DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Trump's newest appointee...

...is someone I can get thoroughly behind.

I can't imagine someone with a more appropriate and impressive pedigree. I've chased down at least 6 or 8 articles about him, and haven't heard one single thing that isn't over-the-moon complimentary.

And you just KNOW dude's a no-nonsense badass if he's only sporting two rows of chest candy on that uni of his (click the link to see The Man).

I need to say this: the Flynn debacle gave me no pleasure whatsoever. I may lean left, but I love this country above her politics. Having a void at such an important cabinet-level position left this country extremely vulnerable. I feel much better seeing someone like McMaster step in to clean up this FO.

Two good picks in a row for nat'l defense.
I'll sleep a bit better now.

_______________

Trump's new warrior-scholar
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster has staked out a decidedly more hawkish position on Russia and gone out of his way to assert that the war against terrorism must not turn into a war against Islam.
By AUSTIN WRIGHT and JEREMY HERB 02/20/17 06:23 PM EST


President Donald Trump has picked one of the military’s leading warrior-scholars to restore order to the National Security Council — but also one who has staked out a decidedly more hawkish position on Russia and gone out of his way to assert that the war against terrorism must not morph into a war against Islam.

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trump's newly named replacement for ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn, is considered one of the Army’s top intellectuals. When he was a young major he published a best-selling book about failed military leadership during the Vietnam War and later went on to help pioneer counterinsurgency operations in Iraq.

The first active-duty officer to hold the post since Colin Powell under President Ronald Reagan, he has also attained legendary status in military circles for his willingness to buck conventional wisdom.

It is a pedigree that might soon come in handy in his new post as the top national security policy official in the Trump White House.

McMaster is currently the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, where his job has been to figure out what the Army should look like in 2025 and beyond. He has placed particular emphasis on preparing to counter the kind of tactics and weapons that Russia, which he considers a rising threat to global stability, has used in its incursion in Ukraine.

This emphasis could put him at odds with Trump, who says he wants to improve relations with Russia and has expressed little concern about its aggressive behaviors in Eastern Europe and contends that Vladimir Putin can be bargained with.

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Trump picks Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster to be national security adviser
By MATTHEW NUSSBAUM, MICHAEL CROWLEY and ELI STOKOLS

But McMaster's views will likely help build bridges with hawks in Congress who have been some of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics.

“I give President Trump great credit for this decision, as well as his national security cabinet choices,” Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in a statement after the announcement. “I have had the honor of knowing [McMaster] for many years, and he is a man of genuine intellect, character, and ability. He knows how to succeed.”

McCain added that he “could not imagine a better, more capable national security team than the one we have right now.”

Trump announced the selection Monday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, flanked by McMaster and Keith Kellogg, a retired Army lieutenant general who was Flynn’s chief of staff and is set to stay on under McMaster.

“He’s a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience,” Trump said of his new national security adviser. “I watched and read a lot over the last two days. He is highly respected by everyone in the military, and we’re very honored to have him.”

McMaster faces a daunting challenge trying to right the ship following the rocky tenure of Flynn, who departed after it became clear he misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his pre-inauguration contacts with Russia’s ambassador.

Trump’s first pick to replace Flynn, retired Vice Adm. Bob Harward, turned down the job — in part, according to an individual familiar with his thinking, because he wasn’t given assurances he would be able to select his own staff and have autonomy from Trump's close-knit political advisers — led by Steve Bannon, who Trump elevated to a permanent position on the National Security Council, and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that Trump had given McMaster “full authority” to hire “whatever staff he sees fit."

But Philip Carter, a defense analyst at the Center for a New American Security, said McMaster will be tested to try to “impose order and discipline on a White House national security structure and process that has seen neither since Election Day.”

“This challenge will be particularly hard given the political winds within the White House, and the fact that McMaster comes to the White House as an outsider and relative political neophyte,” Carter said.

Retired Lt. Gen. Dave Barno, who has known McMaster for years, said the new national security adviser is a hard-charging and forceful personality who grasps the political challenges he will face in addition to the national security ones.

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Simon & Schuster cancels book by Milo Yiannopoulos
By ALEX WEPRIN

“He’s going to have to build a relationship with the boss, get in to see the boss,” said Barno. “There’s no question something he will do daily is tell the boss hard things that he doesn’t necessarily want to hear. And I think the president hired him with that expectation.”

