The Federal Tap: Bannon out as White House chief strategist

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August 18, 2017Issue No. 77

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Week in review
On tap next week

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

Here's what happened in federal politics last week. To see what happened in state and local politics, click here.

Saturday, August 12

Steyer indicates his support is contingent on candidates’ abortion stances

  • Billionaire investor and potential 2018 candidate for governor California Tom Steyer said that a candidate's support for legalized abortion would be a litmus test to receive his support and that of his network of organizations, NextGen America. At the Netroots Nation conference in San Francisco, he said, "We're pro-choice. ... We do not work for a single candidate who is not pro-choice. I think people like to have litmus tests. We are explicitly pro-choice. We work a lot with Planned Parenthood, we work a lot with NARAL. We are absolutely committed to it." Steyer spent nearly $88 million on campaigns and causes during the 2016 election.

Trump comments on white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

  • President Donald Trump commented on a protest that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, that was organized by white nationalists who did not want a Robert E. Lee statue to be taken down. Trump said, "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides." When asked to clarify the comment, the White House said, "The president was condemning hatred, bigotry and violence from all sources and all sides. There was violence between protesters and counter protestors."

Sunday, August 13

Tillerson and Mattis: Policy of strategic patience toward North Korea replaced with strategic accountability

  • Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal stating that the United States’ policy of strategic patience towards North Korea would be replaced with a policy of strategic accountability. They wrote that the Trump administration “is applying diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to achieve the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a dismantling of the regime’s ballistic-missile programs.” They made clear that the goal of the policy is denuclearization and that the U.S. “has no interest in regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea.”
  • The secretaries said that the U.S. prefers diplomacy but that it is backed by military options, including defensive preparations like the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) by South Korea’s government and joint military exercises. They added a final warning to North Korea, writing, “Any attack will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons will be met with an effective and overwhelming response. North Korea now faces a choice. Take a new path toward peace, prosperity and international acceptance, or continue further down the dead alley of belligerence, poverty and isolation. The U.S. will aspire and work for the former, and will remain vigilant against the latter.”

Monday, August 14

Trump discusses the violence in Charlottesville

  • On the second day of the protests in Charlottesville, Va., Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and 19 others were injured after James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio, drove his car through a crowd of counter-protesters. The counter-protesters were expressing their opposition to a group of white nationalists holding a rally. Two Virginia State Police officials—Lt. H. Jay Cullen, 48, and trooper-pilot Berke M.M. Bates—were also killed when their helicopter crashed as they were assisting in law enforcement efforts. In response to the violence, President Donald Trump announced that the Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation into the car attack. He also expressed his condolences to families of Heyer, Cullen, and Bates.
    • He then expanded on his comments from the weekend, saying, “As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America.
    • And as I have said many times before: No matter the color of our skin, we all live under the same laws, we all salute the same great flag, and we are all made by the same almighty God. We must love each other, show affection for each other, and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry, and violence. We must rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans.
    • Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.
    • We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our Creator. We are equal under the law. And we are equal under our Constitution. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America.”

Tuesday, August 15

Alabama Senate Republicans head to a runoff

  • With no candidate receiving more than 50 percent in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, former judge Roy Moore and incumbent Sen. Luther Strange advanced to the Republican primary runoff scheduled September 26. While Moore topped the field in all but one public opinion poll released in the past two weeks, Strange received a boost from President Donald Trump last Tuesday when the president made his first contested primary endorsement. Strange also has the backing of the Senate Leadership Fund, which provided four-fifths of the $5.1 million spent on the race by outside organizations as of Tuesday morning. Moore and Strange beat out seven other candidates, including Rep. Mo Brooks, who had received the endorsement of the Alabama Patriots Tea Party, Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chair of the House Freedom Caucus.
    • After finishing in third place in the primary, Brooks attributed his loss to a robocall from Trump supporting Strange. He wrote in a text to journalists and party officials, "Over the weekend we caught back up [in the polls]. Then, on Monday and Tuesday, voters started getting a personal robocall from the President urging them to support [Luther Strange]. You can imagine the impact on a rural or elderly voter to hear PDJT calling! That final phone call caused LS to surge past us. Also, the nonstop LS/[Mitch McConnell] attack ads pushed anti-LS voters from me to [Roy Moore]. Hence, the final result.”

