WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump’s transition team is nearing a state of stasis, causing concern among both Democrats and Republicans in Washington that his White House will be woefully ill-prepared once he is inaugurated.
The primary cause, according to multiple sources, is the revamped leadership structure at Trump’s transition offices ― the demotion of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie from the top post and his replacement with Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
On Tuesday morning, for example, the Obama administration alerted the press that it had not yet received a memorandum of understanding signed by Pence, which would legally allow the old and new administrations to begin discussions on how to hand off critical government functions. That document still hadn’t arrived by 4:30 p.m., and only later in the evening did a White House official confirm it had been received. The official noted that the language signed by Pence was identical to a memo signed by Christie, making the holdup all the more peculiar.
The disarray has left agencies virtually frozen, unable to communicate with the people tasked with replacing them and their staff. Trump transition team officials were a no-show at the Pentagon, the Washington Examinerreported. Same goes for the Department of Energy, responsible for keeping the nation’s nuclear weapons safe, where officials had expected members of the Trump transition team on Monday. Ditto for the Department of Transportation. Over at the Justice Department, officials also are still waiting to hear from the Trump team.
“The Department began planning for this transition well before the election and we are fully prepared to assist the incoming transition team,” Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said in a statement. “As the President has said, we are committed to a smooth and successful transition, including the seamless continuation of the department’s essential law enforcement and national security functions which are performed each and every day by its career staff.”
The transition dysfunction extends beyond failure to promptly execute a memorandum of understanding. According to several sources close to the Trump transition team and inside the Obama administration, the president elect and his staff have had difficulty finding able-minded Republicans willing to take on critical posts. One Democratic source, who like others would only discuss sensitive talks on condition of anonymity, said transition officials had been informally asking Obama political appointees to recommend Republicans to take over their jobs.
Other administration officials said conversations had not gotten to that point of desperation quite yet. But they acknowledged the pace of getting people in line for critical posts was moving painfully slowly.
The problem is twofold: Trump and his staff are not creatures of the establishment and are naturally skeptical of those who are. At the same time, many Republican lawyers and government officials who would have jumped at the opportunity to work in a GOP administration are balking at employment under Trump and his cabinet picks.
According to one Trump insider, this is particularly true for potential national security and intelligence officials.
“One issue is [Retired Lt. Gen.] Michael Flynn,” said the insider. Flynn, vice chair of the Trump transition, is reportedly in line for a top national security post in the new administration. “It’s a major problem. No one wants to work for him or around him because of the time he was running the DIA,” or Defense Intelligence Agency.
Eliot Cohen, a longtime neoconservative voice, tweeted a window into the disorder, recounting his talks with transition officials.
The internal rivalries inside Trump’s transition have not helped matters. The promotion of Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff was supposed to set the tone for the rest of the administration. But it came with Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon as chief strategist, a move that delighted the ardent, anti-establishment wing of the party, but has given others pause because of his history peddling anti-Semitism and white nationalism.
Priebus, according to sources, is also skittish on the possibility of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski replacing him at the RNC, worried that he may undo a lot of the work from the past six years.
Perhaps nothing illustrates the warring fiefdoms roiling the Trump transition effort better than the demotion of Christie. According to the Trump insider, the president elect and his team soured on Christie after he “abandoned Trump,” refusing to do media appearances after videotape of Trump bragging about sexual assault surfaced and skipping surrogate duties during the presidential debates.
When Christie’s top aides were indicted in the Bridgegate scandal, Trump decided to cut him loose, along with the officials he had brought along to help with the transition. One of those officials, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), left the transition team on Monday morning.
Boko Haram warns Donald Trump: ‘War is just beginning’
This screen grab image taken on September 25, 2016 from a video released on Youtube by Islamist group Boko Haram shows Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau making a statement at an undisclosed location.
US supported Lake Chad governments in the fight against Boko Haram under the Obama administration.
A faction of the Nigeria-based terror group Boko Haram has warned US president-elect Donald Trump that “the war has just begun”. The faction leader, Abubakar Shekau, made the comment in an audio recording posted on social media on Sunday (13 November 2016), according to Nigerian media.
“Do not be overwhelmed by people like Donald Trump and the global coalition fighting our brethren in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and everywhere. We remain steadfast on our faith and we will not stop. To us, the war has just begun,” Shekau was quoted by the Sahara Reporters website as saying.
“We’re done with Obama, now we’re going to start with Trump… we remain convinced by our faith and we will not stop. For us, the war is just beginning,”Shekau added, according to news agency AFP.
