudicate asylum cases within 180 days, Martin noted. The requirement took effect in the 1990s and helped reduce asylum fraud and slash a large backlog of cases. Under that earlier change, the government also restricted work permits to migrants whose cases had been pending at least six months.

But almost a decade ago, Martin said, asylum cases started to pile up again and the government failed to invest enough in the immigration courts to keep up. Now the court backlog exceeds 850,000 cases, including asylum, with approximately 400 judges to handle them.

Clearing cases in six months is a good objective, Martin said, but “it’s not like a brand new idea.”

The White House memo directs the Department of Homeland Security to reassign personnel to improve screening of asylum applicants, “strengthen law enforcement” and enforce deportation orders from immigration courts.

Advocates for immigrants predicted that Trump's proposals would face swift legal challenges and a protracted battle in federal court.

But they said the presidential memo could cause chaos in the already overwhelmed immigration courts, intensifying pressure on immigration judges who would be subject to case-completion quotas.

Keren Zwick, associate director of litigation for the National Immigrant Justice Center, said the court system is not equipped to handle cases as quickly as would be required. She worries that immigrants would not have fair hearings because they wouldn’t have time or money to gather evidence, find a lawyer, and support themselves while they await a hearing. 

“It’s not that asylum seekers don’t want other cases to be quickly adjudicated,” she said. “There’s a fine line between quick adjudication and being railroaded through the system. . . . It’s not like asylum seekers want to sit here in limbo forever,” she said. “But they also don’t want to be punished for seeking asylum.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

This nepotism thing is becoming slightly difficult.

Trump hires Don Jr.'s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle as senior campaign adviser: 'He's running out of family members'

Quote

Former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle is capping one year of dating Donald Trump Jr. with a major new job: leading the charge in getting his dad re-elected.

Guilfoyle — who has been seeing the first son since last May, following his split from Vanessa Trump — has announced that she’s joining President Trump’s 2020 campaign as a senior advisor.

“It's time to get to work and WIN for America in 2020,” she wrote in a social media post about her new gig.

Conservatives are hailing Guilfoyle’s new career move, which comes about nine months after news broke that she was leaving Fox News. Amid rumors that her exit from the network was prompted by allegations of misconduct, Guilfoyle went on to become vice chairwoman of America First Policies, a pro-Trump PAC.

She’ll now be working directly on the Trump campaign, becoming the latest de facto family member to be hired by POTUS. First daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner are White House senior advisors, Eric Trump’s wife Lara Trump is a senior consultant to Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, and both Don Jr. and Eric have been hitting the campaign trail while running The Trump Organization on behalf of their father.

While the Trumps aren’t exactly the first family to play favorites — it’s standard for family members to serve as campaign surrogates, and President Kennedy famously appointed his brother Robert to be his attorney general —Guilfoyle’s hiring is breathing new life into accusations of nepotism.

While Trump supporters are lauding what they call a “solid squad” on his campaign, critics are calling Guilfoyle — who was previously married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom — a “grifter” who is dating Don Jr. to “get on the payroll.”

[hilarious tweets embedded in the article]

Guilfoyle, meanwhile, hasn’t wasted any time in hitting the campaign trail. She and her beau joined his father at his rally in Wisconsin last weekend.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Democracy dies in court.