| | | |  Michael Anton, the spokesman for the National Security Council and an important intellectual force in the Trump administration, is leaving the White House. Eliana Johnson of Politico first reported Anton’s departure on Sunday, on the eve of John Bolton’s first day as national security adviser. Anton will be taking a Washington-based position at Hillsdale College, the conservative liberal arts school in Michigan. It’s undetermined when will be his last day at the White House. Anton was brought into the Trump White House under Michael Flynn, having been one of the most prominent (if pseudonymous) conservative intellectuals to support Trump and his political program wholeheartedly during the campaign. A veteran of the George W. Bush White House, Anton grew critical of Bush-era conservatism—on foreign policy, immigration, trade, and other areas—as he embraced what came to be Trumpism. It made him an obvious ally of many of the other critics of Bush and mainstream conservative thought who found themselves in the Trump White House, chief among them Steve Bannon. But Anton was also valued by others in the young and inexperienced West Wing for his relative expertise in how a White House should operate. He found allies in other important figures, such as Hope Hicks and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the latter of whom called him “one of the smartest and most talented individuals I’ve ever worked with” and a “true friend” in a statement after news of his departure. Read more... |
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One More Thing—Trump called Anton Sunday after learning of his plans to leave. The president wished him well and even suggested Anton could return one day to the West Wing—a proposition similar to that offered to Hope Hicks, the former communications director.
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| Reports of a chemical weapons attack by Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad on his own people in a suburb of Damascus prompted condemnation from President Trump. Here he was on Twitter this weekend: 
The horrific attack has killed at least 42 people so far, the New York Times reports, mostly civilians in Douma, which has been held by rebels opposing Assad’s regime. “The attack appeared to break the will of Douma’s rebels, who agreed on Sunday to a deal with the government to hand the area over and be bused to another area outside government control in the country’s north,” reports the Times. “Thousands of fighters and tens of thousands of their relatives are expected to leave soon.” President Trump last week told his national security team he wanted to withdraw the 2,000 or so American troops from Syria soon. Those troops have been deployed to fight ISIS in the eastern part of the country, and the United States is not officially engaged with Assad in his civil war with several different opposition groups. |
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Must-Read of the Day—Thomas Joscelyn, one of the smartest terrorism analysts around, has an important piece on the website examining Assad’s brutal regime and the complicity of outside actors like Iran, Russia, and even North Korea, in giving the Syrian dictator cover. Read it here.
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Outgoing national security advisor H.R. McMaster is applauded by White House staff on West Executive Drive on his last day on the job at the White House on April 6, 2018 in Washington, DC. MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images |
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| | After deepening trade tensions between China and the United States caused turbulence in the stock market last week, the White House spent Sunday reassuring Americans there was no need to worry about a trade war. On Fox News Sunday, Trump’s chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow insisted that the president was using tariffs as a cudgel to force China to accept free-trade practices, and that none of the White House’s protectionist moves were set in stone. “It’s a long process. Several months here. We put our papers, we take public comments. We then review the public comments and then decisions will be made. So far, no tariffs and no action has been enacted,” said Kudlow, who began his job as the chairman of the National Economic Council last week. “If you talk to the president as I have, he regards himself as a free trader, all right? As do I. But his argument, and it’s a good one, you can’t have free trade, which is pro-growth around the world, unless China brings down its barriers, opens up its markets, and stops this technology steal that they’re doing.”
But Kudlow’s characterization of the tariffs as a mere far-off possibility was undercut by comments Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro made just an hour before on Meet the Press.
“What we’ve done in a very measured way over the course of many months is develop a plan to make the situation significantly better. That plan is being implemented, includes both tariffs to recover the damages that China inflicts, as well as investment restrictions,” Navarro said. “We are proceeding in a measured way. And those tariffs will be imposed, and those investment restrictions will be imposed.” | |
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