Corey Lewandowsky recently attended a private meeting with a macro research firm.
An attendee took these notes about the frank statements that were made:
Bottom line: SGH Macro hosted a dinner last night with Cory Lewandowski a member of the Trump transition team and close confidant of the president elect. Based on his comments it appears that "hard Trump" scenario is most likely to materialize in regards to trade and foreign relations. Lewandowski mentioned that Trump plans to use the bully pulpit to put companies on notice and that he has "no equal in Congress" due to the resounding nature of his victory. His comments pointed to a president who plans to act unilaterally. He also mentioned that Trump plans to renegotiate NAFTA within the first hundred days and review the US involvement in all foreign treaties including NATO/UN. Lewandowski mentioned three things multiple times last night: Trump is an isolationist, Trump does not care what anyone else says, and Trump is someone who does or says something to gain a reaction. Please find more details below.
How will trump lead? Lewandowski specifically said that Trump is not afraid of using the bully pulpit to put companies on notice. He does not care if that causes short-term problems as long as it achieve his goals of keeping jobs in the US. If he is not able to get the legislative success that he needs to achieve his goals he will fire portions of the cabinet and find people who can. Trump is a dealmaker and will not be beholden to the Republican Party. Lewandowsky specifically said "Trump is not a Democrat or Republican - he is Trump". Trump does not care what parties say or have said - he does not need them."
Lewandowski also said that "Trump has no equal in Congress. He won so large that he will tell Republican congressman that if they go against his plans he will be campaigning for their opponent during reelection."
Cabinet Picks
A few picks that have not been reported yet but Lewandowski is confident will be announced soon:
There are basically two candidates left for Secretary of State - Bob Corker senator of Tennessee, and Rex Tillerson CEO of Exxon Mobil. John Bolton is a distant third and John Huntsman is still in the mix but a longshot. Romney is basically out of the running.
Another Democratic senator a.k.a. Manchin from West Virginia will serve in the cabinet in some capacity.
Eli miller, former Rubio finance director, will be chief of staff to the secretary of the treasury.
State Department officials from previous administrations will serve in the administration.
Trump hate when candidates for positions mention that they are in the running after getting out of the elevator in Trump tower. Lewandowski said that anytime you see someone on TV in Trump tower lobby saying they just spoke about XYZ position "you can bet we are upstairs crossing their name off."
Romney was under serious consideration for the secretary of State position and Trump almost pulled the trigger but backed off when his team pushed back hard. Lewandowski said he believes Romney is "done."
Trade Lewandowski said that Trump will try to renegotiate NAFTA within the first hundred days.
He will start out by focusing on companies that are thinking about moving their jobs overseas. He will tell them "if you were thinking about it, come talk to me and we can find a way to make you stay. "
As for existing trade deals there are no "sacred cows." When pushed on this, Lewandowski went so far as to say, "for example, for us, participation in the UN is not absolute unless all countries pay up under article 5." (he may have meant NATO in this statement – article 5 is a NATO article that calls for collective defense in the case of an attack and the Trump administration has previously discussed the lack of NATO payments from other countries. Still, sounds like everything is on the table.)
On China:
Regarding the Taiwan call, Lewandowski said that Trump "does not care what state says, he doesn't care what China says, and he doesn't care what politicians say. He cares about what he thinks is best. "
He wants to renegotiate export prices – exporters are saying that the tariffs they have to pay to sell it to China are too high.
On numerous occasions Lewandowski said that "China is not being honest and we want to have an honest relationship." He also repeatedly mention the fact that China "lies about their growth rate" and that Trump wants them "to tell the truth." One attendee asked how he plans to make a communist nation tell it's people that it has been inflating their growth numbers and Lewandowski said that China will be "incentivized to be truthful."
Wilbur Ross, Steve Mnuchin, Carl Icahn and other "business partners "will have trumps year on trade.
Fed
Lewandowski said "Yellen has a bit of tenure left, I guess, we will see. "But then later said no one questions her reputation.
Trump wants to keep rates lower but they have not talked about it in the transition.
Trump has said there is "a fine line between too strong and too weak a dollar. "Trumps priorities after 100 days
Tax reform
Build military
Redeploying and pulling back – thinks the military is in far too many countries.
Infrastructure
Revisiting the campaign
The Trump team knew that Clinton was a "fundamentally flawed candidate" from the beginning.
They were closely monitoring the absentee and early vote totals in the weeks leading up to the vote. They started to gain confidence when they were keeping pace with Romney in the early vote and even outperforming him for a while. They always knew they were going to win the election day votes based on intensity and historical Republican voting numbers.
They spent 50% of all of their money on social media advertising. This was a first in politics, but they were able to target voters who had only voted once or twice in the last elections and energize them enough to vote for Trump. They bet that these voters would not be swayed by traditional media because if they had been, they would have voted in more elections. After the FBI announcement 11 days before election day the Trump team decided to completely restrict him from doing TV interviews. They actually told trump that if he wanted to win, he needed to get out of the way of the FBI story and let it "fester. "
Once the dust settled, trump won 200 counties that Obama carried for years ago and their success leads them to believe they have a powerful mandate.
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