The Daily 202: Three more Trump administration alumni speak out

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s former chief of staff, Josh Venable, joined a group of 25 other Trump alumni on Thursday who want to see the president defeated. Former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor formed the Republican Political Alliance for Integrity & Reform, which will be known as REPAIR. Taylor told Politico that a current senior administration official is also part of the group, but he declined to name that person. 

The biggest splash of the day came from Olivia Troye, who worked as Vice President Pence’s homeland security, counterterrorism and coronavirus adviser until she left the White House last month. The lifelong Republican endorsed Joe Biden, citing Trump’s lack of seriousness behind closed doors when she was a senior adviser on the coronavirus task force. “There were a lot of closed-door conversations I have had with a lot of senior people across the administration where they agree with me wholeheartedly,” Troye told The Washington Post.

She recorded this blistering video for Republican Voters Against Trump:

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is quoted in Bob Woodward’s new book, “Rage,” saying that the White House staff has grown increasingly loyal to the president: “In the beginning, 20 percent of the people we had thought Trump was saving the world, and 80 percent thought they were saving the world from Trump. Now, I think we have the inverse. I think 80 percent of the people working for him think that he’s saving the world, and 20 percent – maybe less now – think they’re saving the world from Trump.”

“Let that analysis sink in,” Woodward writes. “Twenty percent of the president’s staff think they are ‘saving the world’ from the president.”

Whatever the percentage, many people who apparently think the world needs to be saved from their former boss are speaking out. A big question is how many more plan to do so in the six weeks remaining until the election. 

At this stage of the 2020 race, many voters’ views of the president – for and against – have hardened. But the growing criticism from inside the administration certainly undermines the president’s ongoing efforts to recast his response to the contagion in heroic terms. The virus has infected more than 6.6 million and killed nearly 200,000 people in the United States.

Predictably, Trump attacked her as a disgruntled former employee and downplayed her role. “I have no idea who she is,” the president told reporters as he left the White House for a rally in Wisconsin. “We have a big government. Every time somebody leaves government, 99 percent of the time, I’m not going to know these people. And they leave on a basis of almost like it’s a personal thing with me.”

Troye said that Trump rarely attended task force meetings but that one of the times he did, the president spoke for 45 minutes about how poorly he was being treated by certain Fox News hosts. “He spent more time about who was going to call Fox and yell at them to set them straight than he did on the virus,” she told Josh Dawsey. “At some point, every single person on the task force has been thrown under the bus in one way or another. Instead of being focused on the task at hand, people were constantly wondering what was going to drop next or when you’re going to get reprimanded or cut out of a process for speaking out.”

The president’s tweets and announcements would “blindside” his own staff and were often at odds with the administration’s own data, the recommendations of federal scientists and what had just been discussed in the Situation Room. “I would not tell anyone I care about to take a vaccine that launches prior to the election,” Troye warned.

Pence maintained that the coronavirus response is going swimmingly, despite evidence to the contrary. “I couldn’t be more proud of the work we’ve done,” he told reporters.

Troye’s tasks included preparing the agendas and seating charts for task force meetings. She was often pictured sitting behind the vice president in the Situation Room. 

Tony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert and a task force member, said that he cannot comment on the politics but that he enjoyed working with Troye. “She was a good person,” Fauci said on MSNBC. “She was important to the team.”

In a statement, Pence’s national security adviser, Keith Kellogg, ripped Troye for not expressing her concerns directly to him. “Ms. Troye directly reported to me, and never once during her detail did she ever express any concern regarding the Administration’s response to the Coronavirus to anyone in her chain of command,” he said.

This is the exact line of attack Kellogg used last year when Jennifer Williams, who also worked in Pence’s office, testified under oath as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry about her discomfort with Trump’s infamous July 25, 2019, conversation with Ukraine’s president. “She never reported any personal or professional concerns to me, her direct supervisor, regarding the call,” Kellogg said in a statement last November. 

Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified alongside Williams and was purged from the National Security Council after his testimony, praised Troye. “Truth from a fellow ‘disgruntled former White House employee,’” he tweeted. “Olivia, thank you for speaking up.”

Troye, 43, worked for the Republican National Committee before going to the Pentagon as a George W. Bush appointee after the 9/11 attacks. She then became a career official at DHS and the Energy Department during the Obama years before being detailed by Homeland Security to Pence’s office in 2018. 