Former U.S. attorney Doug Jones advances directly to Alabama Senate general election

  • On the Democratic side of the U.S. Senate special election in Alabama, former U.S. attorney Doug Jones—best known for serving as the lead prosecutor in the reopened 1963 Birmingham church bombing case—managed to fend off primary challenger Robert Kennedy Jr., whose famous last name helped propel him to a 49 percent showing in a Raycom News Network/Strategy Research poll released last month. With an endorsement from former Vice President Joe Biden in hand, Jones won with approximately 66 percent of the vote and advanced directly to the December 12, 2017, general election.

Utah Republican voters choose Curtis over GOP state convention winner

  • Provo City Mayor John Curtis won the Republican primary in Utah's 3rd Congressional District, defeating attorney Tanner Ainge and former state legislator Chris Herrod, the party convention pick of Utah Republicans. Curtis, who qualified for the Republican primary ballot after collecting more than 7,000 signatures from registered Republicans in the district, received an early endorsement from Utah Gov. Gary Herbert last month. On November 7, he will face Democrat Kathie Allen, Libertarian Joe Buchman, Independent American candidate Jason Christensen, independent Sean Whalen, and United Utah Party candidate Jim Bennett in the general election. Republicans have won the seat in every general election between 1998 and 2017 with a margin of victory of at least 25 percent.

North Korea announces that it will not attack Guam

  • North Korean state media reported that Kim Jong Un would not follow through on his threat to fire missiles toward Guam, but that he would consider attacking the U.S. in the future “if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions.” It is unclear why Kim changed his mind. The Wall Street Journal reported that it could have been a combination of messaging from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis and China taking steps to impose U.N.-backed sanctions on North Korea.
  • Kim’s decision came two days after Tillerson and Mattis published an op-ed stating that the United States’ policy of strategic patience toward North Korea would be replaced with a policy of strategic accountability. Kim’s decision also came hours after China said that it would adhere to the new U.N. sanctions targeting North Korea’s nuclear weapons program by banning imports of coal, iron, and seafood from the country starting immediately. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The timing of the announcement was a response to Mr. Trump’s plans to kick off a probe into China’s alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property, according to people with knowledge of the Chinese leadership’s thinking. That probe was officially announced later on Monday.”

CBO estimates ending insurer subsidies would increase premiums by 20 percent, deficit by $194 billion

  • The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation released a report estimating the impact that ending the cost-sharing reduction (CSR) reimbursements would have on the individual market. Cost-sharing reductions are reductions in the portion of the cost of healthcare services an insured consumer must pay. The federal government requires insurers participating on the ACA exchanges to offer these reductions for consumers at a certain level of income and reimburses the insurers for the costs of the policy.
  • The report was undertaken at the request of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). The report analyzed what would happen if the reimbursements ended on January 1, 2018. Key findings included the following:
    • Market stability: The report found that due to uncertainty over the financial impact of ending the payments, insurers in some states would decide not to sell plans on the health insurance exchanges. This would result in 5 percent of the population living in an area in which no insurers offered plans on the exchanges in 2018.
    • Effects on premiums: The report estimated that premiums for silver-level plans, which are the only plans consumers can buy and receive cost-sharing reductions, would be 20 percent higher in 2018 and 25 percent higher in 2020 than if the reimbursements continued.
    • Federal budget: The report estimated that the federal deficit would rise by $194 billion between 2017 and 2026 due to increases in payments for tax credits triggered by higher premiums.
    • Health insurance coverage: The report estimated that a slightly higher number of individuals would be uninsured in 2018. A slightly lower number would be uninsured in 2020 and thereafter.
  • White House spokesman Ninio Fetalvo responded to the report by stating, “Regardless of what this flawed report says, Obamacare will continue to fail with or without a federal bailout.”
  • So far in 2017, the Trump administration has been reimbursing insurers for the cost-sharing reductions month-by-month and has not made a long-term decision about whether to continue funding them. In April, President Trump stated, “Obamacare is dead next month if it doesn't get that money. … What I think should happen and will happen is the Democrats will start calling me and negotiating.”
  • The administration announced on Wednesday, August 16, that it would pay out the reimbursements for August. In January 2017, the CBO estimated that the cost-sharing reduction reimbursements would total about $7 billion in 2017.
    • For more background on the cost-sharing reduction reimbursements under the Trump administration, click here.

