Last Call For Getting The Gang Back Together

Knowing that she would never survive a Senate confirmation fight, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice has been tapped by Joe Biden for the head White House Domestic Policy Council role, something Mitch and the boys can't do squat about.

President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Barack Obama’s former national security adviser Susan Rice to run the White House Domestic Policy Council, according to people familiar with the decision.

Rice, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was vetted to serve as Biden’s vice president and was a contender to be secretary of State, a position that went to Antony Blinken.

Democrats had concerns about Rice’s ability to get confirmed in a Republican-controlled Senate, and the director of the Domestic Policy Council is not a Senate-confirmed position. The Biden team had been looking to find a high-profile role for Rice, but the top domestic policy job comes as a surprise given her expertise and experience in foreign policy.

A spokesperson for the Biden transition declined to comment. A spokesperson for Rice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In her position, Rice, 56, will play a large role in implementing Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, a wide-ranging set of policy proposals that would invest trillions of dollars in American infrastructure and manufacturing, clean energy, caregiving, education and racial equity.

A person familiar with Biden’s thinking said he chose Rice for the role because of her deep experience in crisis management and interagency processes. The person said Biden does not see foreign, economic and diplomatic realms as separate and discrete and her deep knowledge of how the federal government works will be an asset to implementing his domestic policy agenda.

Biden officially announced Rice’s appointment Thursday morning, along with his nominations of Marcia Fudge to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Tom Vilsack as Agriculture secretary, Katherine Tai as U.S. trade representative and Denis McDonough as secretary of Veterans Affairs.

“The roles they will take on are where the rubber meets the road — where competent and crisis-tested governance can make a meaningful difference in people’s lives, enhancing the dignity, equity, security, and prosperity of the day-to-day lives of Americans,” Biden said in a statement.

Rice’s decision to take the domestic policy job also signals that she still harbors political ambitions. She floated the possibility of running for Senate in Maine against Susan Collins and was a finalist to serve as Biden’s running mate. The top domestic policy job will fill out her foreign policy-heavy resume.

 

So yes, Rice will be part of the Biden domestic policy team, rather than the foreign policy one, but having someone with the expertise she possesses is a huge benefit to Biden in that department. She knows how to get things done, and I expect she'll be a key part of using the power of the executive branch to go around Mitch and his endless Senate GOP roadblocks.

Biden, His Time

The race for Biden's running mate is apparently down to Sen. Kamala Harris and former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice, after Rep. Karen Bass blew her shot last weekend over Cuba and Scientology and while I have to imagine both Liz Warren and Tammy Duckworth are still in play, it looks to be a two-woman race. But Republicans are especially salivating over Susan Rice so they can spend the next 90 days yelling BENGHAZI as loudly as possible.

Trump’s aides and allies accuse Rice — without delving too deeply into the evidence — of helping cover up crimes for two of the president’s favorite foils, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, making her just the kind of "deep state" villain who could fire up his MAGA base.

“She is absolutely our No. 1 draft pick,” a Trump campaign official said.
Rice, a former ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser for Obama, is accused of revealing the identities of top Trump associates in 2016 after they were picked up as part of U.S. surveillance of foreign officials.

Four years earlier, she faced allegations that she misled Americans when she announced on national TV that the fatal attacks in Benghazi, Libya, occurred after spontaneous protests in response to an anti-Muslim video. That was determined to be inaccurate.

On Monday night, Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host influential in Trump’s orbit, opened his show with a lengthy diatribe about Rice and her role in the 2012 Benghazi raid — strikingly similar to the attack Republicans lodged against Clinton in the 2016 race against Trump.

“I can’t think of anyone that is more polarizing who would fire up the base than Susan Rice,” said former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who investigated the Obama administration as chairman of the House oversight committee. “They know her, and they don’t like her.”
Biden is nearing the end of his search for a vice president, with in-person interviews expected this week. Attention has focused on Rice, Rep. Karen Bass and Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Duckworth. Aides said Biden has pushed back his planned announcement to next week. An outside Trump adviser described Rice as the "most target-rich environment."

Biden’s campaign and Rice declined to comment. But Democrats and others have dismissed the attacks against Rice as outdated and unsubstantiated, and said they won’t matter to Americans struggling with the coronavirus outbreak.

No offense, but I'm really, really, really hoping that Biden absolutely does not pick Susan Rice.  Huckleberry Graham will have her in hearings tout suite and Bill Barr is absolutely waiting for the opportunity to make his Durham investigation dog-and-pony show into the October Surprise and "Biden Running Mate Under DOJ Investigation" would be something I absolutely expect Bill Barr to do.

And it will hurt Biden down the stretch.  I'm sorry, but our media will blow it out of proportion and it will only help Trump.

Biden's call is Biden's call, whomever he picks I will support.  And all of the running mates come with built-in GOP attack angles.  Rice seems to be the largest violation of the "first do no harm with the pick" theory.

