Welcome to White House Watch, a new reported feature here at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, written by me. I aim to continue what I started with the First 100 Days, my daily chronicle of the Donald Trump White House's whirlwind first period. That ended this weekend (read my wrap-up for Trump's first 100 days…
In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Fred Barnes talks with host Eric Felten about President Trump's big new tax reform plan, and then senior writer Michael Warren comes by to assess the style and strategy of the Trump presidency, 100 days in.
"With this president, you never know."
Today's Daily Standard podcast is with deputy online editor Chris Deaton, who explains why President Trump should be focused on the days beyond the first 100, and what his presidency will look like when voters return to the polls in 2020.
Is the administration preparing for something with North Korea? That was the impression of many in Washington ahead of a Wednesday afternoon White House briefing of nearly all 100 U.S. senators by military and national security officials. Those briefing the senators included Secretary of State Rex…
The Trump administration has hit another court challenge to an immigration-related executive order. On Tuesday, a district court judge in California issued a preliminary injunction against last month's order from the White House that so-called sanctuary cities—those localities that choose to harbor…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, literary editor Philip Terzian discusses which presidents had the best and worst first 100 days, and why it rarely mattered.
Does President Trump want border-wall funding in this week's spending bill, or doesn't he? Just over the weekend, top administration officials were suggesting they might push for money to begin construction on a wall along the southern border with Mexico as Congress gets ready to deal with the…
It’s the beginning of a big week for Washington. Congress returns from recess while the Trump administration prepares for its 100th day on Saturday. The campaign had made much of this initial period of a Trump presidency, releasing a "Contract with the American Voter" before the election that…
Officially, the Trump administration certified this week that Iran has complied in the strictest terms with the requirements of the nuclear deal, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. But as President Donald Trump indicated in a Thursday press conference with Italian prime…
Will the Trump administration scrap the Iran nuclear deal, or is the basic framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action here to stay? On Thursday, the deputies of the National Security Council will hold their first meeting to discuss the Trump administration's review of Iran's compliance…
Late Tuesday night, the Associated Press first reported that the Trump administration had certified that Iran has so far been compliant in the nuclear deal forged by the Obama administration. The deal had been sharply criticized by Republicans and even a few Democrats, and its undoing was one of…
Tuesday's special House election in Georgia carries with it an inordinate degree of focus on Donald Trump. The president created the House vacancy in the suburban district north of Atlanta after picking Representative Tom Price to be the secretary of Health and Human Services. Price had won the…
Tensions are rising as North Korea continues its attempted shows of provocation and the United States ramps up its effort to deal with Pyongyang. The White House, including the president himself, is sending public signals that stopping North Korea from having a deliverable nuclear weapon is a top…
The Trump White House is taking stock of what it sees as a solid seven days for its national security and geopolitical policies. “It's difficult to portray this as anything but a really great week," said one senior administration official on Wednesday.
Last week's strike on the Syrian airfield from which Bashar al-Assad launched his latest chemical-weapons attack on his own people has somewhat overshadowed President Trump's meeting with Xi Jinping, the president of China. The summit at Mar-a-Lago last Thursday and Friday was the first chance for…
While the Trump administration's second attempt at repealing Obamacare sits in a holding pattern as Congress is in recess, attention has turned to the other major legislative goal for Republicans in Washington: tax reform. Except, the Associated Press reported Monday, Trump has "scrapped" his tax…
Last week’s successful strike on a Syrian airfield has been followed up by important questions for the Trump administration: What happens to Bashar al-Assad now? Will U.S. policy toward the Assad regime change? Will Trump call for regime change through force? What will the United States do if Assad…
President Donald Trump appears to have been mugged by reality this week following Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad's chemical-weapons attack on his own people. The result? Assad's regime—and in particular, the airbase in central Syria where his attack was launched—got a swift dose of reality in the…
President Trump will meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping Thursday in what will be his most important and consequential meeting with a foreign leader so far. Not only does Xi lead a major regional and world power, with a population of nearly 1.4 billion and an economic output that competes with…
How does the Trump administration’s Syria policy differ from the Obama administration's? It's not evident there's much practical distance between the two, despite a prepared statement from President Trump Tuesday afternoon blasting "the past administration's weakness and irresolution."
There are two big, outstanding questions surrounding Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Russia: Did associates of the Trump campaign and transition have improper or illicit contact with Russian officials? Did the Obama administration improperly monitor and leak identifying details about those Trump…
President Donald Trump has three big meetings this week with important world leaders. The first two come from the Middle East. On Monday, Trump will meet for several hours with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the White House, followed by a Wednesday meeting with King Abdullah II of…
Michael Flynn, the short-tenured national security advisor for President Trump, is offering to testify to both the FBI and the congressional intelligence committees about possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia in exchange for immunity. The Wall Street Journal had the scoop…
It's official: Ivanka Trump is now an employee of the federal government. The daughter of President Donald Trump and wife of senior adviser Jared Kushner, Ivanka is making official what was already clear from her frequent appearances alongside her father at the White House and last week's news that…
There are two related but separate issues regarding House Intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes's revelation last week that identifying information about associates of the Trump campaign and transition team was collected by and distributed within the intelligence committee.