It is also believed that Shekau claimed responsibility for an attack that resulted in the death of some Nigerians soldiers, including Lieutenant-Colonel Muhammad Abu Ali, earlier in November.
The Islamist fighter made the remarks days after Republican Trump defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for the US presidency.
Fight against Boko Haram
Boko Haram has waged a seven-year-long insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria, killing thousands of people. The conflict, which erupted in 2009, has spilled over into neiughbouring countries, sparking a grave humanitarian crisis in the Lake Chad basin region, where 2.6 million people are currently displaced.
The offensive has scored some successes, such as the recapture of key territories and the release of thousands of civilians held captive by the group.
Although Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari declared a technical victory over the fight against the insurgents in December 2105, Boko Haram still carries out attacks, with security experts warning that underlying issues such as disenfranchisement, poverty and strong links with the Islamic State (Isis) would continue to pose major threats to stability in the region.
Earlier this year, the group split into two factions after Shekau was replaced with the IS-appointed Abu Musab Al-Barnawi, former Boko Haram spokesperson.
The US, one of Nigeria’s closest allies, has repeatedly condemned Boko Haram attacks. In October 2015, outgoing US leader Barack Obama reiterated that the US “continues to support the governments and people of the Lake Chad Basin region in their ongoing struggle to defeat Boko Haram”.
Obama added his country would provide the Nigerian army with intelligence personnel and training. The US also said it was considering lifting its arms ban on Nigeria. The embargo is part of the Leahy Law, which forbids the US from providing military assistance or funding to countries that commit – or are suspected of committing – gross human-rights abuses with impunity.
The American Democracy Truly a Disaster – Opinion
By SKC Ogbonnia
The title of this piece conveys a strident mood. But the angst is no longer because a bozo of catholic proportion emerged as the US president-Elect. It is not because of the reality that a labile character is set to become the leader of the free world. It has nothing to do with the fact that a worldwide outrage greeted Donald Trump’s triumph. And this is absolutely far from the whistling implication of the thought that the best-qualified person ever to seek US presidency was trounced by a definite nothingburger.
The seemingly venom is by no means induced by the nature of the rude awakening my 13-year-old had to endure that long night. The stolid school girl, who I had though cared less about politics, usually goes to bed at 9 PM. But not on November 8! As soon as I turned off the TV after major stations broke the sad news, I heard some strange footsteps in my media room. Lo and behold, it was the little girl wandering around perplexed and murmuring on her phone. Instead of running to her bedroom after sighting me that late, as expected, she stood and looked my way, unloading nonstop questions I still find difficult to answer: “Dad, what happened? President Trump? But Hillary won when we voted in school last week, and they said she was gonna win? What went wrong? What are the minorities gonna do now after all he said about them? Are we gonna move to some better place? How about Nigeria? Has it gotten better over there since the new leader?”
Any sense of animus here against Trump is not about any sympathy for the frustrations of women like a Nigerian-American lady who called me the wee hour of the same fateful morning, 3.30 AM, to be exact, openly crying, praying, and truly wishing the unthinkable that Ibrahim Babangida, a former Nigerian military head of state, is suddenly President Barrack Obama so he could annual the US election of November 8th—for God’s sake.
Frankly speaking, the mood has nothing to do with any of the above. For hysteria has no place in my DNA. The core problem, instead, is rooted in something else with the portent for another wave of perpetual crisis.
The US “electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” But that is not SKC Ogbonnia fomenting such notion from the start. The original quote was precisely the reaction of no other person than Donald Trump himself following Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney in 2012. If the quote is remotely vague, “what Trump means to say”, as his surrogates would always spin, is that the system that produces the leader of the free world is a disaster. There is hardly a thing an objective person can wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Trump, because the celebrity cretin does not espouse any core values or beliefs. But one cannot agree with the man any more that whatever system that made it possible for him to emerge as US president-elect is truly a disaster.
The U.S. presidential elections of the last five decades (1966-2016) sufficiently highlight the challenges of the American democracy. Even though both Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton received less than 50% of votes cast in the 1968 and 1992 general elections, respectively; they still assumed power on the basis of the Electoral College system. Clinton would also be re-elected in 1996 with only a minority of the votes cast for the same reason. But none is more perplexing than the 2000 presidential election where George W. Bush emerged victorious despite garnering fewer popular votes than Al Gore. Even worse, not only is Donald J. Trump widely seen as unqualified to be president of the United States, he was declared the winner in the 2016 elections despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.