We'll see what happens.

Last Call For Trump Cards, Con't

As I keep telling people, some folks are driven by duty, some by ambition, some by avarice, some by faith, and plenty of folks are driven by hatred.  Donald Trump however is driven by revenge.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that President Donald Trump is “looking to take away” the security clearances of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. 

All of those individuals served in the Obama administration and some served in the Trump administration, though none currently do. All have been critical of the President. At least McCabe, according to his spokesperson, and possibly more of the officials already had had their clearances deactivated after being fired by Trump.

During a press briefing Monday, a reporter asked about Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) evidence-free assertion earlier in the day that Brennan could be spilling state secrets to media outlets in order to profit off of his access. Paul’s office never responded to TPM’s questions about what specific allegation, if any, Paul was making. 

“Will the President consider Sen. Paul’s suggestion and call for the removal of former director Brennan’s security clearance?” the reporter asked. 

Sanders appeared ready for the question, reading her response from prepared remarks.
“Not only is the President looking to take away Brennan’s security clearance, he’s also looking into the clearances of Comey, Clapper, Hayden, Rice, and McCabe,” Sanders said. 

“The President is exploring the mechanisms to remove security clearances because they’ve politicized, and in some cases monetized, their public service and security clearances,” she added. “Making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia — or being influenced by Russia — against the President is extremely inappropriate, and the fact that people with security clearances are making baseless these baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence.”

“Isn’t the President doing exactly what you just said the President doesn’t want all these people doing?” NBC News’ Hallie Jackson asked later. “Politicizing matters of national security by going after his political enemies?” 

“No, the President’s not making baseless accusations of improper contact with a foreign government and accusing the President of the United States of treasonous activity,” Sanders responded, though Trump frequently made just those kinds of baseless attacks against former President Obama.

I mean Sanders makes it clear here that this is about petty revenge, because Donald Trump is a petty, vengeful person and always has been.  Of course, there's several former Obama intelligence advisers who have already given up their security clearances...

He even recently declined a temporary clearance from the IG to read the classified annex to the IG’s recent report. He didn’t want to see any classified material lest the president accuse him of leaking it. 2/2

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) July 23, 2018

Oops.  Petty and ineffective, that's our Donald!

State Of Play

The speculation for who the President will nominate for running the State Department after Hillary Clinton's departure and the Pentagon after Leon Panetta leaves has begun in earnest.  WaPo:

President Obama is considering asking Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) to serve as his next defense secretary, part of an extensive rearrangement of his national security team that will include a permanent replacement for former CIA director David H. Petraeus.

Although Kerry is thought to covet the job of secretary of state, senior administration officials familiar with the transition planning said that nomination will almost certainly go to Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

That of course means Scott Brown will get another crack at the Senate, this time to fill Kerry's seat.  Fun.  Republicans are already talking about sinking both nominations, too.

Rice, one of an inner circle of aides who have been with Obama since his first presidential campaign in 2007, is under particular fire over the Benghazi incident, in which U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

Some Republican lawmakers have suggested that she was part of what they suspect was an initial election-related attempt to portray the attack as a peaceful demonstration that turned violent, rather than what the administration now acknowledges was an organized terrorist assault.

Rice’s description, days after the attack, of a protest gone wrong indicated that she either intentionally misled the country or was ­incompetent, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday. Rice, he said, “would have an in­cred­ibly difficult time” winning Senate confirmation as secretary of state.

Kerry too would face a tough road to the Pentagon.

The idea of Kerry heading up DoD was also questioned by Republicans, who warned the selection of the Vietnam veteran-turned-critic wouldn't be simple either.

"He'll run into a buzz saw of Vietnam vets" if Obama taps Kerry for the pentagon slot, a GOP aide said.

A Senate GOP foreign policy aide predicted that ultimately both could be confirmed, but not without a protracted and ugly confirmation fight for the White House — a difficult way to start off a second term.

Let's be honest here, Republicans are going to make a protracted, bruising fight over anyone the President nominates.  So when I hear nonsense like this:

There has even been speculation in foreign-policy circles that the messy departure of Mr. Petraeus might prod Mr. Obama to consider nominating a Republican, like former Senator Chuck Hagel; a hawkish independent, like Senator Joseph I. Lieberman; or even Jon M. Huntsman Jr., who was Mr. Obama’s envoy to Beijing before running for the Republican presidential nomination. Mr. Huntsman dismissed the rumors of his candidacy as “idle hallway gossip.” 

It makes me want to punch people in the face.  If President Barack Obama nominated Joe F'ckin Lieberman for any cabinet position, I'd sign up for GOP black outreach programs immediately and I'm pretty sure all of you would disown me as a result.  I would hope the President would stand up for himself more then that and I dismiss this beltway idiocy out of hand.

Stick with Rice and Kerry and trust in the party, Mr. President.