America First Policy Institute: Trump Think Tank or Trojan Horse?

 

Peter Navarro is the former Assistant to the President for Trade and Manufacturing Policy and author of Taking Back Trump’s America: Why We Lost the White House and How We’ll Win It Back.  He is sounding an alarm over Donald Trump’s scheduled speech to address the America First Policy Institute in DC [today 7/26].  Mr. Navarro’s article at AmericanGreatness is titled “Trump’s Think Tank Prepares to Betray Him,” and he names names, including Larry Kudlow and Kellyanne Conway.  Mr Navarro begins:

Don’t go, Boss! That’s my strong advice to President Trump as he prepares to deliver a speech in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday at his alleged “think tank,” the America First Policy Institute (AFPI). 

. . .

Arguably, the most dangerous AFPI fifth-columnist is former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. After the Boss left office, Jindal would insist “Trump was undone by his own predatory nature” and attacked the Boss for his “conspiracy theories and extra-constitutional notions.” Today, Jindal is aggressively pushing a “Trumpism without Trump” agenda.

That may well be AFPI’s broader agenda: Hijack the political attractiveness of Trumpism but replace Trump with an AFPI-anointed RINO. Here, it is worth remembering the Michael Dukakis bon mot: “a fish rots from the head up.” 

He concludes:

Memo to the Boss: Instead of legitimizing these grifters, why not demand they stop using the Trump good name to raise money to engineer their “Trumpism without Trump” coup. Alternatively, if this really is your think tank, bring in a John McEntee or Liz Harrington to run the place with the full power to fire and hire. Now that would be a real Trump MAGA policy institute.

Full article is here. 

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Trump, Kudlow, and Pompeo

image credit: theconservativetreehouse.com

 

James Delingpole specializes in climate topics at Breitbart London, but his political takes are always thoughtful. Here are some of his remarks on President Trump’s two most recent nominations/appointments (“Trump’s picks Just Get Better and Better”):

Larry Kudlow’s appointment as President Trump’s next Economic Czar has been anti-endorsed by at least two of my favorite foaming leftists.

Here’s Jonathan Chait in New York Mag:

Trump’s New Economic Adviser Lawrence Kudlow Has Been Wrong About Everything for Decades

Here’s Soros-funded Think Progress:

Trump’s new economics director is a climate denier who thinks animals can ‘snuggle’ under pipelines.

Could there be any more encouraging a sign that with his latest appointments, Trump is right over the target?

I wrote the other day that Mike Pompeo was a great choice for Secretary of State – way better than the corporatist swamp denizen Rex Tillerson. But I think I’m even more excited about Kudlow.

First, it means that the battle for the soul of the Trump administration’s economic policy has been won by the Art-Laffer-style supply siders. (This was by no means a given: remember all those GOP experts who told us in the early days that Trump was just a Democrat wearing Republican clothing…?).

Second, Kudlow – like Pompeo, unlike their respective predecessors Tillerson and Gary Cohn – is a climate change skeptic.

The rest of Delingpole’s comments are here.

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