Bannon And The Deconstructors Of The State Seize Power To Save Trump

It appears, as I surmised, that Steve Bannon has effectively neutered the power of Jared Kushner, and with him the New York crowd that includes Ivanka, Gary Cohn and possibly Steve Mnuchin, to influence the President. With that, Bannon has consolidated his position for the near future and is now controlling Trump's defense against the Russian investigation while at the same time pushing for his dreamed-of deconstruction of the administrative state along with his fellow travelers Mick Mulvaney and Scott Pruitt. These are not separate issues, but, in fact, go hand in hand as the deconstruction of the state shores up support in the base which makes it even harder for Republicans in Congress to bring Trump to heel for fear of a primary challenge from the right.

Multiple sources seem to believe Bannon was behind the leak of Kushner's unreported meeting between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and the head of a sanctioned Russian bank. This theory is supported by the fact the head of the Government Accountability Institute, a group created by Bannon and the Mercers originally to take down Hillary Clinton, described Kushner's meetings with the Russians as having "conflict of interest written all over it". He continued, "You worry about a quid pro quo; you worry about Kushner getting some financial arrangement from a Russian financial institution; and you worry about White House policy being shaped in a way that benefits either those banks or Russia at large." There is no way these statements would be made without the approval of Bannon and/or the Mercers.

In addition to defanging Kushner, it also looks like Jeff Sessions is also toast. In his interviews earlier this week when reports of another unreported April, 2016 meeting between Kislyak, Kushner, Sessions, and potentially Trump emerged, Senator Franken seemed pretty convinced that it really happened. Franken had initiated the FBI's inquiry into that potential meeting and hinted that he had been briefed about the results in some sort of closed session. If true, it would be hard to see Sessions continuing on as Attorney General. I doubt he will resign or that Trump will push him out. Trump still needs him to exert some kind of control over the Russian investigation. In fact, sticking with Sessions will endear Trump to the base even more. But it will also marginalize Sessions and consolidate even more power in Bannon's hands.

The withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement was part and parcel of Bannon's current strategy, as are Scott Pruitt's decisions to roll back regulations on dirty energy producers and slash the EPA budget. As Chris Hayes pointed out last night, the withdrawal from the Paris accords especially motivated the Republican base, primarily, it seems, because the decision was so distressing to liberals as opposed to any conservative policy rationale. The slashing of the EPA budget accomplishes the same thing, while also fitting in nicely with Bannon's desire to dismantle the administrative state.

Scott Pruitt is certainly dreadful but Mick Mulvaney, head of the Office of Management and Budget, is far more important to realize Bannon's goal. His budget proposals are draconian and are straight out of the Freedom Caucus which is, after all, where Mulvaney came from. But it is also fits perfectly with Bannon's goals. Beyond the $800 billion cuts in Medicaid and the $275 billion in other safety net cuts, there are the massive cuts to the State Department, EPA, and other domestic agencies.

The fact that Mulvaney's budget double counts $2 trillion dollars in mythical economic growth, once to make the massive tax cuts revenue neutral and again to balance the budget, is not really a bug. As Mulvaney himself says, "I wouldn't take what’s in the budget as indicative of what our proposals are." But they are indicative of the message that Bannon needs to send to the base. It is the same rationale that had Republicans celebrating after the AHCA was rammed through the House. The fact that both the budget and the AHCA will never make it through the Senate in its present form are far less important than the signal that is being sent to the base that Trump is keeping his promises and making sure to finally put a stop to all the "others" who are freeloading off the government. And any health care or budget bill that does, if ever, pass it will still fulfill at least a portion of Bannon's and Mulvaney's goals.

Mulvaney's attack on the CBO, asking whether "the day of the C.B.O. come and gone", is in the same vein, as is the White House directive to refuse to cooperate with oversight requests from Democrats. Ratcheting up the partisanship and Trump's autocratic tendencies, ratchets up Trump's approval with the base, and ratchets up the pressure on Republicans to stick behind Trump as the Russian investigation gets worse and worse.

The fact that this could create enormous pressure on the Congressional GOP also suits Bannon's purposes. He has no love for the Republican establishment either. Mulvaney's aggressive statements about using the debt ceiling to extract concessions on spending or debt reforms will also put Congressional Republicans under pressure. It certainly increases the likelihood of a government shutdown but I doubt it will get to missing an interest payment, which would really be a catastrophic default. But you never know with Bannon or Trump.

But that pressure from the right merely ensures the Congressional Republicans stay in line behind Trump. And Bannon and Trump will continue to chip away at the administrative state with symbolic actions that will rally the hard right Republican base, such as privatizing the air traffic controllers. That energized base may be a minority in the country but it is the majority of the Republican primary voters. As long as they stay solidly behind Trump, the Republicans in Congress will not push the impeachment of Donald Trump, almost no matter how bad it gets.

The Mueller investigation will, it seems, eventually bring Trump down, either through collusion with the Russians or obstruction of justice or both. But the results of that investigation are a long way off. Until then, for Democrats and the country as a whole, we can expect the worst of both worlds, an increase in the Trump's "America First" economic nationalism along with Bannon's destruction of the administrative state and the encouragement of Trump's autocratic tendencies to keep the base riled up and the Russian investigation at bay.