She acknowledges not voting for Trump in 2016 because she disliked his rhetoric but thought he could grow into the job. She describes herself as a “John McCain Republican,” a reference to the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, whom Trump has continued to denigrate since his death from cancer. “Honestly, I am scared,” she said. “I have never done anything like this.”

Because CBS released only a snippet of McMaster’s “60 Minutes” interview, it’s unclear how far he will go publicly in chastising the president. But he joins a chorus of other top national security officials who have expressed a range of concerns about Trump’s judgement, including John Bolton – who replaced McMaster as national security adviser – and former defense secretary Jim Mattis.

“According to people familiar with their views, those privately critical of Trump include Mattis, former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson, former top economic aide Gary Cohn and former homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen,” Dawsey reports. “Kelly is among those most torn about what to do, according to people who have spoken with him. They say he describes the president in derisive terms — as a narcissist who does not understand the military, cares only about his political fortunes and is unqualified to be president. Kelly declined to comment for this article but has told others he is undecided over whether he should speak out more before the election.”

“The White House will take other action to curb WeChat’s use beginning Sunday and will give TikTok until Nov. 12 until further bans kick in,” Jeanne Whalen reports. “Western companies and bankers are still wrangling with TikTok’s owner, the White House and Chinese authorities to try to arrange a sale of some of TikTok’s business. TikTok has enjoyed explosive growth in the United States, where its users number in the tens of millions.”

‘“Stanley A. Bastian, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, said policies put in place under [Postmaster General Louis] DeJoy ‘likely will slow down delivery of ballots’ this fall, creating a ‘substantial possibility that many voters will be disenfranchised and the states may not be able to effectively, timely, accurately determine election outcomes,’” Elise Viebeck and Jacob Bogage report. “The ruling — the first major decision to come out of several lawsuits filed by states against the Postal Service — was a victory for Democratic state officials who view Trump’s persistent attacks on mail voting and DeJoy’s operational changes as part of a concerted effort to impede the vote on Nov. 3. … In a written order released Thursday night, Bastian laid out more than a page of specific prohibitions on the Postal Service until a final judgment is reached in the case — restrictions that could broadly affect the agency’s services. He connected the USPS policies to Trump’s broadsides against mail voting, saying the actions amount to ‘voter disenfranchisement.’” 

• A pattern of campaign contributions by DeJoy’s former employees and family members indicates a possible effort to reimburse his associates for donations as recently as 2018, according to a Federal Election Commission complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center. (Aaron Davis)
• North Carolina is already rejecting mail-in ballots from Black voters at more than four times the rate of those from White voters. (FiveThirtyEight)
• The Trump campaign claimed a “rigged election” is underway after some North Carolina voters received two ballots in the mail. The mix-up occurred when an employee at the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections realized she was misplacing address labels for some envelopes. (Paulina Firozi) 
• The University of Georgia changed course after it was criticized for allowing football but not in-person voting. The university will now use its Stegeman Coliseum as an early-voting site. (Kim Bellware and Katie Shepherd)
• Uber is exploring offering some of its national network of facilities as polling places. Live Nation Entertainment said five of its concert venues are confirmed or in the final vetting stages as polling locations, and it’s studying the feasibility of more than 100 other venues. Best Buy plans to delay opening its roughly 1,000 U.S. stores by two hours on Election Day — from 10 a.m. to noon — to give employees the morning to vote. (Jena McGregor)
• Gird yourself for election night 2020 to drag out for weeks. “During this year’s Democratic primaries, it took days, and sometimes weeks, for the bulk of votes to get counted,” Ashlyn Still and Kevin Schaul report. “The hopeful news: States have had much more time to plan for the general election than they had for the primaries, when the emerging pandemic forced decisions to be made quickly.”

“The documents, which mostly span March and April, depict an agency in distress, as its deteriorating finances collided with a public-health emergency and a looming election that would be heavily reliant on absentee ballots. During that period, the USPS occasionally relied on the legal counsel of well-connected Republicans, including Stefan C. Passantino, who once served as a top White House lawyer under Trump. Passantino … is also part of a new pro-Trump legal coalition preparing for the possibility of a contested election, a relationship that has raised new ethical flags,” Tony Romm, Bogage and Lena Sun report. 

