Donald Trump may have declared himself vindicated by the sham Devin Nunes memo but he's still desperately searching for an exit ramp from the Russia jam he's in. On Wednesday, he went ALL-CAPS hysterical about FBI texts he declared, "BOMBSHELLS!" And in the meantime, he's contemplating a West Wing shakeup in search of someone who can finally put an end to his long Russian nightmare. Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman writes:
These people say the president is increasingly frustrated that members of his administration aren’t going to war for him, and he’s being encouraged by his daughter Ivanka to bring in new blood. “The president’s view is that allies on the outside are doing a better job defending him than his political shop,” one Republican close to the White House told me. Another outside adviser who regularly speaks with Trump said that the president is regretting some of his Cabinet choices. “He’s saying he should have put Rudy [Giuliani] at State and Chris Christie at Justice.”
Trump has recently told advisers he wants a “killer” to steer the White House’s response to Robert Mueller’s investigation and craft a midterm election message for him to stump on this fall. For Trump, there’s a growing urgency to fill the role. His efforts to stymie Mueller’s probe have so far failed, and the specter of impeachment looms if Democrats win back the House in November. Ivanka, who’s been frustrated with Chief of Staff John Kelly, has told her father that he needs people around him that will put his interests above their own. “She wants to clean house,” a Trump friend told me. “Her view is J.F.K. had Bobby there to have his back.”
Oh, yes, please do hire someone to craft a midterm message so that you can get out there and stump, stump, stump away, Don.
Sounds like Ivanka's real frustration is that Kelly is blocking her from her usual as-needed access to pops. But if Kelly is really in Ivanka's crosshairs, that might be part of why the chief of staff is trying so hard to ingratiate himself to Trump with a bunch of gratuitous smears about Dreamers being "lazy."
One Republican close to the White House described Trump’s frustration with Kelly, who came to the office with zero political experience, this way: “It’s like Kelly views Trump as a mushroom. He wants to keep him in the dark and feed him a bunch of shit.”
Trump is going to consume a steady diet of sh*t with or without Kelly, so no worries there.
Trump's top “killer” pick is reportedly Jason Miller, who worked on the campaign but ultimately didn't take an administration position because he had a little baby-daddy mishap on the campaign trail.
Trump had wanted Miller to join the administration during the transition, but Miller withdrew after it was revealed he had an extramarital affair during the campaign with former Trump aide A.J. Delgado. [...]
Miller has so far been reluctant to take a White House job because he’s told people he needs to earn a private-sector income to make child support payments to Delgado, who gave birth to Miller’s son last July. (Miller, who remains married to his wife, declined to comment. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.)
What a perfect resumé builder for Trump's little shop of horrors.