McMaster is already winning praise from GOP defense hawks on Capitol Hill.

"H.R McMaster is one of the finest combat leaders of our generation and also a great strategic mind,” Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said in a statement. “He is a true warrior scholar, and I'm confident he will serve both the president and the country well."

Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, called him “quite possibly the single most talented 3-star in the U.S. military today.”

“He is accomplished across wide domains of military operations as well as integrated political-military challenges like counterinsurgency warfare in general, and fighting corruption in Afghanistan in particular,” O’Hanlon said. “He is affable and likeable and charming but not afraid to challenge and provoke.”

McMaster’s book — “Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam” — is considered a key text about the military’s role in the Vietnam War. He wrote it as a major as part of his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

He served in the first Gulf War as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He played a key role with retired Gen. David Petraeus in rewriting the Army’s field manual on counterinsurgency operations — pioneering the “clear, hold, build” strategy of clearing a town with U.S. forces and then building up local security forces to maintain control.

Petraeus, in a statement to POLITICO, called McMaster "a truly strategic thinker and a great team builder with superb organizational skills."

"I was privileged to have him lead three major strategic reviews during the Surge in Iraq and then to establish the task force on anti-corruption during the Surge in Afghanistan. He is exceedingly well qualified to serve as National Security Adviser," he added.

McMaster was even mentioned by President George W. Bush in a 2006 speech about the war in Iraq, with Bush quoting the then-colonel’s description of Al Qaeda’s brutality.

But McMaster is also known for a willingness to ruffle feathers — and sometimes run afoul of his superiors. He was twice passed over for promotion from colonel to brigadier general before Petraeus insisted his success in Iraq be recognized, author Mark Perry wrote in POLITICO Magazine last year.

In a nod to the potential tensions that could emerge between McMaster and Trump on Russia, the new national security adviser has warned that the U.S. is losing its potential edge against Russia in land warfare.

McMaster led a secret Army study of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, which was designed to figure out how the Army should adapt to Russia’s military advances.

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Trump blames media for allegedly distorting Sweden's immigration issues
By POLITICO STAFF
“It is clear that while our Army was engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq, Russia studied U.S. capabilities and vulnerabilities and embarked on an ambitious and largely successful modernization effort,” McMaster told the Senate Armed Services Committee last year. “In Ukraine, for example, the combination of unmanned aerial systems and offensive cyber and advanced electronic warfare capabilities depict a high degree of technological sophistication.”

In another departure from some of the rhetoric of Trump and Flynn, McMaster has sought to separate the depravity of Islamic terror groups from the wider religion.

For example, in a recent speech at Virginia Military Institute, he said, “We will defeat today's enemies, including terrorist organizations, like [the Islamic State], who cynically use a perverted interpretation of religion to incite hatred and justify horrific cruelty against innocents.”

He joins an administration that includes many retired generals, including Defense Secretary James Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.

Some defense analysts remain concerned about what they see as the militarization of the national security apparatus.

“Like Mattis, McMaster's appointment commands great respect because of his military record, but also raises civil-military relations questions,” Carter said. “This continues a pattern of President Trump using military personnel and institutions to do political things. One of McMaster's great challenges will be to resist Trump's further politicization of the military, and do so while on active duty.”

But Max Boot, a conservative military scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations and a longtime critic of Trump, spoke for many so-called "Never Trumpers" in the Republican Party.

"McMaster is one of the most impressive army officers of his generation — a rare combination of soldier and scholar," Boot said. "I cannot imagine a better choice for national security adviser."

Yet, like many, he also has doubts that McMaster can succeed if Trump does not moderate his rhetoric and insists on giving both Bannon and Kushner their own foreign policy portfolios.

"Not even the most talented individual will succeed in that job as long as Bannon and Kushner continue to run their own foreign policies and as long as Trump continues to make outlandish statements questioning basic American commitments and valued allies."

Connor O'Brien and Michael Crowley contributed to this report.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-mcmaster-national-security-235213


p.s. I was listening to a radio interview on my way to work tonight. The guest was retired Army Col. John Nagl, who has known and worked with McMaster for more than 20 years. Same glowing character/competence assessment as every other source I've run across.

