Wilbur Ross snuck industry execs into White House to manipulate 'unglued' Trump into tariff decision

[DonViejo]

TRAVIS GETTYS
02 MAR 2018 AT 14:01 ET



Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross steered an angry President Donald Trump into backing an aluminum and steel tariff over the objections of other senior White House officials.

Trump was furious Wednesday evening over Hope Hicks’ testimony before lawmakers, his ongoing feud with attorney general Jeff Sessions and what he perceives as unfair treatment of son-in-law Jared Kushner by White House chief of staff John Kelly, reported NBC News.

“The president became ‘unglued,’ in the words of one official familiar with the president’s state of mind,” the network reported. That’s when Ross and Peter Navarro, the White House director for trade, pushed Trump to launch a trade war with the tariff.

Ross had already set up a White House meeting with steel and aluminum executives for 11 a.m. Thursday, but a source told NBC News the commerce secretary hadn’t told other White House officials who was coming.

That left the White House unable to conduct background checks on the executives to ensure the president should meet with them, and they were not able to be cleared for entry by the Secret Service.

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https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/wilbur-ross-snuck-industry-execs-white-house-manipulate-unglued-trump-tariff-decision-report/

[hlthe2b]

1. I don't understand WHY they were let in to begin with. Secret Service?

[HipChick]

3. So unvetted they were let into the WH?

[Hortensis]

2. Sneaky, predatory hyenas.

Here's the NBC story the third-party source is reporting on. Imo, security clearances are a minor matter. This was, of course, a covert operation to get to an profoundly incompetent and malleable president, around the somewhat more responsible heads trying to guard access.

By midnight Wednesday, less than 12 hours before the executives were expected to arrive, no one on the president's team had prepared any position paper for an announcement on tariff policy, the official said. I...

There were no prepared, approved remarks for the president to give at the planned meeting, there was no diplomatic strategy for how to alert foreign trade partners, there was no legislative strategy in place for informing Congress and no agreed upon communications plan beyond an email cobbled together by Ross's team at the Commerce Department late Wednesday that had not been approved by the White House.

No one at the State Department, the Treasury Department or the Defense Department had been told that a new policy was about to be announced or given an opportunity to weigh in in advance.

The Thursday morning meeting did not originally appear on the president's public schedule. ... Then, an hour later, in an another unexpected move, reporters were invited to the Cabinet room. Without warning, Trump announced on the spot that he was imposing new strict tariffs on imports.

By Thursday afternoon, the U.S. stock market had fallen and Trump, surrounded by his senior advisers in the Oval Office, was said to be furious.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-was-angry-unglued-when-he-started-trade-war-officials-n852641?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

[democratisphere]

4. Wilbur Ross is the lowest form of a wall street scumbag.

Manipulating markets for his own and others gain.