AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Analysis: Trump Staff Still Short on Relevant Experience
August 22, 2017 There isn’t much that President Trump hasn’t tried in staffing top jobs at the White House. He has tried political operatives. He has tried populists. He has tried nationalists. He has tried generals. He has tried political provocateurs. He has tried family. He has tried New Yorkers. He has tried...
Trump Has His 20th 'Worst Week' Out of 30 in Office
August 18, 2017 By the end of the week, count on headlines declaring this the worst week of Donald Trump’s presidency. That’s not really surprising. Any president who in one seven-day period threatened nuclear war in Korea, talked of a possible war in Venezuela, and found “some very fine people” marching with Nazis...
Kushner’s Curious Plan for a Back Channel
June 5, 2017 Diplomatic back channels, far from being invented by Donald Trump or his son-in-law Jared Kushner, have been an accepted fixture in almost every presidency since George Washington, most famously at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when President Kennedy’s brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was more engaged than...
How to Make Donald Trump’s Phone Safe
December 16, 2016 Eight years after he was the man trying to grant Barack Obama’s plea to keep his BlackBerry, Richard “Dickie” George is watching with more than casual interest while another president-elect fights to keep his smartphone as a lifeline out of the bubble that is the modern presidency. Obama won that...
How to Make Donald Trump’s Phone Safe
December 16, 2016
FROM NEXTGOV
Eight years after he was the man trying to grant Barack Obama’s plea to keep his BlackBerry, Richard “Dickie” George is watching with more than casual interest while another president-elect fights to keep his smartphone as a lifeline out of the bubble that is the modern presidency. Obama won that...
How to Make Donald Trump’s Phone Safe
December 16, 2016 Eight years after he was the man trying to grant Barack Obama’s plea to keep his BlackBerry, Richard “Dickie” George is watching with more than casual interest while another president-elect fights to keep his smartphone as a lifeline out of the bubble that is the modern presidency. Obama won that...
The Rocky Obama-Sanders Relationship
June 9, 2016 Don’t expect a lot of warmth when President Obama sits down Thursday at the White House with Sen. Bernie Sanders. This is not a reunion of political allies or personal friends or fellow senators who bonded when they served together. Instead, the agenda will be all business as the president...
How Obama Will Give His Final State of the Union
January 9, 2016 As President Obama prepares to deliver his final State of the Union address Tuesday, he can only hope for better treatment than the last two-term president received. The White House back in 2008 was less than thrilled when President George W. Bush’s appearance before a joint session of Congress was...
The White House Thinks Obama Had a Very Good Year. The Public Isn’t so Sure.
December 21, 2015 By almost all traditional metrics, the White House should be celebrating his 2015 instead of offering the subdued and measured defense seen from President Obama at his end-of-the-year press conference. After all, the usual numbers are good—unemployment rate down, job creation up, inflation low, GDP up, gas prices declining. Only...
The President Again Tries to Right the Ship
November 25, 2015 With the country shaken by the bloodshed in Paris, nervous about attacks at home, and concerned about an influx of refugees from the Middle East, many presidents would take to the airwaves for a prime-time address to reassure an anxious nation. But that is not President Obama’s preferred way to...