What is more, it is not entirely a coincidence that each of the former presidents mentioned above could not prove the electorate wrong. Nixon had to resign from office in shame. Bill Clinton became the second US president in history to be impeached. And George W. Bush left office forlorn. Mr. Trump? The guess is open-ended. In fact, since the morning after November 8, the whole world has been on its knees hoping that the 70-year-old enfant terrible could ever grow to comport himself as a leader of the free world. But mere hope can only take us so far. The past remains a relevant predictor of the future. Expecting a pig to fly as high as the bird is no different than leading a merry chase. Even if Donald Trump can show any remorse and do some good moving forward, the havoc this man has already unleashed on human civilization can never be undone.
Yet we can not entirely discount hope, because “there is God.” The living God has not abandoned the United States, as Donald Trump wildly claimed. The image of the pathological liar alone is enough to finally provoke the Americans to demand a more deserving change. The change calls for the country to discard the archaic Electoral College system that produced an unrepentant heathen as US president—by default. This change requires an amendment to the outdated US Constitution in line with an ever-changing society towards the greater good.
The ultra conservatives will ultimately liken this proposal to the naked slaying of the utmost totem, but the main idea is far from novel. In the book, How Democratic Is the American Constitution?, Robert Dahl, fondly remembered as the Dean of American Political Scientists, had ridiculed the US Constitution immediately after the 2000 election that saw George W. Bush prevail with minority votes. Dahl called for change, charging that the ideal Constitution is one “that, after careful and prolonged deliberations, we and fellow citizens conclude is the best designed to serve our fundamental political ends, goals, and values.” Make no mistake about it, the existing Constitution has served America reasonably well and is deserving of a sacred place in history. But it is far from perfect.
The problem here is that a defining imperfect area of the US Constitution, the Electoral College, is profoundly polar opposite to democratic principles. America needs a system that can guarantee that the majority truly carries the votes. Moreover, it defies logic that the US citizens will continue to glue their thinking faculty to a document adopted over two centuries ago by ancient dwellers—to cope with the complexities of the Post-Modern era. The blind following of ideology rather than prudence is a recipe for disaster. That is how America gave us the Iraq war and the perpetual crisis that has followed. That is how and why the world is now grappling with the reality that a gambling goofus is soon to become the sole custodian of America’s nuclear code. It’s gloomy, square.
♦ SKC Ogbonnia, Ph.D. is the Executive Chairman of First Texas Energy Corporation. He writes from Houston, Texas. Contact>>
President-elect Trump names Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus to his senior White House leadership team
Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and Reince Priebus. (Photos: Evan Vucci/AP; J. Scott Applewhite/AP; Ralph Freso/Getty Images)
President-elect Donald Trump announced on Sunday that Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus will be his chief of staff and Steve Bannon, his campaign’s chief executive and the former chairman of the conservative website Breitbart News, will serve as his chief strategist and senior counselor. The announcement came in a statement sent out by Trump’s transition team that said the pair would work as “equal partners” in a continuation of “the effective leadership team they formed during the campaign.” Bannon received top billing in the campaign’s announcement.
Late last week, the New York Times reported Trump’s choice for chief of staff had been whittled down to Priebus and Bannon. Both Priebus and Bannon traveled with Trump during the final weeks of his grueling campaign.
The chief of staff traditionally sets the tone in the White House, acts as gatekeeper to the Oval Office and is typically the first and last person the president talks to each day. (The person also acts as a go-between for the president and Capitol Hill.) And Priebus, who has close ties with House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fellow Wisconsinite, as well as other GOP leaders, would be a logical choice to help bridge the gap between Team Trump and a wary Republican establishment while helping shepherd the president-elect’s agenda through Congress.
And Priebus, 44, who had a more public role in Trump’s campaign, would be a familiar face in and around Washington.
“Reince, he’s good on TV,” one Trump campaign source told Yahoo News. “Steve, I don’t know if he’s ever done that.”
While the chief of staff isn’t necessarily someone who spends a lot of time doing television hits, the source said this could change with Trump’s “unconventional” approach.
Trump greets Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus during a campaign rally in Erie, Pa., in August. (Photo: Eric Thayer/Reuters)
But it was Bannon who crafted the messaging and strategy that propelled Trump’s stunning victory.
“I mean, the guy clearly knows how to get things going, how to get a message going, and how to push that and layer it so those things are going to take root,” the source said, adding: “That’s something people are going to like. I mean, clearly, that’s how he’s built Breitbart and how he acts on the morning calls for the campaign. When we’re talking about messages he’ll say, ‘Let’s jump on this story … Let’s start talking about this. It’s going to be huge and we’ve go to go big on it.’”
