Trump's base woke up to a fairly surprising flip-flop this morning from the White House on DACA and the infamous, beautiful border wall which was discussed repeatedly on the campaign trail throughout 2016. It all started when Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi released the following statement after their White House dinner with the President last night:
For the better part of a year now Americans have speculated over precisely what pressing national security issue may have prompted the Obama administration to take the extreme measure of unmasking the names of Trump officials captured in foreign intelligence reports...you know, because bypassing the typical warrant process and violating an American citizen's fourth amendment protections is kind of a big deal.
Earlier this morning former White House Strategist Steve Bannon spoke at the CLSA investor forum in Hong Kong. While the event was originally intended to be open to the press via a live stream, CLSA officials later closed the interview to outsiders...presumably Bannon's flare doesn't quite fit with China's desire to control media narratives. That said, luckily one local NEAsia correspondent, Wei Du, was kind enough to live tweet portions of Bannon's speech for our reading pleasure.
In what will come as music from above to Steve Bannon, as well as numerous Donald Trump supporters who just happen to have a less than soft spot for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the WSJ reports that "some" of the US President's lawyers concluded earlier this summer that Jared Kushner should step down as senior White House adviser due to "possible legal complications" emerging from the ongoing Russia probe, and aired such concerns directly to the president, according to WSJ sources.
When Gary Cohn criticized Trump's response to the Charlottesville tragedy, he set off a sequence of events which not only reportedly cost the former Goldman COO his future position as Fed chair, but - according to an overnight report from Reuters - his job as Trump's chief economic advisor.