Jonathan Swan writes at Axios that all the top White House staffers, plus all the news Donald Trump consumes, are encouraging the president to cave to Democrats on DACA amnesty.
“For the first time in his presidency, he’s enjoying positive media coverage and coherent reinforcement from his top aides,” Swan reports, and Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly is keeping any dissenting opinions from reaching the Oval Office.
The article, titled “Trump’s new world,” is illustrated with a Photoshopped image of Trump wearing a cowboy hat bearing a Democratic donkey logo.
From Axios:
The dramatically different information Trump receives daily under the leadership of Chief of Staff John Kelly is an under-looked factor in Trump’s decision to double down on his partnership with the Democratic leaders.
Trump’s top advisers — Jared and Ivanka, General Kelly, and Gary Cohn among them — are mostly sympathetic to “Dreamers.” There’s no more Steve Bannon. And Stephen Miller’s nationalistic voice is a lonely one inside the White House these days. So consider how different life is these days for aides bent out of shape by Trump’s public pivot to Marco Rubio-style arguments regarding a path to citizenship for young immigrants brought here illegally as children.
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The result: Trump gets mostly positive feedback for his turn towards bipartisanship. He watches cable news in the morning, and even “Fox and Friends” finds a way to praise his deal with the Democrats. He reads his morning news clips and briefing materials, which are managed by Staff Secretary Rob Porter, under the guidance of Kelly. And during the day it’s not possible for a staff member to sneak a story onto Trump’s desk that might rile him up and turn him in a wildly different direction in an instant.
Read the rest of the story here.