The 62-year-old Bannon assumed the role as head of Trump’s campaign in August in a shakeup that was criticized by both Democrats and Republicans because of Breitbart’s far-right worldview. He took a leave from his role at the news site to join the campaign.
Hillary Clinton tried to use Bannon’s hiring to tie Trump to the so-called alt-right — a fringe movement marked by white nationalism and racist undertones — that Breitbart News frequently championed. In speeches and on social media, Clinton and her campaign highlighted some of Breitbart’s more controversial headlines.
Bombshell revelation -Trump Says He’ll Immediately Deport Or Imprison Up To 3 Million Undocumented Immigrants
File: A van chartered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement which will take these undocumented immigrants to the border to be deported.
By Roque Planas (The Huffington Post).
President-elect Donald Trump plans to deport or imprison somewhere between 2 million and 3 million undocumented immigrants as soon as he takes office.
In an interview with CBS News that will air Sunday night, Trump said he would launch what could be the largest mass deportation effort in modern history, vowing to immediately deport a number of people comparable to the record-setting figure that President Barack Obama carried out over two terms in office.
“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,” Trump said in the interview. “But we’re getting them out of our country, they’re here illegally.”
In saying that 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal records live in the U.S., Trump was repeating a claim he’d made earlier in the campaign that The Washington Post fact-checked and determined was inaccurate.
The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that around 820,000 undocumented immigrants have criminal records ― a figure that includes many people whose only conviction is crossing the border illegally. Under prosecutorial discretion guidelines in place since 2011, undocumented migrants with minor crimes are in some cases able to avoid deportation.
But a review by The Marshall Project of more than 300,000 recent deportations showed that the majority of deportees had no serious criminal record at all. More than 40 percent had no criminal conviction, and another 18.7 percent only had an immigration-related conviction. Less than 20 percent had a criminal conviction that involved or potentially involved violence.
After his initial round of deportations and efforts at border security, Trump said, his administration would assess its policy on the remaining undocumented immigrants residing here.
“After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that they’re talking about who are terrific people, they’re terrific people but we are gonna make a determination at that,” Trump said. “But before we make that determination … it’s very important, we are going to secure our border.”
“He’s not calling for mass deportation,” Priebus said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” last week. “He said, ‘No, only people who have committed crimes.’ And then only until all of that is taken care of will we look at what we are going to do next.”
It’s unclear whether Trump could deport or jail that many people that quickly with the resources at his disposal. Deportations are often contested in court. And the ebb and flow of apprehensions at the border at times exceeds the 34,000 beds the federal government reserves on a daily basis to detain migrants.
But his enthusiasm for removals suggests that deportations will likely rise when he takes office, after declining sharply last year. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 235,413 undocumented immigrants in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available ― a sharp decline from the Obama administration’s 2012 peak of 409,849 ICE removals.
International Guardian reacts to Trump’s election victory
Donald Trump, President-elect of the United States of America
Publisher’s Analysis
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. The 2016 Election has come and gone, and the time for healing and harmony must not be compromised.
Politics is a policy of managing resources, focusing strategically on “who gets what?” Those who are successful are those who voted and stood by their candidates based on their civic needs and interests.
Electioneering support should be based on distinctive necessities and aspirations. We do not support parties and candidates because we like or hate them but because their policies dovetail our interests. Likewise, we do not support candidates because they would win but because their proposals meet our communal needs.
Therefore those who supported or stood by Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton based on their interests have rightfully fulfilled their desires.
About the unforeseen consequences of Trump’s presidency, only time will tell. Yet, without qualms, we must accept the fact, that America has a new President called Donald Trump.
Trump says health care, border, jobs are top priorities
Trump said he and the Republican majority in Congress were going to accomplish “absolutely spectacular things for the American people,” adding he was eager to get started.
Washington (AFP) – US President-elect Donald Trump visited Congress on Thursday and proclaimed that health care, border security and jobs will be his top three priorities when he moves to the White House next January.
Continuing a Washington victory tour of sorts after his presidential election shocked the world, Trump and Vice president-elect Mike Pence sat down with House Speaker Paul Ryan and then with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to discuss the Republican priorities in Congress.
Ryan and Trump had a testy relationship during the campaign, with the House speaker last month saying he would not defend the nominee after Trump’s lewd comments about women were made public.
Now that Trump is the president-elect, Ryan appeared friendly and gracious as they met, first over lunch and then in his Capitol office.
“We had a very detailed meeting,” Trump told reporters at a brief photo spray.
“As you know, health care — we’re going to make it affordable. We are going to do a real job on health care,” he said.
Trump made repealing Obamacare, and building a border wall between the United States and Mexico, pillars of his presidential campaign.
