Tag: Reince Priebus

The Story: The President announced on Friday, March 6, that his new chief of staff is Rep. Mark Meadows. This also marks the departure of...

Vos, who has been speaker since 2013, is used to being at the center of Wisconsin's biggest political battles. Scott Walker leaves office, Vos is positioning himself to take over as the state's most powerful Republican and is determined to protect conservative interests in the key Midwestern swing state from Democratic Gov.-elect Tony Evers. It's a natural transition for Vos, a key player in Walker's 2011 battle against public unions and a partner during nearly a decade of Republican dominance in the state. Since ascending to speaker, Vos has helped build a Republican majority that reached its highest mark since 1957, with 64 members following the 2016 election. Vos maintained that Republicans won fair and square based on their record of success. He makes roughly $51,000 as speaker. I try to always look for how can we accomplish the end goal." His chief of staff runs the committee that works to get Republicans elected to the Assembly. That has increased donations to the Assembly campaign committee that his chief of staff ran and that provided financial support to Republicans running for office. "I am not going to run for governor," Vos said.

Among some senior White House officials, Mick Mulvaney had long been considered the “Original Plan B.” Al Drago for The New York Times WASHINGTON — President Trump announced on Friday that he had selected Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, to serve as acting White House chief of staff, putting a halt — at least for now — to his consideration of a parade of possible candidates, including several who turned him down, to take over one of the most important positions in the federal government. In Mr. Mulvaney, Mr. Trump made a safe choice for a Republican administration — a hard-line conservative and former congressman from South Carolina with a deep understanding of how Congress works and a personal chemistry with the president. Among some senior White House officials, Mr. Mulvaney had long been considered the “Original Plan B.” Mr. Trump made the announcement on Twitter, one week after his first choice for the job, Nick Ayers, a Georgia political operative who is now Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, took himself out of the running, citing family considerations. While Mr. Kelly, a retired Marine general, was initially seen as someone who could work well with Democrats and Republicans, Mr. Mulvaney has a reputation as a sharp-elbowed partisan, who as both the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau pursued a strongly conservative agenda. During Mr. Trump’s first full fiscal year in office, which ended in September, the deficit surged to $779 billion, the largest since 2012, when the economy and federal revenues were still recovering from the depths of the recession. The deficit has surged in large part because of Mr. Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cut and the spending increases enacted by Congress, which have contributed to the government paying out more than it takes in. Similarly, many of Mr. Mulvaney’s budget proposals have pleased Mr. Trump only to be rejected outright by his former Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill. He’s the acting chief of staff, which means he’s the chief of staff,” the official said. Mr. Mulvaney was asked about his interest at a briefing with reporters at the consumer bureau in June, when the speculation was intense, and ultimately incorrect, that Mr. Kelly was about to leave the White House. “If the president asks you to be chief of staff, the answer is yes,” Mr. Mulvaney said.

Lansing — It was four days out from the 2016 presidential election when then-Michigan GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel got the call: The Republican National Committee’s advanced voter score software was, for the first time, predicting Donald Trump would narrowly win the state. “We clearly spent too much time and money here,” he added sarcastically, “because we ended up winning by 10,500 votes rather than the 7,700 we predicted.” Increasingly complex systems allow Michigan's political parties to compile robust information about individual voters that they then use in direct appeals for a cause or candidate. “Allowing political parties and special interest groups to have a very detailed dossier on a person’s behavior raises fundamental questions about privacy in a democracy,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, calling it a bipartisan issue. “But just as important, it’s to put in place these local infrastructures so that the local parties can do a lot of this stuff themselves.” The RNC has spent two years building on its voter score system, which combines consumer data with voter history information to create probability rankings that inform spending, messaging and other strategy decisions. “That’s kind of the mantra of the RNC this cycle.” (Photo: Rod Sanford, Special to The Detroit News ) Targeting voters Technology has reshaped the way political parties and campaigns operate, both on the ground and online. “Because in 2016 a lot of people were blindsided by what happened because traditional polling methods, and other methods we had trusted for years, did not comport with the reality of the ground.” Two years ago, the RNC used its voter score data to fine-tune appeals to voters who were part of what officials called the “HRC change universe” and held conflicting opinions about Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. While groups are using consumer data to add shopping habits and magazine subscriptions to voter profiles, publicly available voting information “is still the most useful thing for trying to influence elections,” Grossman said. Voter privacy was tested like never before in the 2016 election cycle, when Cambridge Analytica, a firm hired by Trump’s campaign, reportedly accessed private data on more than 50 million Facebook users. Betting big on tech The RNC has invested roughly $200 million in data and technology since 2012, the second cycle in a row that President Barack Obama’s campaign had “very honestly kicked our (expletive),” Ostrow said. “But rather than go out and build it just around a candidate … we build it around a party-centric model so that any candidate with an R can use it.” The voter score system uses publicly available voter information with other data, including between 2,000 and 10,000 consumer data points for each voter, said regional data director Tyler Church.