Trump signs infrastructure executive order

  • President Trump signed an executive order aimed at speeding up infrastructure development. The order sets a two-year goal for the permitting process, and rolls back Obama administration environmental regulations requiring climate change and rising sea-levels to be taken into account when planning infrastructure. The order also calls for infrastructure permitting to become a process handled by one lead agency, rather than multiple agencies deciding on a project. Under Trump’s plan, various agencies will work with the single lead agency to review the development, and they would submit a joint decision rather than submitting individual decisions. The plan calls for permits to be issues in under 90 days following the decision.

Federal court strikes down maps for two TX congressional districts

  • A three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas issued a unanimous ruling finding that remedial district maps for congressional districts 27 and 35, which were adopted in 2013, had been drawn with racially discriminatory intent on the part of the legislature. State Representative Rafael Anchia (D), chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (a plaintiff in the case), supported the ruling: "Intentional discrimination is a bad habit for the Texas Legislature. With the seventh ruling of intentional discrimination since 2011, a federal court confirmed today that Texas congressional maps remain unconstitutional." In a statement, Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) announced his plans to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States: "We appreciate that the panel ruled in favor of Texas on many issues in the case. But the portion of the ruling that went against Texas is puzzling considering the Legislature adopted the congressional map the same court itself adopted in 2012, and the Obama-era Department of Justice did not bring any claims against the map. We look forward to asking the Supreme Court to decide whether Texas had discriminatory intent when relying on the district court." The court ordered state officials to notify the court within three days of the state legislature's intent to draft and implement new remedial maps. If the legislature declines to do so, the court will reconvene on September 5, 2017, to discuss other possible remedies.
    • Texas' district maps have been the subject of litigation since their adoption in the summer of 2011. To learn more, see this article.

Wednesday, August 16

Bannon speaks freely on China, North Korea, and white nationalists in unsolicited interview

  • Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon participated in an unsolicited interview with The American Prospect about trade policy with China, threats of nuclear war with North Korea, and the violence at protests surrounding the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia:
    • In the interview, Bannon suggested that he was working to force some members of the State Department out of their jobs because he did not consider them to be aggressive enough concerning Chinese trade. He said, "We’re at economic war with China. It’s in all their literature. They’re not shy about saying what they’re doing. ... And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover."
    • Concerning North Korea and its increased test launches of missiles and threats of nuclear capabilities, Bannon said, "There’s no military solution [to North Korea’s nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us."
    • He went on to discuss last weekend's violence by white supremacists and neo-Nazi organizations in Charlottesville, Virginia, saying, "Ethno-nationalism—it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more. These guys are a collection of clowns."

Hope Hicks named interim White House communications director

  • White House director of strategic communications Hope Hicks will be the next communications director for the Trump administration. Hicks, who began working for the Trump Organization in 2014, was the campaign's communications director and press secretary. She is known for keeping a low profile: she rarely gives media appearances and has minimal social media presence. The White House indicated that Hicks would remain in the position until a permanent communications director is found.
  • She is the fifth person to have accepted this job since Trump was elected in November: Jason Miller initially took the position but changed his mind days later, citing his desire to spend more time with family; press secretary Sean Spicer temporarily filled the role twice during his time in the administration; Michael Dubke was communications director from February until May 2017; and Anthony Scaramucci occupied the position for ten days in July.

Trump answers questions about violence in Charlottesville

  • During a press conference about the new infrastructure executive order, President Donald Trump was asked about the violence in Charlottesville. Here are a few questions asked by reporters and Trump’s responses.
    • Q: “Is the alt-left as bad as white supremacy?” Trump: “[Y]ou had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I'll say it right now. You had a group on the other side that came charging in, without a permit, and they were very, very violent.”
    • Q: “Do you think that what you call the alt-left is the same as neo-Nazis?” Trump: “I've condemned neo-Nazis. I've condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee.”
    • Q: “You said there was hatred, there was violence on both sides.” Trump: “Well I do think there’s blame. Yes, I think there’s blame on both sides. If you look at both sides -- I think there’s blame on both sides.”

NAFTA renegotiations begin with dispute resolution disagreement

  • Representatives from the United States, Mexico, and Canada met Wednesday to begin the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The trade agreement, which President Trump has described as, “a catastrophic trade deal for the United States,” and the “worst deal ever made in the history of the world,” went into effect in 1994. Wednesday’s talks began with disagreements over the dispute resolution mechanics of the agreement. Currently, disputes regarding tariffs are handled by a binational panel, and the panel’s decision can override a member nation’s tariff. The United States seeks to abolish these panels. Canada defends the use of these panels, saying they are an important tool for Canadian businesses. Mexico has also defended the use of these panels.