At one point, the interviewer asked him about HR McM (who is th ultimate non-ideological pragamatist/strategist/tactician, going up against Steve Bannon, who is the ultimate ideologue. Without pause: "I'd by tickets to watch that fight." It was an enlightening and reassuring interview. You can listen to it here.

Well chosen, Mr. President.

(pick your jaws up of your desks. You punx don't know me- )

Not totally sure how you mean only wearing two rows of medals.

Once a person has more than 5 rows, they many times don't wear them all. As a 3 star, he can pretty much wear what he wants. You can Wiki him and it shows all of his medals and badges. He has a bunch.

Don't have a problem with this pick as long as he is his OWN man and not a trumpboy.... I have a feeling he'll be his own man..

Clem, it's appointments like these that help me to be "ok" with Trump as a whole.

Kelly, Mattis, McMasters... these aren't politicians and academics trying to apply theories. These men are pragmatists, mission oriented (i.e. problem solvers), and they've witnessed firsthand the results of previous international political decisions (for good and bad).

These aren't Yes Men. I don't know much about Kelly, but McMasters appears to be the kind of guy who has put "doing the right thing" before his own personal benefit.

Mattis was pushed out after pressing the Obama Admin for more depth to their Iran policy.

These guys are widely known as Scholars just as much as they are Warriors. They clearly aren't afraid to tell their superiors what they may not wish to hear.

I know he had his issues, but I'd really like to see Petraeus get a seat at the table in some fashion.

Great,, and I don't disagree with you Devil, But how in the hell do you explain DeVos for education and Scott Pruitt for EPA? Neither is remotely qualified and both have an agenda that goes against both agencies.

a little light reading

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/polit...gency/95104512/

That right there is exactly what this Nation needs right now.

Geez "right now"?? Coming from an 8 year tenured right wing obstructionist. That's rich.

Yes. (Alt)Right now that their guy is in. Not the Kenyan Muslim "founder of ISIS".
I mean their new exhalted leader stated it plain as day.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/vide...r-of-isis-video

I didn't get to see any of DeVos's Hearing so I can't really comment all that much on her. I did do a little Wiki reading on her and she does appear to have some experience with Education, but if I'm honest, that resume left me with the impression they were more like pet causes. In contrast, a First Lady like Laura Bush and her librarian background had/has much more credibility than DeVos. I'm not going to put too much stock in the criticism of what happened at her Hearing because the ones I did see, the Democrats spent more time grand standing and purposefully trying to get the nominees to say something embarrassing.

I can guarantee that if I should ever have to testify in front of Congress, I wouldn't put up with that level of BS.

So DeVos is a big question mark for me.

As for Pruitt... I did get to watch a decent amount of that Hearing. The Dems kept trying to paint him as fighting for dirty water, etc... but he kept explaining that the lawsuits he headed against the EPA had more to do with the EPA enforcing interstate regulations that they didn't have the Constitutional authority to do.

If a person believes the EPA isn't out of control, that if the EPA enforces a regulation or rule, it doesn't matter if they have the authority to do it because the EPA wouldn't do that unless it was necessary to save the environment, then Pruitt is not going to be viewed as a good thing.

But if you are a person who believes that Constitutional authority is relevant, that our agencies (EPA or otherwise) should operate within those parameters because allowing unelected bureaucrats to enact laws is dangerous, then Pruitt looks to be a good pick.

So if Pruitt's position of the EPA runs counter to the agency's agenda off operating with impunity, then I'm all for it.

DeVos apparently is a big proponent of school vouchers? School voucher programs I've heard tend to be very popular with the families who use them because it a) gives parents a choice and b) gives kids an opportunity to go to a better school. I have no idea why parent choice and student empowerment would run against the idea of trying to better our Education system.

If Obama hadn't run this country into the ground financially I know Trump would have made better use of the $10 Trillion that Obama spent like a kid in a candy shop.

Shame!

Yes, like coming out of the Bush years and all of the disrespect how we should all work to get behind Obama... same band, different song.

Same as it ever was.... Same as it ever was....