Trump said he and the Republican majority in Congress were going to accomplish “absolutely spectacular things for the American people,” adding he was eager to get started.
Afterwards, following an hour-long meeting with McConnell on the other side of the Capitol, Trump stood at the Senate majority leader’s side and stressed that “we have a lot to do.”
“We’re going to look very strongly at immigration,” he said.
“We’re going to look very strongly at health care, and we’re looking at jobs — big league jobs.”
Trump did not elaborate.
McConnell said they discussed the transition operations and said “he’s anxious to get going early, and so are we.”
Ryan for his part complimented Trump on his astounding come-from-behind victory against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“We’re going to turn that victory into progress for the American people, and we are now talking about how we are going to hit the ground running to get this country turned around and make America great again,” Ryan said.
Congress returns to work next week, after an extended break for the US elections.
Trump calls Obama ‘a very good man’ after historic White House meeting
Obama told Trump: “If you succeed, the country succeeds,” as the two men sat in high-backed chairs in front of the fireplace in the Oval Office.
Washington (CNN). President Barack Obama welcomed President-elect Donald Trump to the White House Thursday, as both men put past antagonisms aside in a time-honored ritual epitomizing the peaceful transfer of political power.
Three days after mocking Trump as unfit to control the codes needed to launch nuclear weapons, Obama told his successor that he wanted him to succeed and would do everything he could to ensure a smooth transition.
Trump, who spent years pursuing Obama over false claims he is not a natural-born American and accused him of being the founder of ISIS on the campaign trail, called Obama a “very good man” and said he would seek his counsel in future.
The extraordinary meeting was a reflection of the swift and sudden change in the political mood between the frenzied last days of an election campaign and the reality of government and the transition of power between two administrations that follows.
“My No. 1 priority in the next two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our President-elect is successful,” Obama said.
Obama told Trump: “If you succeed, the country succeeds,” as the two men sat in high-backed chairs in front of the fireplace in the Oval Office.
Trump thanked Obama for the meeting which he said had originally been scheduled for 10 minutes and went on for 90.
“Mr. President, it was a great honor being with you and I look forward to being with you many, many more times,” Trump said, adding that he and Obama had spoken about some wonderful and difficult things and “some high-flying assets.”
It was not immediately clear what he meant.
The President-elect also said he would seek “counsel” from Obama.
As the pool of reporters were led out, Trump told them several times that Obama was “a very good man.”
It comes with many Americans, especially Democrats and liberals, still in disbelief and shock at Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, after the most vicious and unconventional campaign in modern history.
The meeting, and Trump’s stern demeanor, also underscored how the heavy burden of the presidency begins to settle on the shoulders of a President-elect. In Trump’s case, that process will be especially challenging giving that he will be the first president elected with not political, diplomatic or military executive experience.
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Preibus, who is being mentioned as a possible chief of staff in Trump’s White House, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Americans would appreciate Trump’s demeanor in Washington.
“I hope that everyone has seen sort of this presidential Donald Trump that we knew all along was up to the task and I think is going to make us all proud,” Preibus said.
Smooth transition
It is also clear that Obama’s determination to facilitate a smooth and effective transition, like the one he was provided by outgoing President George W. Bush, is a reflection of his desire not to permit any animosity towards Trump from he or his staff that would detract from his own legacy in the final days of his presidency.
The temporary truce between the White House and Trump and his Republican Party however obscures the deep shock, and disquiet about Trump and his temperament inside the White House and among Democrats.
CNN’s Jim Acosta said one senior White House official responded with a single word — “unbelievable” when asked about Trump’s comment that he would seek “counsel” from the current President. The official said no one in the White
House had changed their mind about Trump, despite their commitment to a smooth political transition.
Still, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that given the history between them, the meeting between Obama and Trump in which they were alone in the Oval Office, was “a little less awkward” than might be expected and they did not recreate some kind of presidential debate during the talks over their stark political differences.
While Trump and Obama met, first lady Michelle Obama spent time with Trump’s wife, Melania.
Trump’s first visit to Washington began as the President-elect began around 10:30 a.m. when the plane emblazoned with his last name landed at Reagan National Airport, marking a new beginning for America.
Trump went to meet House Speaker Paul Ryan on Capitol Hill after the White House visit and also saw Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell while in town. Vice President-elect Mike Pence met Vice President Joe Biden.
After meeting McConnell, Trump outlined his priorities.
“We’ll look very strongly at immigration. We’re going to look at the border, very important. We’re going to look very strongly on health care. And we’re looking at jobs, big league jobs.”