Friday, August 18

Steve Bannon out as White House chief strategist

  • Bannon was hired to the administration just after Trump’s election, taking on the role of chief strategist, a job that Trump described as an equal partnership with then-chief of staff Reince Priebus. From January to April, he also served on the National Security Council principals committee, a top decision-making group; it was the first time a political staff member had been appointed to that committee. Throughout his time in the White House, Bannon clashed with advisors Jared Kushner and Gary Cohn over the role the U.S. should play internationally, with Bannon criticizing global trade deals and military intervention abroad.
  • After leaving the White House, Bannon indicated that he wanted to return to Breitbart News, the conservative website he managed from 2012 to 2016.

Congress is not in session

The House and Senate are on August recess. Both chambers will return on September 5. Both chambers are technically still in session because some members are conducting pro forma sessions every three days. No legislative business will be worked on during these sessions.

SCOTUS is NOT in session

The U.S. Supreme Court has concluded its 2016 October term. The court will continue to act on emergency petitions throughout the summer and consider petitions for case review in advance of the court’s 2017 October term, which begins on Monday, October 2, 2017. For more on the court’s recently completed term, read our review.

Fact Checks

Does research show that federal student aid increases tuition?

  • In response to New York’s plan to offer free tuition to students with a family income below $100,000 per year, policy analyst Mary Clare Amselem claimed, “Economists have found that virtually unrestricted access to federal student aid encourages colleges and universities to raise their tuition prices." At least two recent studies have documented tuition increases in conjunction with larger Pell Grants. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that a dollar increase in the maximum Pell Grant resulted in a 37 cent increase in sticker-price tuition. The researchers also found that an increase in Pell Grant aid was associated with a reduction in institutional aid of 30 cents on the dollar. Economist Lesley J. Turner, in her study, documented that institutions “captured” an average of 15 percent of Pell Grant aid by lowering institutional aid or increasing tuition.

Do 97 percent of all journalist donations go to Democrats?

  • During an MSNBC interview on July 14, Rep. Dave Brat claimed the media is biased for giving more attention to the Trump administration's alleged Russian connections than to the issue of Hillary Clinton's connections to foreign money through the Clinton Foundation. Brat said, "Why is that? Well, maybe it's because 97 percent of the donations from mainstream [media] folks go to the Democrat Party." Brat based his claim on the results of a Center for Public Integrity analysis, which found that more than 96 percent of the donations from journalists to either Clinton or Trump between January 2015 and August 2016 went to Clinton. Ballotpedia reviewed three other analyses of contributions from donors identified as journalists and found that a majority of the donors or a majority of the donations (depending on the study) benefited Democrats or liberal causes.
WHAT'S ON TAP NEXT WEEK

Here's what is happening in federal politics this week. To see what happened in state and local politics, click here.

Tuesday, August 22

Trump rally scheduled in Arizona

  • Trump has scheduled a rally for 7 p.m. at the Phoenix Convention Center. The announcement of the rally comes after Trump stated that he was “seriously considering a pardon for Sheriff Arpaio,” the former Maricopa County, Ariz. sheriff who was recently found guilty of criminal contempt for refusing to stop traffic patrols that were targeting possible undocumented immigrants. Trump is also expected to restate his support for Kelli Ward, a primary challenger to incumbent Sen. Jeff Flake in the Republican primary in Arizona for the U.S. Senate.
  • This will be the first of such rallies since the event he held in West Virginia on August 3, when Gov. Jim Justice announced that he would switch party affiliations and become a Republican.

Where was the president last week?

  • On Monday, President Donald Trump briefly returned to the White House and then departed for New York City to continue his working vacation while the White House undergoes renovation. He also signed a memorandum to “examine whether China should be investigated for unreasonable or discriminatory policies that may harm American IP rights, innovation, or technological development.”
  • On Tuesday, Trump announced his infrastructure plan.
  • On Wednesday, Trump signed HR 3218—The Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017. Later in the day, he went to Bedminster, N.J. to continue his working vacation.
  • On Friday, Trump departed for Camp David.

Federal Judiciary

  • 134 judicial vacancies in life-term, Article III judicial positions
  • 32 pending nominations to life-term, Article III judicial positions
  • 20 future vacancies to life-term, Article III judicial positions


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The Tap covered election news, public policy, and other noteworthy events from February 2016 to February 2022.

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