“At one point in April, USPS leaders drafted a news release announcing plans to distribute 650 million masks nationwide. … The document, which includes quotations from top USPS officials and other specifics, was never sent. … The idea originated out of the Department of Health and Human Services, which suggested a pack of five reusable masks be sent to every residential address in the country, with the first shipments going to the hardest-hit areas. At the time, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been working on coronavirus guidance that recommended face coverings. … The Postal Service … specifically identified Orleans and Jefferson parishes in Louisiana as the first areas to receive face coverings, with deliveries shortly thereafter to King County, Wash.; Wayne County, Mich.; and New York. … Before the news release was sent, however, the White House nixed the plan, according to senior administration officials. … ‘There was concern from some in the White House Domestic Policy Council and the office of the vice president that households receiving masks might create concern or panic,’ one administration official said.”

Amy Dorris told the Guardian that Trump groped and kissed her against her will at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in 1997. “Dorris, who was 24 at the time of the alleged incident, [told] the Guardian that her encounter with Trump left her feeling ‘sick’ and ‘violated’ and that she has struggled for years with whether she should speak publicly, including before the 2016 election,” Roz Helderman reports. “Dorris did not return calls from The Washington Post, but her account was corroborated by her mother, Katherine Dorris, who said Dorris confided in her about the incident at the time it happened. Separately, a friend of Dorris, Caron Bernstein, told The Post that Dorris had authorized her to speak on her behalf and to confirm that the details in the Guardian piece were accurate. … ‘Her story has never deviated,’ Bernstein said. In a statement, Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to Trump’s campaign, called the allegations ‘totally false.’ … Dorris is one of more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of unwanted physical contact in the years before he was elected.”

“Investigators from the New York Attorney General’s office have been seeking to interview Eric Trump since May, as part of an 18-month-long investigation into allegations that the Trump Organization improperly manipulated the value of its properties to obtain loans and tax benefits,” David Fahrenthold reports. “Eric Trump agreed to be interviewed on July 22 — but then canceled. … The reason for that delay, Eric Trump’s lawyers said: ‘Mr. Trump’s extreme travel schedule and related unavailability between now and the election, and to avoid the use of his deposition attendance for political purposes.’”

• “Trump’s luxury properties have charged the U.S. government more than $1.1 million in private transactions since Trump took office — including for room rentals at his Bedminster, N.J., club this spring while it was closed for the coronavirus pandemic, new documents show,” Fahrenthold and Dawsey report. “In Bedminster this spring, the records show, Trump’s club charged the Secret Service more than $21,800 to rent a cottage and other rooms while the club was closed and otherwise off-limits to guests.”
• Federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed new charges against Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, accusing the Soviet emigre of defrauding investors in a fraud-protection company he founded — and from which Giuliani was paid $500,000. (Shayna Jacobs)
• An invisible company owned by Giuliani got between $150,000 and $350,000 from the taxpayer-backed Paycheck Protection Program. It’s unclear what Giuliani did with the money. (Salon)
• Trump won’t go to New York for his speech to the U.N. General Assembly, opting to deliver it via live stream from the White House instead. (Politico)
• The Trump administration is preparing to reimpose U.N. sanctions against Iran despite objections from most other countries. (Carol Morello)

“Unlike in 2016, when the most serious interference efforts involved hacking Democrats’ emails and state election systems, Wray said Russian activity so far this year seems more limited to misinformation campaigns,” Devlin Barrett reports. “Wray argued that in the battle against political misinformation, it’s important to act quickly before fake social media campaigns or accounts get big — because knocking down false accounts early, before they acquire too many followers, greatly diminishes their effectiveness. But the FBI director also warned that too much focus on disinformation could be debilitating, causing Americans to distrust the democratic process itself. … Republicans and Democrats on the committee pressed Wray to say whether right-wing extremists or left-wing extremists pose a more serious threat of violence to the country, but Wray avoided making such a judgment, saying the FBI does not look at political ideology but whether individuals are planning violence. Wray said that racially motivated extremism makes up the largest share of the FBI’s domestic terrorism cases, and that white supremacist ideology appears to drive the bulk of those racially motivated extremism cases.”

An FBI sex crimes investigator helped trigger the 2016 election’s October surprise. While investigating Anthony Weiner’s digital correspondence with a 15-year-old girl, John Robertson stumbled upon thousands of Huma Abedin’s emails, including many to and from Hillary Clinton. Devlin Barrett writes in his new book, “October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election,” that Robertson found the emails on the disgraced ex-congressman’s laptop in late September: “Robertson’s role has been examined by Justice Department internal investigators, but his identity, history and internal documents about his actions in 2016 are being recounted here for the first time. After flagging the issue of the Abedin emails to his supervisors at the end of September, he had heard nothing. ‘The crickets I was hearing was really making me uncomfortable because something was going to come down,’ Robertson later told internal investigators.”