While Trump and Obama were meeting, the billionaire’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and communications aide Hope Hicks met senior members of the White House staff.
Earnest said that Obama briefed Trump on his last foreign trip — to Greece, Germany and Peru next week — and that the President left the talks with “renewed confidence” that Trump was committed to a smooth transition.
Acrimony on the campaign trail
The symbolism of a President and a President-elect being together is always powerful. But it was especially notable on Thursday given the bitter history between them.
Throughout Obama’s presidency, Trump persistently sought to undermine the legitimacy of the nation’s first African-American presidency by questioning his citizenship and his Christian faith.
“He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim,” Trump told Fox News in 2011. “I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that.”
The campaign was considered a racial attack by many people close to Obama.
When Obama, attempting to put a stop to the falsehood, released his “long-form” birth certificate from Hawaii in April 2011, Trump continued to claim it was somehow faked.
It took until September 2016 — two months before a presidential election in which he was already the Republican Party’s nominee — for Trump to admit the reality that Obama was, indeed, born in the United States.
And when he did so, it was only in a brief statement with no explanation of why he’d changed his long-held belief, aside from saying in interviews later that he wanted to get the question off the table in the heat of the campaign.
Obama has directed his own barbs at Trump, too.
At the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, with Trump in the audience, Obama mocked Trump’s birtherism, in a biting attack that crossed the line between humor and sarcasm into overt personal hostility.
“He can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter — like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?” Obama said of Trump.
He also cast Trump as incompetent and unhinged on the campaign trail, citing a New York Times report that Trump’s staff had taken his Twitter account away from him after a 3 a.m. rant about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado.
“They had so little confidence in his self-control, they said, ‘We are just going to take away your Twitter.’ Now, if somebody can’t handle a Twitter account, they can’t handle the nuclear codes,” Obama said on Sunday in Florida, and made similar comments in New Hampshire on election eve.
Exclusive: Donald Trump Could Pull U.S. From Nigeria’s Boko Haram Fight, Warns Wole Soyinka
Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka takes part in a debate in Berlin, Germany, July 3, 2012. Soyinka pledged to cut up his green card if Donald Trump was elected U.S. president.
The victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential race could jeopardize U.S. support in Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram, according to Nigerian Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka.
The Nigerian author and playwright also says that he will not destroy his U.S. residency permit just yet, despite a pre-election pledge to “cut” his green card, which is afforded to immigrants granted permanent residence in the country.
Trump, the Republican party candidate, shocked pollsters by defeating Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s vote. The businessman and former reality television star secured victories in key swing states, capitalizing on an anti-establishment feeling among voters to win out against his more experienced rival.
Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group, launched an armed insurgency against the Nigerian government in 2009, killing thousands and displacing more than 2 million since then. The group also pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in 2015, though it has recently split into factions following the appointment in August of an ISIS-approved leader.
Under the administration of Barack Obama, the U.S. has provided financial support and military training to West African countries fighting Boko Haram. The U.S. provided $71 million worth of equipment, logistics and training to five countries—Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Benin—that together formed a joint task force in 2015 to fight the militants, according to a February fact sheet from the U.S. State Department.
Obama also approved the deployment of up to 300 U.S. military personnel to Cameroon in October 2015 to carry out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations in the region.
“One should expect that level of collaboration to diminish. Trump’s mentality is one of, ‘What are we doing there? What business do we have over there?’” says Soyinka, speaking to Newsweek from New York.
“I foresee Trump dismissing that kind of expectation offhand and closing in, shrinking, becoming smaller in terms of [the U.S.’s] presence in other parts of the world,” he says.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari extended his congratulations to Trump on Wednesday, saying that he looked forward to working with the president-elect “to build on and strengthen relations between Nigeria and the U.S.”
Trump had little to say about U.S. foreign policy towards Africa in general and Nigeria specifically during his presidential campaign. While he has vowed to pursue ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the Republican has made no mention of whether he intends to persist with or discontinue the country’s support for counter-terrorism efforts in West Africa. Newsweek contacted the Trump campaign for further comment but received no immediate reply.
An analysis by South Africa-based thinktank the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) suggested that Trump could become “the single most effective recruiting tool for terrorist organizations across the globe,” including in Africa. The ISS cited Trump’s hardline rhetoric towards Muslims, his advocation of the use of torture and expressed desire to target the families of militants all as potential factors in Trump being used by militant groups in recruitment drives. Trump’s campaign pledge to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S. has already been used in a propaganda video by Al-Shabab, a Somali militant group aligned with Al-Qaeda.
