Tillerson and Mattis both implicitly challenge Trump over white supremacy remarks
Developments on Day 220 of the Trump Administration:
See also As Trump Ran for President, He Sought Moscow Deal for Trump Tower
Tillerson on US Values: “The President Speaks for Himself”
As Donald Trump tapped away on Twitter during a hurricane threatening unprecedented flooding of Texas, his Secretary of State delivers a sharp rebuke over “US values” in the wake of Trump’s remarks about white supremacy.
At the end of a Sunday interview, Rex Tillerson (pictured) was asked by Chris Wallace of Fox News about a UN statement committee citing “failure at the highest political level…to unequivocally reject and condemn the racist violent events and demonstrations”. He said, “We represent America’s values from the State Department” and that no one should doubt the commitment to freedom and equal treatment.
But when Wallace gently pressed over the UN’s doubts about Trump’s comments and behavior, Tillerson finally said, “The President speaks for himself.”
Asked if he was separating himself from Trump, Tillerson concluded, “I have spoken. I have made my own comments as to our values as well in a speech I gave to the State Department this past week.”
Tillerson’s statement was the third coded but clear rebuke to Trump from a high-level official in three days, following Trump’s comments about white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12. Speaking to troops in Jordan over the weekend, Defense Secretary James Mattis said, “You just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.”
And last Friday, in an interview with the Financial Times, Gary Cohn said the Trump Administration “can and must do better” to condemn hate groups.
But Trump pressed ahead on social media on Sunday, mixing comments about Hurricane Harvey’s landfall in Texas and subsequent flooding with swipes at Mexico and Canada, a renewed declaration of The Wall on the US-Mexican border, and a boast about his 2016 victory in Missouri in the Presidential election.
Trying to project leadership from Camp David in Maryland as officials and residents dealt with the hurricane, Trump put out exclamation-laden statements:
HISTORIC rainfall in Houston, and all over Texas. Floods are unprecedented, and more rain coming. Spirit of the people is incredible.Thanks!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2017
But Trump’s upbeat response raised questions both about his self-promotion and about a premature declaration of success with flood waters expected to rise beyond the already historic levels in and near Houston and forecasters predicting that Harvey would regain strength over the Gulf of Mexico and hit the area a second time.
Meanwhile, Trump was also sniping at other supposed foes. Again defying his January admission to Mexican President Ernesto Peña Nieto that his campaign pledge about The Wall was an illusion, Trump tweeted:
With Mexico being one of the highest crime Nations in the world, we must have THE WALL. Mexico will pay for it through reimbursement/other.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2017
Then he raised the stakes, bringing Canada into his threats:
We are in the NAFTA (worst trade deal ever made) renegotiation process with Mexico & Canada.Both being very difficult,may have to terminate?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2017
Trump also said he was soon going to Missouri, “that I won by a lot in ’16”, and he endorsed a book by David Clarke, the hard-right, anti-immigrant sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.
Trump’s message followed his Friday-night pardon of Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa Country, Arizona, for a contempt-of-court conviction over persistent racial profiling and detention of undocumented immigrants.
See TrumpWatch, Day 219: Trump’s Long Campaign for Sheriff Arpaio v. US Courts
Both Arpaio and Clarke are members of the “Constitutional Sheriffs” movement, which maintains that federal and state government officials are subordinate to local government authority.
Mexico Offers Help to Texas
As Donald Trump makes his futile threat over payment for The Wall, Mexico offers to help Texas over the damage and displacement caused by Hurricane Harvey.
Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray spoke with Texas Governor Greg Abbott by telephone about the Mexican offer, “as good neighbors should always do in trying times”.
Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, the Mexican consul general in Austin, said he is in constant communication with the governor’s office: As we have done in the past, Mexico stands with Texas in this difficult moment.”
After Hurricane Katrine in 2005, Mexico sent troops and a vessel filled with food, medicine and water to aid victims in New Orleans.
Trump Administration to Lift Ban on Transfer of Military Equipment to Police
The Trump Administration plans to lift the Obama-era ban on the transfer of surplus military equipment to police departments.
The Obama Administration issued an executive order blocking armored vehicles, large-caliber weapons, ammunition, and other heavy equipment from being repurposed for police use. The order was issued after a battlefield-style response fed an uprising in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 following the fatal shooting of an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, by police.
A summary document sent by the White House to some law enforcement agencies said the revocation of the ban will restore “the full scope of a longstanding program for recycling surplus, lifesaving gear from the Department of Defense, along with restoring the full scope of grants used to purchase this type of equipment from other sources”.
The Fraternal Order of Police and other law enforcement groups have argued that access to the armor and weapons are needed, especially in cash-strapped communities, to better respond to local unrest.
The ban was among a host of policing reform recommendations from a White House advisory group formed after Ferguson.
“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like they’re an occupying force, as opposed to a force that’s part of the community that’s protecting them and serving them,” Obama said in his announcement of the ban in 2015.
Dismissed Advisor Gorka: Trump Undermined by Pro-Clinton Staff
Sebastian Gorka, dismissed as a White House advisor last Friday, says Donald Trump is being sabotaged by staff who would rather have worked for Hillary Clinton.
Despite statements by White House officials that Gorka was removed by Chief of Staff John Kelly — a week after his protector, chief strategist Steve Bannon, was pushed out — the advisor insisted that he resigned.
Known for his aggressive defense of Trump on TV but with little other definition of his duties, Gorka continued his approach on Sunday in a BBC interview:
Hopefully everybody who followed the campaign of Donald J Trump understood that he won against immense odds. Our victory was an insurgency that took over the behemoth that is the swamp that is the Washington administrative state. It was a hostile takeover. Right now the forces that are un-Trumpian are in ascendance….
There’s no conspiracy theory here and there’s no central leader. They are individuals who if you look at their career they clearly would have been very comfortable working for Hillary Clinton in her cabinet and as such they don’t really represent the victory of November 8.
Gorka refused to name any of the supposedly subversive staff. Nor did he respond to queries about his lack of qualifications and his past links with far-right groups in Hungary.
He did claim that the “media elite” and Washington elite had been biased against white people before Trump took office.
Gorka is rejoining Bannon at the Breitbart site, which has declared “#WAR” on White House staff, supposedly in defense of Donald Trump.