In the time since President Trump's March 4 tweets alleging he had his "'wires tapped' in Trump Tower" shortly before last year's election by President Obama, there's been no evidence revealed that strictly supports his claim. Trump opponents view this lack of evidence as proof the president made…
"There could have been more outreach to conservative groups."
For Donald Trump's domestic agenda, this week was the best of times and the worst of times. First, the best: Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch aced his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary committee. The well-prepared Gorsuch gave a near-perfect performance, sparring easily with…
The House of Representatives will vote Thursday on the American Health Care Act, a bill President Donald Trump has enthusiastically endorsed and what the administration considers its best and perhaps only chance to repeal and replace Obamacare. It's the first and possibly biggest test so far of…
The Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare is either quite nearly dead or right on-course to become law—depending on which Republican you ask. President Trump's Tuesday trip to Capitol Hill seemed designed to either cajole or intimidate on-the-fence House Republicans to support the bill.…
Where to begin? Monday was jam-packed with news regarding Donald Trump and his administration. Unfortunately the best news for Trump, a solid first day of hearings for his Supreme Court nominee (more on that below), was overshadowed by the appearance of FBI director James Comey and National…
The Senate Judiciary committee will convene its first day of hearings to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court on Monday. Since President Donald Trump nominated Gorsuch to the seat in late January, the federal judge has pretty much sailed through the pre-hearing process, which…
While activity and controversy have consumed the White House over the past few weeks—the rollout of the health-care bill, President Trump's claims he was wire-tapped by President Obama, the travel ban's legal troubles, and the unveiling of the Trump budget—Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch has…
Over the weekend, a personnel dispute within the National Security Council between the national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, and senior White House aides Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon was eventually brought to President Trump himself. As Politico reported Tuesday evening, Trump overruled…
Another day with the same big and frustrating story for the Trump administration: The effort to repeal and replace Obamacare is not going well. The House bill continues to lose supporters publicly, and not just from the far-right Freedom Caucus.
The Congressional Budget Office is finally out with its analysis of the Trump-backed American Health Care Act, and the results are, well, not great, Bob! The big headline, and the big headache for the White House, is the estimate that in less than a decade 24 million fewer people would have…
Not much over the past couple of days has made the passage of the American Health Care Act seem more likely. One of the House bill’s chief Republican critics, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, told ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday that the proposal "as it's written today…cannot pass the Senate."
The White House continues to argue that the House Republican health-care bill is the best and only way to repeal Obamacare. "No matter where you are, especially on the conservative side, you cannot possibly believe that the current health care system is an effective program," said press secretary…
President Trump met with a select group of leaders from conservative organizations Wednesday evening to discuss the health-care bill. Represented at the meeting were the Club for Growth, the Heritage Foundation (and its political arm, Heritage Action), Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and…
The House Republican health care bill has an odd problem: Nobody seems to support it. Nobody, that is, except President Trump and his administration. While the House plan appears to be the work of Speaker Paul Ryan and the two committee chairmen of Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce, the White…
The Trump administration has a problem with anonymous sources and the media outlets who run stories based entirely on them. This, in the White House’s view, is how unfair and untrue narratives about the Trump campaign's nefarious connections with Russia persist. "People start taking things as fact…
So what happened this weekend? For a full briefing on President Trump's claim that President Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower during the election—what was alleged, what the president knew when he alleged it, and what to make of the various responses to those allegations—read editor in chief…
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has promised to recuse himself from any Justice Department investigations into the Trump presidential campaign. His blanket recusal likely will not satisfy his most ardent opponents, who wanted to see the Alabama Republican resign after it was revealed Sessions had…
The era of big government is back. That was the clear message from President Donald Trump's first address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. His speech, as light on specifics as the White House promised, was nonetheless a call for a muscular response from government to the nation's…
We know very little about what to expect in President Trump's address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. That was obvious from the Democratic "prebuttal" that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer delivered on Monday, which volleyed between standard…
The fight to repeal Obamacare is ramping up as Congress prepares to return from its recess. Senators and representatives will hear from President Trump on Tuesday during his address to a joint session, and repeal and replace is expected to be among the most important talking points in the speech.
Donald Trump will make his first address to the Conservative Political Action Conference as president of the United States Friday. It's not Trump's first time speaking at the conservative confab—that would be his 2011 appearance, where the Apprentice star said he would be deciding soon if he would…
“It's going to be a very busy March and April for us," said White House press secretary Sean Spicer at his Wednesday briefing. That's when the Trump administration expects to start moving forward on its legislative agenda—and at the top of that list is the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.
Rave reviews continue to come in for the new White House national security advisor, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, including from frequent Trump administration critic John McCain (more on him below).