And in 4 years or 8 years or whenever Trump is out and democrats win the Whitehouse again, they will look on in shock and dismay at how their candidate is not warmly received with open arms by all parties....

dude sounds legit.

yes, he does.

Clem and Swish,

One of the criticisms of Trump is that he's likely to get us in to a war. Having guys like McMasters, Kelly, and Mattis in these positions, are you concerned that we are that much closer to a wartime footing?

And if so, can I assume that your favorability towards these men mitigates some of that concern? And what IS that mitigation? Is it that they are scholarly enough to keep us from going over the brink, or that they are that awesome that when we do go over the brink, we'll kick the snot out of the enemy?

i've said this before, and maybe it's because you and I are naturally biased with this...but there isn't an official state military capable of messing with us. if we go all in (minus nukes) this it isn't a matter of if we win, it's when we win, and how bad the ass whooping was.

so guys like General Mattis do nothing be re enforce that position.

here's where we disagree: i have no doubt the capabilities of our Military under any president appointee; my doubt lies within Trump himself.

as a matter of fact, and i can't believe i'm saying this, i rather have Pence hold exclusive authority over all things foreign policy related than Trump.

I think Trump is way to gullible and vulnerable to things he sees on the internet and TV when it comes to international relations. him not taking security meetings seriously, or hell, just not going to them, concern me greatly.

So Mattis and McMaster are fine with me as far as advisory and running our Defense.

but we've already seen 2 guys from the security council drop. one for being a snake, the other for not agreeing with Trump. ultimately Trump has the final say on what goes down, and that's where the bulk of my concern lies. cause i just don't trust him as of now to make sound decisions.

Fair enough. And I don't think saying you'd be more comfortable with Pence has to feel like a huge admission of support. I agree with you. Pence has a much more even keeled, thoughtful demeanor about him. Disagree with him, but at least you know he's not goin off all half cocked

Yes, he's certainly has an actual presidential demeanor.

I agree with conservatives, in general, when it comes to position of strength with regards to foreign policy. I stress 'in genereL'.

But there's a huge difference between displaying force and throwing a temper tantrum like a 16 year old girl who didn't get the right color Porsche on her birthday.

There's some things that I've really liked what Trump has done for our FP. I still think he's bumbling around, but his indifferent stance on Israel is certainly a sign of a more peaceful Trump.

As of now there's no reason to believe his indifference on Israel isn't due to him simply not knowing much about the situation and having an opinion about it.

I mean, he's befriended and being advised by a bunch of pro-expanded Israel, former developers even. I've heard him say to Netanyahu to stop expanding in the west bank. I've seen him say that it's not beneficial for peace in that region. Him saying that they could go two states and, "it wouldn't make any difference to him" is certainly exciting. I hate to sound like 40 here, but "This is Trump negotiating."

Agreed.

It's why I think it was a huge blunder for Tim Kaine to act the way he did during the debate (i.e like Trump). It made Pence look like far and away the sanest person on either ticket! I don't know that it swayed any votes, but I think it went a long way in making people who were holding their nose voting for Trump feel much more comfortable in their decision.

Yea Kaine, while I agreed with him, acted pretty immaturely for somebody who was about to be 2nd in line to the presidency.

Which him and Trump have me wondering if this is gonna start being normal, as far as the future of the Oval.

Oh look, a Browns fan talking about the 'depth chart'!

It's both of those things, plus one more...
they seem to be extremely disciplined and level-headed.

If 45 is inclined to listen to them, he'll get not only good advice, but also the unvarnished truth.

Those attributes have me breathing a bit easier.

j/c

More info.
Character.

McMaster Has the Islamophobes Worried. Good.

When America’s most influential Islamophobes are upset, you know the president made a good choice. “Score one from the swamp,” whined Robert Spencer upon hearing the news that Donald Trump appointed Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster to be his new national security adviser. Spencer makes a living scaring Americans about the dangers of Muslim soccer moms. “John Bolton lost out to this guy?” sputtered his frequent partner in whine, Pamela Geller, who scoffed at the general for saying, “Every time you disrespect an Iraqi, you’re working for the enemy.”

The Islamophobes are not wrong to sense that McMaster will be hostile to their worldview, according to those who know him best. McMaster spent much of his career fighting and winning wars in the Middle East, which required him to know the local cultures and treat Muslims like humans rather than scripturally programmed robots. “He absolutely does not view Islam as the enemy,” said Pete Mansoor, who served with McMaster in Iraq. “He understands that the world is not one dimensional, that the Muslim world is not one dimensional,” said John Nagl, who also served with McMaster. In other words, the complicated causes of terrorism require complicated solutions.

McMaster’s nuanced views will likely be at odds with those of the president’s chief political strategist, Steve Bannon, and the other members of Bannon’s so-called Strategic Initiatives Group, a policymaking body he co-leads with the president’s son-in-law and chief of staff. Bannon believes the teachings of Islam and a supine West are primarily to blame for jihadist terrorism, as does his counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka. Both scoff at the idea that jihadism arises from a confluence of factors, most of which are not religious. “This is the famous approach that says it is all so nuanced and complicated,” Gorka told the Washington Post. “This is what I completely jettison.”

McMaster’s disgraced predecessor, Michael Flynn, agreed with the Bannonites and was disdainful of the intelligence community’s analysis, which he believed ignored the religious motives of jihadists in order to please President Obama. I served in the State Department when Flynn was still in government and, having seen some of the same analysis Flynn saw, I can say that the intelligence community did not ignore religion; it just didn’t inflate it as the primary driver of jihadist terrorism. The intelligence community was also careful to disaggregate jihadist groups according to their competing interests and to distinguish those groups from non-violent Islamists. With McMaster’s appointment, such analysis is now likely to find a sympathetic ear in the White House.

McMaster is also known as a military innovator who listens first and then changes direction accordingly. “You gotta come in with your ears open,” McMaster, then a colonel, told his soldiers in Iraq. “You have to really listen to people.” He pioneered the counterinsurgency strategy that President George W. Bush later adopted to stabilize Iraq, and he has pushed the Army to adapt its doctrine so it can better counter Russia’s hybrid warfare in Ukraine.

Such flexibility is essential for addressing the dizzying array of threats that confront the United States, especially those posed by jihadists and Russia. He is not likely to share his new boss’s Russophilia or his belief that ISIS can be destroyed without committing large numbers of American troops to stabilize its former territories. He’s also not likely to be impressed by the retread “war of ideas” approach to jihadism promulgated by Bannon and his circle, who argue that the United States can defeat the movement by empowering moderate Muslims to intellectually discredit it. That approach was tried under the Bush administration and, under another guise, by the Obama administration, to little effect.

What has been proven to work in combating jihadist militias is the same broad approach McMaster won praise for employing in Tel Afar: using intelligence judiciously, separating the truly dangerous from the merely angry, creating fissures between unlikely allies and recognizing that restraint can be the most powerful weapon of all. To his mind, militant ideologies find fertile soil when the ground is tilled by civil war; bring security and the ideologies will struggle to survive.

Although McMaster is intellectually nimble enough to help his boss navigate the treacherous sands of national security policy, he will be competing with Bannon for the president’s attention. Trump put Bannon on the key body of the National Security Council, the Principals Committee, an unprecedented appointment for a political adviser. And Bannon’s Strategic Initiatives Group has reportedly been overseeing the chaotic rollout of the president’s most controversial counterterrorism policies.

Still, in a White House full of self-proclaimed alpha males who equate counterterrorism seriousness with the willingness to kill, no one will be able to marginalize McMaster by playing the tough guy card against him. In the early days of the first Gulf War, then Captain McMaster led what has been called “the last great tank battle of the 20th century” against Iraqi armored divisions during a sandstorm, killing or wounding nearly a thousand Iraqis in just over an hour. “Eagle Troop had taken no casualties,” McMaster wrote in a report about the engagement. “I and other soldiers offered prayers of thanks to God. We did not gloat over our victory.” Hopefully, that combination of a deadly efficiency, sincere humility and respect for his adversaries will help McMaster maneuver to the fore of Trump’s national security team so he can calmly guide the new president through the storm of his own making.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/mcmaster-has-the-islamophobes-worried-good-214815

McMaster would shake his head and probably laugh at this completely slanted and Liberal post that I have seen in a long time.

It contains all the insults and name calling that is typical of the Left and it surprises me the reporter could type it through his tears.

Well, it's an op-ed, so there's that...

