Epstein Secrets

it off: it was Reince Priebus’s fault, not hers. She had spent a good part of the day calling friends and allies in the political world and blaming Priebus. Now she briefed some of the television producers and anchors with whom she’d built strong relationships—and with whom, actively interviewing in the

ce director and then finance director of the Republican National Committee, and finally, pre-White House, chief of staff of the RNC and its chairman, Reince Priebus. In retrospect, the key moment in saving the Trump campaign might be less the Mercer- led takeover and imposition of Bannon and Conway in mid-August

d Brzezinski, helping them keep their jobs), owed him something, and the media, giving him vast amounts of free coverage, believed he owed them, with Scarborough and Brzezinski seeing themselves as something like semiofficial advisers, if not the political fixers who had put him in his job. In August, they ha

e immigration order was issued, Joe Scarborough and his cohost () on the MSNBC show Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski, came for lunch at the White House. Scarborough is a former Republican congressman from Pensacola, Florida, and Brzezinski is the daughter of Zbigniew Brzezinski, a high-ranking aide in the Johnson

ive. As well, he could turn him off, and Bannon would be tactically quiet until turned on again. Kushner had neither Bannon’s policy imagination nor Priebus’s institutional ties. But, of course, he had family status, carrying its own high authority. In addition, he had billionaire status. He had cultivate

e president left the West Wing for Marine One, which was soon en route to Andrews Air Force Base. Accompanying him were Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Reince Priebus, Hope Hicks, and Kellyanne Conway. Vice President Pence and his wife joined the group at Andrews for the brief flight on Air Force One to Harrisburg,

ce a scowl and pout if you didn’t hurry to the “but.” (Then again, saying anyone was “smart” invariably incurred Trump’s annoyance.) Kushner enlisted Scarborough and Brzezinski in something of a regular morning television Bannon slag-a-thon. H. R. McMaster, the three-star general who had replaced Michael Flyn

h in the West Wing, the campaign by Jared and Ivanka to undermine Bannon seemed to be working. The couple had created a feedback loop, which included Scarborough and Murdoch, that reinforced the president’s deep annoyance with and frustration about Bannon’s purported importance in the White House. For weeks af

egic approach on the part of the president—quite an unlikely development. Meanwhile, the couple blamed everyone else in the White House. They blamed Priebus for the disarray that had produced a warlike atmosphere that propelled constant and damaging leaks, they blamed Bannon for leaking, and they blamed S

in his unquestioned certitudes. There was now a fair amount of back-of-the-classroom giggling about who had called Trump what. For Steve Mnuchin and Reince Priebus, he was an “idiot.” For Gary Cohn, he was “dumb as shit.” For H. R. McMaster he was a “dope.” The list went on. Tillerson would merely become yet an

ow), 89, 91, 93, 208, 276 Saudi Arabia, 6, 224-32, 236 Saval, Nikil, 276 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020134 Scaramucci, Anthony, 268-74, 277, 281-86, 288, 307 Scarborough, Joe, 32, 47, 66-69, 81, 121, 147, 176, 247-49 Scavino, Dan, 229 Schiller, Keith, 217, 229 Schlapp, Matt, 127, 129, 131-33 Schlapp, Mercedes, 129