A week after Donald Trump asked Mike Flynn to resign from his post as national security advisor, the president has announced another Army general, H.R. McMaster, as Flynn’s replacement. If there are any worthwhile objections to McMaster's appointment among the broad national security, military, and…
Last Monday's dismissal of national security advisor Mike Flynn seems to have only raised more questions, and scant answers, in the ensuing week. For starters, who will replace Flynn? Nearly a week later, the Trump administration has yet to find a candidate who will take the job, although the…
It was one hour and 17 minutes of—well, I'm not sure quite what. Donald Trump's first official presidential press conference Thursday afternoon was at various times shocking, confusing, funny, frustrating. He harangued the gathered reporters his White House had asked to attend the event. He…
President Trump has lost two important figures in his administration within 48 hours. His national security advisor, Mike Flynn, resigned Monday night, while Trump's nominee for Labor secretary, Andy Puzder, withdrew on Wednesday, the day before his Senate hearing. So, Washington wants to know, who…
We have not yet reached the end of the Mike Flynn story. The former national security advisor’s abrupt resignation on Monday night might have been the end of his story, as far as the American people are concerned, had his downfall been personal or isolated. But the factors that cut Flynn's White…
It took only three weeks for the Trump administration to experience its first scandal and senior-level resignation. Mike Flynn, the retired lieutenant general and a trusted national security aide to Donald Trump, resigned his post as national security advisor late Monday night. The administration…
The political world is abuzz about the possibility Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, is on the outs with Donald Trump. That’s due to a not-so-deep reading of some comments by Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax Media and a donor and friend to Trump, on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday.
Donald Trump spoke on the phone Thursday night with his counterpart in China for the first time since being inaugurated—and for the first time since Trump accepted a phone call from the president of Taiwan late last year. The Taiwan call, which took place in early December when Trump was still the…
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has spoken and…it will not lift the temporary restraining order on President Trump's travel restriction executive order. The three-judge panel ruled unanimously Thursday evening that the federal government did not present a compelling case in its effort to receive…
At 10:30 Thursday morning, Jeff Sessions will officially be sworn in as attorney general of the United States. On a near party-line vote, 52 to 47, the Senate confirmed one of its own Wednesday night for the job of the nation's top law enforcement officer. Sessions was one of Donald Trump's…
Donald Trump's most contentious cabinet appointee (so far), Betsy DeVos, is now the Secretary of Education. Her nomination cleared the Senate Tuesday afternoon after all 48 Democrats voted unanimously against her (along with 2 Republicans), resulting in a 50-50 tie that Vice President Mike Pence…
It’s the first full week of February, and Donald Trump has been president for nearly two and a half weeks. So why, besides the executive orders, do things seem to be moving so slowly for the Trump administration?
Obviously, the come-from-behind overtime win by the Patriots over (my beloved) Falcons was the biggest news from Super Bowl Sunday. But in Washington the talk this past weekend was consumed by the president's latest controversial remarks about Vladimir Putin and a judicial fight over his travel…
On a late January afternoon, as press secretary Sean Spicer walked into the White House media briefing room, a tall, thin, bespectacled man poked his head in the doorway for a moment before turning around and heading back into the West Wing. Later that week, at another briefing, the man stayed…
Conservatives and Republicans appear to be in nearly universal agreement: In nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, President Donald Trump has hit a home run. Immediately after Trump made the announcement Tuesday night from the White House, my email inbox was flooded with statements of…
It was a difficult weekend for the Trump administration as it sought to implement and defend its most controversial executive order to date, the travel ban. Fortunately for Trump, there's a chance to reset from the executive order fiasco with Tuesday night's announcement of his nominee for the…
What did the Trump administration know about Friday's "extreme vetting" executive order, and when did they know it?
As the first full week of the Trump administration comes to a close, the White House appears to be getting into something of a groove. On Monday, there was a bit of chaos within the West Wing, with staffers looking a little lost or unsure of where to go and what to do. One veteran White House…
The border wall begins! Well, sort of. On Wednesday, President Trump signed two executive orders to deliver on one of his most famous and consistent campaign promises. Trump's first order directs the Department of Homeland Security to "immediately plan, design, and construct" the physical wall, and…
In the early days of the Trump presidency, the president and his administration seem to be traveling down two separate, parallel paths. On the one hand, President Trump has been pursuing concrete policy ends, primarily through executive orders: withdrawing from TPP, reinstating the Mexico City…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Michael Warren on the Trump administration's growing pains.
The weather Monday in Washington was windy, rainy, and messy—but those were hardly the conditions inside the West Wing on what the Trump administration was calling its first "working day." President Trump had an early meeting with CEOs of some of the country's largest manufacturers, a phone call…
White House press secretary Sean Spicer turned heads on Saturday evening when he called reporters to the briefing room and read from a written statement: "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration—period—both in person and around the globe." Spicer drew intense criticism because…
Donald Trump has been president for nearly four days, but transition officials had suggested last week that Monday should be considered the "first" working day of the famed first 100 days. That may be the view in the West Wing, but quite a bit happened over the weekend that made it clear the Trump…
Today is Inauguration Day, so it seems fitting to kick things off with the inaugural edition of this new feature here at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. For the first 100 (or so) days of the Donald J. Trump administration, look to this space for inside coverage of our 45th president, his White House, and his…