Beyond the slant (which is hard to miss), I picked up more background, which I appreciated. It dovetails nicely with the original assessments I read recently.

It would seem that this guy has about the best possible handle on all things Middle East-and isn't prone to seeking simplistic 'solutions' to complex challenges. That is a good thing, IMO.

I believe he will bring composed, thoughtful council with experience, nuance and professionalism. An asset, in my book.

.02

You would be better to post the gist of what the guy said and perhaps I would have gotten something from the article.

Hard to comprehend it with rolling eyes and head shaking.

I know it is important to you to get your message out but this post did not help your cause, IMHO.

Sweden Democrats: Trump was right

Two leading Swedish politicians have a message for President Trump’s critics: He’s right.

Per Jimmie Akesson and Mattias Karlsson, both leaders of the Sweden Democrats, penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday supporting Trump’s characterization of a Muslim immigrant-led crime crisis in Sweden.

“Mr. Trump did not exaggerate Sweden’s current problems,” Akesson and Karlsson wrote. “If anything, he understated them.”

Riots and social unrest have become a part of everyday life,” Akesson and Karlsson wrote. “Police officers, firefighters and ambulance personnel are regularly attacked. Serious riots in 2013, involving many suburbs with large immigrant populations, lasted for almost a week. Gang violence is booming. Despite very strict firearms laws, gun violence is five times as common in Sweden, in total, as in the capital cities of our three Nordic neighbors combined.”

They added: “Anti-Semitism has risen. Jews in Malmo are threatened, harassed and assaulted in the streets. Many have left the city, becoming internal refugees in their country of birth.”

“For the sake of the American people,” Akesson and Karlsson wrote, “with whom we share so many strong historical and cultural ties, we can only hope that the leaders in Washington won’t make the same mistakes that our socialist and liberal politicians did.”

Read the entire article here...
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/23/sweden-democrats-trump-was-right.html

The Huffington Post ran a story the other day about this and it basically said the same thing. Then the editors realized that the story did not conform to what is expected on that site, and it was taken down. The author of that piece, who had written on HP before, suggested on Twitter that he had been banned from the site altogether.

For something really scary, search on Google: grenade attacks in Sweden

I searched and read about it. Truly frightening!

Why do you suppose we never hear of these things from Liberal/Progressive Nations or our Media?

Trump warned us about France and Belgium, now he has spilled
the beans on Sweden.

Bannon: Trump administration is in an unending battle for ‘deconstruction of the administrative state’

Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s reclusive chief strategist and the intellectual force behind his nationalist agenda, said Thursday that the new administration is locked in an unending battle against the media and other globalist forces to “deconstruct” an outdated system of governance.

In his first public speaking appearance since Trump took office, Bannon made his comments alongside White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus at a gathering of conservative activists. They sought to prove that they are not rivals but partners in fighting on Trump’s behalf to transform Washington and the world order.

“They’re going to continue to fight,” Bannon said of the media, which he repeatedly described as “the opposition party,” and other forces he sees as standing in the president’s way. “If you think they are giving you your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken.”

Atop Trump’s agenda, Bannon said, was the “deconstruction of the administrative state” — meaning a system of taxes, regulations and trade pacts that the president and his advisers believe stymie economic growth and infringe upon one’s sovereignty.

“If you look at these Cabinet nominees, they were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction,” Bannon said. He posited that Trump’s announcement withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership was “one of the most pivotal moments in modern American history.”

Last week, Trump tweeted an extraordinary condemnation of the media, calling news organizations “the enemy of the American People.”

Bannon picked up that theme Thursday in his remarks at CPAC: “They’re corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has.”

Bannon also said, “If you look at the opposition party and how they portrayed the campaign and how they portrayed the transition and how they portray the administration, it’s always wrong.”

Priebus said that after “attacking” Trump during the campaign, journalists “now feed ridiculous stories, and all we do every day — and all President Trump does every day — is hit his agenda, every single day.”

Bannon added, “Just like they were dead wrong on the chaos of the campaign and just like they were dead wrong on the chaos of the transition, they are absolutely dead wrong on what they’re reporting today.” He said “all” of Trump’s campaign promises would be implemented in short order.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powe...m=.4e86f26b63db