CNN reporters say they have struggled to get several senators to answer their questions, especially when asked about Trump’s confession to Bob Woodward that he willfully downplayed coronavirus dangers: “Sen. Cory Gardner, who faces a tough reelection bid in Colorado, was spotted on the phone four times between Tuesday and Wednesday as he entered and exited the Senate through a back staircase, declining to answer questions. Asked if he could stop and take questions as he left the Capitol after the final vote Tuesday, Gardner said no. … A spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.”

• “Not right now,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who refused to comment three times this week.
• “You guys are awful,” said Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) when asked whether Trump made a mistake when he misled the public.
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also dodged a question about whether Trump was truthful: “I’m sure you can get answers on that from the president himself.”

FEC Chair Trey Trainor (R), appointed by Trump and confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate in May, chastised Catholic bishops during a pair of interviews this week, “accusing church hierarchy of ‘hiding behind’ their nonprofit status and declaring that this year’s U.S. election amounts to a ‘spiritual war’ that threatens the country’s ‘Christian moral principles,’” the Religion News Service reports. Citing a 2017 executive order signed by Trump, he also said churches should feel free to endorse political candidates without worrying about facing consequences for breaking federal law. “Churches can absolutely engage in that activity,” Trainor said. FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub (D) disputed that Trump’s executive order allows faith groups to ignore the Johnson Amendment, a provision of U.S. tax law that bars nonprofits from endorsing political candidates. “Though the president’s executive order directs law enforcement authorities to not enforce the Johnson Amendment, that statute remains the law of the land and cannot be undone with an executive order,” she said. “Anyone tempted to violate the statute should keep in mind that a future administration could well decide to enforce the law as Congress wrote it.”

• Trump created a national commission to push more “pro-American” history in schools. He called this summer’s protests “the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools.” Moriah Balingit and Laura Meckler note the federal government has no power over the curriculum taught in local schools.
• Trump’s Education Department launched an investigation into Princeton University, questioning whether the school is in compliance with federal anti-discrimination law, after the university’s president wrote about campus efforts to address what he described as systemic racism. (Susan Svrluga)

“If more people owned boats, we’d win this in a landslide,” Trump pollster John McLaughlin told One America News. (HuffPost) 

“A heavily criticized recommendation from the CDC last month about who should be tested for the coronavirus was not written by CDC scientists and was posted to the agency’s website despite their serious objections, according to several people familiar with the matter as well as internal documents,” the Times reports. “The guidance said it was not necessary to test people without symptoms of Covid-19 even if they had been exposed to the virus. … But officials [said] this week that the Department of Health and Human Services did the rewriting and then ‘dropped’ it into the CDC’s public website, flouting the agency’s strict scientific review process.”

“Trump stood before a televised audience Wednesday and proclaimed that ‘results are very good’ for vaccines targeting the novel coronavirus. A day later, Moderna and Pfizer, two front-runner drug companies developing a shot, released the full rule books for their studies, revealing that no one yet knows conclusively whether a vaccine is safe and effective — not even company executives,” Carolyn Johnson reports. “Leaders of Moderna and Pfizer cited the need for greater transparency than usual in covid-19 clinical trials as the reason behind their decision to release the full documents describing how their studies will measure safety and effectiveness. The documents confirm that study participants, physicians running the trials and the companies are ‘blinded,’ unable to tell who received a real vaccine and who received a placebo.” 

Trump moved closer to Nancy Pelosi’s position in economic aid talks. “Now the California Democrat faces a crucial decision: Does she try to negotiate an agreement with a White House that suddenly seems ready to deal or continue to hold her ground and make Trump, facing his own election woes, swallow the sweeping $2.2 trillion bill she has long demanded?” Rachel Bade and Erica Werner report. “Early signs suggest Pelosi is still not ready to budge. ‘Great, call me when he’s at $2.2 trillion,’ Pelosi told Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during a private call Wednesday, referring to Trump. … Centrist Democrats, fearful of constituent blowback, are pushing Pelosi to return to the negotiating table and strike a deal with Trump on an expansive relief package — even if she can’t get the $2.2 trillion she wants.”