Soyinka is based between Nigeria and the U.S., where he is affiliated to several universities. In a recent discussion with students at the University of Oxford in the U.K., which was shared in a video on October 27, the author vowed to destroy his green card should Trump be declared the winner of the election.
Following the announcement of Trump’s victory on Wednesday, Nigerians took to social media to question Soyinka about whether he would honor his pledge.
The Nigerian author—who was the first African to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1986—says he is biding his time until Trump is inaugurated in January before deciding on his next steps.
“Why don’t we wait until Trump actually takes office?” says Soyinka. “I’m just going about my normal commitments, but definitely not getting into any more commitments. Let’s put it that way for now.”
Meet Trump’s Cabinet-in-waiting
Trumpworld has started with a mandate to hire from the private sector whenever possible. | AP Photo
President-elect Donald Trump does not have the traditional cadre of Washington insiders and donors to build out his Cabinet, but his transition team has spent the past several months quietly building a short list of industry titans and conservative activists who could comprise one of the more eclectic and controversial presidential cabinets in modern history.
Trumpworld has started with a mandate to hire from the private sector whenever possible. That’s why the Trump campaign is seriously considering Forrest Lucas, the 74-year-old co-founder of oil products company Lucas Oil, as a top contender for Interior secretary, or donor and Goldman Sachs veteran Steven Mnuchin as Treasury secretary.
He’s also expected to reward the band of surrogates who stood by him during the bruising presidential campaign including Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, all of whom are being considered for top posts. A handful of Republican politicians may also make the cut including Sen. Bob Corker for secretary of State or Sen. Jeff Sessions for secretary of Defense.
Trump’s divisive campaign may make it difficult for him to attract top talent, especially since so many politicians and wonks openly derided the president-elect over the past year. And Trump campaign officials have worried privately that they will have difficulty finding high-profile women to serve in his Cabinet, according to a person familiar with the campaign’s internal discussions, given Trump’s past comments about women.
Still, two Trump transition officials said they’ve received an influx of phone calls and emails in recent weeks, as the polls tightened and a Trump White House seemed more within reach.
So far, the Trump campaign and transition teams have been tight-lipped about their picks. (The Trump campaign has declined to confirm Cabinet speculation.) But here’s the buzz from POLITICO’s conversations with policy experts, lobbyists, academics, congressional staffers and people close to Trump.
Secretary of State
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a leading Trump supporter, is a candidate for the job, as is Republican Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.), the current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Corker has said he’d “strongly consider” serving as secretary of State.
Trump is also eyeing former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.
Treasury secretary
Donald Trump himself has indicated that he wants to give the Treasury secretary job to his finance chairman, Steven Mnuchin, a 17-year-veteran of Goldman Sachs who now works as the chairman and chief executive of the private investment firm, Dune Capital Management. Mnuchin has also worked for OneWest Bank, which was later sold to CIT Group in 2015.
Secretary of Defense
Among the Republican defense officials who could join the Trump administration: Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a close adviser, has been discussed as a potential Defense Secretary. Former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.) have also been mentioned as potential candidates.
Top Trump confidante retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, would need a waiver from Congress to become defense secretary, as the law requires retired military officers to wait seven years before becoming the civilian leader of the Pentagon. But Trump’s chief military adviser is likely to wind up some senior administration post, potentially national security adviser. And other early endorsers like Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) could be in line for top posts as well.
Attorney general
People close to Trump say former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s leading public defenders, is the leading candidate for attorney general. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another vocal Trump supporter and the head of the president-elect’s transition team, is also a contender for the job — though any role in the Cabinet for Christie could be threatened by the Bridgegate scandal.
Another possibility: Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, though the controversy over Trump’s donation to Bondi could undercut her nomination.
Interior secretary
Forrest Lucas, the 74-year-old co-founder of oil products company Lucas Oil, is seen as a top contender for Interior Secretary.
Trump’s presidential transition team is also eyeing venture capitalist Robert Grady, a George H. W. Bush White House official with ties to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. And Trump’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., is said to be interested in the job.
Meanwhile, a person who spoke to the Trump campaign told POLITICO that the aides have also discussed tapping Sarah Palin for Interior Secretary. Trump has said he’d like to put Palin in his Cabinet, and Palin has made no secret of her interest.
Other possible candidates include: former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer; Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin; Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis; and Oklahoma oilman Harold Hamm.
Agriculture secretary
There are several names being considered by Trump aides for Agriculture secretary, according to multiple sources familiar with the transition. The president elect has a deep bench to pull from with nearly 70 leaders on agricultural advisory committee.
The most controversial name on the transition’s current short list is Sid Miller, the current secretary of agriculture in Texas, who caused a firestorm just days ago after his campaign’s Twitter account referred to Clinton as a ‘c—.‘ Miller said it was a staffer mistake and apologized.
Other names include Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback; Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman; former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue; former Texas Gov. Rick Perry as well as Charles Herbster, Republican donor and agribusiness leader; and Mike McCloskey, a major dairy executive in Indiana, according to Arabella Advisors, a firm that advises top foundations and is closely tracking both transition efforts.
Bruce Rastetter, a major Republican donor in Iowa, and Kip Tom, a farmer who ran for Congress in Indiana this year but was defeated in the primary, are also among those being considered, Arabella said.
Other top Republican insiders expect that Chuck Connor, president and CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, Don Villwock, president of the Indiana Farm Bureau and Ted McKinney, the current director of the Indiana Department of Agriculture in the Pence Administration, are also likely to be in the running for the post.
Commerce secretary
Trump is expected to look to the business community for this job.
Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, a Trump economic adviser, could fit the bill. Dan DiMicco, the former CEO of steelmaker Nucor Corp and a Trump trade adviser, is another possibility.
Trump is said to also be considering former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the job.
Labor secretary
Like many Cabinet posts under Trump, the campaign and transition staff have been looking for a CEO or executive to lead the Labor Department. One possible name being bandied about is Victoria Lipnic, the Commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission since 2010 who also served as an an assistant secretary of Labor for employment standards from 2002 until 2009. The Romney transition team reportedly also considered her for a top Labor post back in 2012.
Health and Human Services secretary
Among the names receiving buzz: Florida Gov. Rick Scott, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Ben Carson, former GOP presidential candidate. Carson has received the most attention lately for HHS, even from Trump himself.
At a recent anti-Obamacare rally, Trump went out of his way to praise Carson by calling him a “brilliant” physician. “I hope that he will be very much involved in my administration in the coming years,” Trump said.
One longer shot would be Rich Bagger, the executive director of the Trump transition team and former pharmaceutical executive who led, behind-closed-doors, many of the meetings this fall with health care industry donors and executives.
Energy secretary
Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm has long been seen as a leading candidate for Energy Secretary. Hamm, an Oklahoma billionaire who has been a friend of Trump’s for years, has been the leading influence on Trump’s energy policy during the campaign.
If Hamm passes, venture capitalist Robert Grady is also seen as a top candidate, though he could also be in line for Interior.
Education secretary
Trump has made clear the Education Department would play a reduced role in his administration — if it exists at all, as he’s suggested he may try to do away with it altogether.
The GOP nominee has also offered a few hints about who he would pick to lead the department while it’s still around. Among those who may be on the shortlist is Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who ran against Trump in the primary but later endorsed the Republican presidential candidate. Education Insider, a monthly survey of Congressional staff, federal officials and other “insiders,” said in May that Carson was Trump’s most-likely pick.
Another possible education secretary under Trump is William Evers, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution who was worked on education matters for the Trump transition team. Evers worked at the Education Department during the Bush administration and served as a senior adviser to then-Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.
Veterans Affairs secretary
The name most commonly mentioned for Veterans Affairs Secretary is House Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Jeff Miller, who’s retiring from the House and was an early Trump backer.
Homeland Security secretary
One person close to Trump’s campaign said David Clarke, the conservative Sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wis., is a possible candidate for Homeland Security Secretary. Clarke has cultivated a devoted following on the right, and he spoke at the Republican National Convention in Ohio, declaring, “Blue lives matter.” Christie is also seen as a possible DHS secretary.
Environmental Protection Agency administrator
While Trump has called for eliminating the EPA, he has more recently modified that positions, saying in September that he’ll “refocus the EPA on its core mission of ensuring clean air, and clean, safe drinking water for all Americans.”
Myron Ebell, a climate skeptic who is running the EPA working group on Trump’s transition team, is seen as a top candidate to lead the agency. Ebell, an official at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has come under fire from environmental groups for his stances on global warming. Venture capitalist Robert Grady is also a contender.
Other potential candidates: Joe Aiello is the director of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Environmental Safety and Quality Assurance; Carol Comer, the commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, who was appointed by Mike Pence; and Leslie Rutledge, the attorney general of Arkansas and a lead challenger of EPA regulations in the state.
Bryan Bender, Jeremy Herb, Connor O’Brien, Joanne Kenen, Marianne Levine, Michael Crowley, Doug Palmer, Nahal Toosi, Helena Bottemiller Evich, Zachary Warmbrodt, Ian Kullgren and Benjamin Wermund contributed to this report.