Image WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, has been granted his permanent security clearance, a person briefed on the matter said on Wednesday, ending a period of uncertainty that had fueled questions about whether Mr. Kushner was in peril in the special counsel investigation. background checks dragged on for a year and became one of many political distractions for the White House. Top-secret clearances are typically required for people viewing foreign intelligence or sitting in on high-level White House meetings. But with the special counsel investigating some of Mr. Kushner’s meetings with Russian officials, it left open the question of whether investigators had uncovered evidence that made him a security threat. The special counsel’s investigation had not caused the delay, said Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell. “With respect to the news about his clearances, as we stated before, his application was properly submitted, reviewed by numerous career officials and underwent the normal process,” Mr. Lowell said. Mr. Kushner was among several White House officials who spent the first year of the administration working under provisional clearances, meaning he was allowed to view classified information while his F.B.I. Mr. Kushner met during the campaign with a Russian lawyer who came to Trump Tower promising political dirt on Hillary Clinton. They said he did not conceal Russian contacts; he had not yet begun completing the section requiring him to disclose his foreign contacts. That led only to new questions about Mr. Kushner’s relationship with Mr. Kelly and his future in the White House.

COLUMBIA — When Gov. Weeks away from a highly competitive GOP gubernatorial primary, all of the Republican candidates are flexing their Christian muscles in attempt to woo the Palmetto State's more religious voters who make up a significant and vocal portion of the party's base. Yancey McGill has cited his own Christian upbringing as his reason for signing a pledge to support the abortion ban bill. Now, all of the Republican candidates have said they would support the abortion ban, a sign of the importance of pro-life credentials in the race. Evangelical voters make up a significant proportion of the turnout in GOP primaries around the country. That has not stopped churches from urging parishioners to take to the polls and consider their Christian values when doing so. 'Pastors are multipliers' State Sen. Darrell Jackson, a Hopkins Democrat and pastor at Bible Way Church of Atlas Road, suggested that Republicans who believe they have a leg up with Christian voters are only thinking about white evangelicals. Skepticism towards the GOP among religious African-American voters, Jackson argued, stems from a view that "we certainly understand the importance of our faith but we believe our faith dictates that we reach out and help those who are less fortunate.” While many black churchgoers are also pro-life, Jackson said Democrats have an opportunity to make inroads if they are authentic about their beliefs. "If you listen to what some Republicans say, you'd think Christians and people of faith are only concerned about one issue," Jackson said. "You may discount the faith community but pastors are multipliers," Connelly said.

Kelly told National Public Radio (NPR) in a rare interview broadcast on Friday that Robert Mueller’s investigation inevitably crops up when the US president hosts his foreign counterparts. The anti-Obama: Trump's drive to destroy his predecessor's legacy Read more “There may not be a cloud, but certainly the president is, you know, somewhat embarrassed, frankly,” Kelly, a retired four-star marine corps general, said. “When world leaders come in, it’s kind of like you know Bibi Netanyahu [of Israel] is here and he – who’s under investigation himself – and it’s like, you know, you walk in and you know the first couple of minutes of every conversation might revolve around that kind of thing.” Kelly, who is Trump’s second chief of staff, said he spends five to eight hours a day with the president. His tenure has been the subject of recent speculation after reports that his influence is waning and that he branded the president an “idiot”. But he told NPR he thinks Trump is “a super-smart guy”. Sometimes he takes the opinion, sometimes he doesn’t.” Kelly denied reports he had threatened to resign but admitted: “There’s times of great frustration, mostly because of the stories I read about myself or others that I think the world of, which is just about everybody who works at the complex, and wonder whether it’s worth it to be subjected to that.” He did not name his predecessor, Reince Priebus, but said he wishes he had been in the role sooner. He said most people coming into the country without documentation “are not bad people”, but they will not assimilate easily. They don’t speak English; obviously that’s a big thing. The New York Times reported that she had drafted but not submitted a resignation letter after Trump lambasted her at a meeting for failing, in his view, to secure US borders. The DHS denied the claim.

. At least six members of President Trump’s White House have used private email addresses while conducting government business, The New York Times reported Monday evening. The news follows reports that White House senior adviser and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has used a private email for White House business. A watchdog group said Monday it obtained documents that also showed Ivanka Trump used a personal email account to communicate with a member of the Trump administration. Additionally, the government email accounts are meant to have stronger protections in place to prevent classified or sensitive government information from falling into the wrong hands. Clinton used a server where she exclusively used a private email account to conduct official State Department business. “All White House personnel have been instructed to use official email to conduct all government related work,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday during a press briefing after being asked about reports of the private account use. “They are further instructed that if they receive work-related communication on personal accounts, they should be forwarded to official email accounts,” she said. The emails used on such accounts have not been released.