Trump seems eager to tee off on seemingly every subject imaginable, except public health. “Since March, when the stay-at-home orders started, he has written a little over a dozen tweets encouraging mask wearing and social distancing, and warning about the virus,” the Atlantic reports. “During the Labor Day period, the president tweeted about the owner of Pelosi’s salon, critical race theory, Big Ten football, and many other things under the fading summer sun. He did not use his Twitter feed to warn about COVID-19 or encourage any of the personal practices that would keep people healthy and spur the economy. The last time he used his account to encourage Americans in this direction was six weeks ago, on August 3.”

“As preschools, elementary schools and day cares welcome returning children nationwide this fall, researchers are hoping to learn more about the transmission of the coronavirus among younger children. But efforts to screen kids may be hindered by several factors: age limits at certain testing sites; fear of or discomfort from swab testing; and the tendency for children to not exhibit signs of infection, making them less likely to qualify for immediate testing,” Meryl Kornfield reports. 

• During a CNN town hall, Biden said he would not mandate a vaccine for students to go to school any time in the foreseeable future because it has not been tested yet in young people. He also reiterated he does not trust anything Trump says about a vaccine but will accept one as safe if Fauci says so. (Matt Viser)
• A Massachusetts teenager tested positive, but his parents sent him to school anyway. Now, 28 students who were in close contact with that boy have to quarantine for two weeks. (Jaclyn Peiser)
• A fan who attended the Chiefs-Texans NFL season opener tested positive, leading the Kansas City Health Department to direct 10 people to quarantine because of their potential exposure. (Mark Maske)
• Contact-tracing challenges are hurting D.C.’s efforts to slow the virus’s spread. City officials said many people who get infected refuse to provide details that could prevent future transmissions. (Fenit Nirappil and Ovetta Wiggins)
• Florida, Texas and Nevada are taking steps toward reopening — for the second time. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced restaurants, retail stores and gyms in most parts of the state could resume operating at 75 percent occupancy. Bars, however, will remain closed. Florida also plowed ahead with reopening this week, allowing bars to reopen at 50 percent capacity. In Nevada, a state task force authorized the reopening of bars in Las Vegas. (Antonia Farzan)

Two churches are behind the nation’s two largest clusters of infection, with at least 6,200 cases linked to them. (Min Joo Kim)

• The WHO said health-care workers make up 1 in 7 global covid-19 cases. That’s consistent with other estimates, including from the CDC. (Ruby Mellen and Adam Taylor)
• Coronavirus-free communities on the U.S.-Canada border want travel restrictions eased. (Amanda Coletta)
• A coronavirus blockade stranded hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jewish pilgrims at the Ukrainian border. (David Stern)
• Peru’s president faces an impeachment vote amid a lethal outbreak. Lawmakers moved to censure Martín Vizcarra after recordings emerged last week in which he seemed to coordinate a coverup amid an influence-peddling scandal. (Simeon Tegel)

“More than 800,000 acres had burned in Oregon this year … and at least eight people have been killed by flames, which have moved so fast they have overwhelmed cars in the Talent and Phoenix area,” Scott Wilson and Mason Trinca report from the ground. “A drive around Phoenix and Talent — which have about 11,000 residents total — reveals the cruel course the fire took, blown by winds that shifted often. Whole neighborhoods on one side of the North Pacific Highway in Talent are unscathed. Just across the street, the Goodnight Inn is in ruins.”

“The fortified downtown area of Pensacola, which has received significant attention and hurricane-proofing in recent years, saw significant flooding this week, but its high waters receded quickly as the storm passed early Wednesday and the tide went out. Wedgewood, on the other hand, is nearly defenseless against storm surge off the Gulf of Mexico, and its waters do not go away so quickly,” Ashley Cusick reports. “It also faces another challenge: It is surrounded by landfills and a giant sand pit, which have long caused residents to raise health concerns and also have served to channel water toward residents’ homes.”

• “Hurricane Teddy is expected to approach Bermuda as a hurricane this weekend, bringing an increasing risk of strong winds, storm surge and heavy rainfall,” the Orlando Sentinel reports. “Large swells are expected to affect areas including the Southeast U.S. in the next few days.”

Trump blasted his own FBI director on Twitter: 

Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.) wore an appropriate tie as Congress left town again without delivering pandemic relief for Americans:

And Kamala Harris interrupted a hair appointment: 

Seth Meyers called out Trump for blaming blue states for the coronavirus death toll: 

Stephen Colbert said Trump is disagreeing with reality: 

Finally, to finish this Friday on a lighter note, here’s the second installment of Mary Beth Albright’s weekly series on how to make the favorite cocktails of previous presidents: