Today in Trumpworld — Jan. 8

TRUMP’S SCHEDULE TODAY

11 a.m.: President Donald Trump will receive his daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office.


1 p.m.: Trump will depart the White house en route to Nashville, Tennessee.

4:10 p.m.: Trump will deliver remarks at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s Annual Convention in Nashville.

5:10 p.m.: Trump will depart Nashville en route to Marietta, Georgia.

6:45 p.m.: Trump will attend the NCAA football national championship game in Atlanta. Trump will then return to Washington.

A note about the daily schedule: From Axios’ Jonathan Swan: “President Trump is starting his official day much later than he did in the early days of his presidency, often around 11am, and holding far fewer meetings, according to copies of his private schedule shown to Axios. This is largely to meet Trump’s demands for more ‘Executive Time,’ which almost always means TV and Twitter time alone in the residence, officials tell us. The schedules shown to me are different than the sanitized ones released to the media and public.”

BANNON’S STILL IN THE DOG HOUSE: From POLITICO’s Annie Karni: “Steve Bannon, like his onetime brother-in-arms President Donald Trump, is known as someone whose instinct is to double down, not kiss up. That made his belated attempt on Sunday to de-escalate mounting tension with the commander-in-chief — who has been publicly and privately raging about his former chief strategist all week — notable to many of his allies, one of whom called it a ‘huge step for Steve, one of the most stubborn people on earth.’ But inside the White House, Bannon's 297-word statement of contrition about comments he made in Michael Wolff's ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House’ was seen as too little, too late for an operative unaware of the self-inflicted damage his hubris could cause. It did nothing to quell Trump’s rage at his former chief strategist or the anger of Bannon’s former West Wing colleagues, according to multiple administration officials, who said the vibe in the president’s circle was that people were unmoved by the statement. Asked whether there is anything Bannon can do at this point to get back in the president's good graces, one White House official said curtly, ‘Unlikely.’”

25th AMENDMENT TALK: From POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein: “Donald Trump’s description of himself as a ‘very stable genius’ sparked new debate this weekend about the 25th Amendment, but invoking the provision to remove a president from office is so difficult that it’s highly unlikely to come into play over concerns about Trump’s mental health, a half-dozen lawyers with expertise on the measure said. The amendment’s language on what could lead a president to be involuntarily removed from office is spare, saying simply that the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could take such a step when ‘the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.’ ‘I think it’s both its strength and its weakness,’ said Jay Berman, a former chief of staff to Sen. Birch Bayh (D-Ind.), who helped craft the amendment in the 1960s. ‘The answer is not provided in the 25th Amendment...It just does not provide that certainty or specificity. That might be easier in the context of physical incapacity, but it would be a lot harder in the case of mental incapacity.’”

TRUMP ON THE WORLD STAGE: From the New York Times’ Steven Erlanger: “Since the first of the year, President Trump has attacked a variety of countries in Twitter posts, urging protesters to overthrow the Iranian government, threatening to blow up North Korea and calling for cuts in aid to the Palestinians. In bluster and tone, he has begun 2018 where he left off. Two things stand out about the foreign policy messages Mr. Trump has posted on Twitter since taking office: How far they veer from the traditional ways American presidents express themselves, let alone handle diplomacy. And how rarely Mr. Trump has followed through on his words. Indeed, nearly a year after he entered the White House, the rest of the world is trying to figure out whether Mr. Trump is more mouth than fist, more paper tiger than the real thing. Countries are unsure whether to take his words as policy pronouncements, or whether they can be safely ignored. If Mr. Trump’s threats are seen as hollow, what does that do to American credibility?”



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