THE FRIGHT HOUSE
Thought Trump’s victory couldn’t get any stranger? Then meet the henchmen many fear will make his White House...
IT HAS been a busy week for the Trump dynasty, holed up in their gaudy gilt palace on the 66th floor of a landmark New York skyscraper while they shape the team that seeks to change the world. The Japanese Prime Minister dropped by for a chat behind the huge diamond and gold-encrusted doors to the three-storey flat, following in the footsteps of Ukip leader Nigel Farage who got there first to greet the man elected 45th President of the United States.
There was a deluge of calls from world leaders. All are desperate to speak with the brash billionaire who has taken over the world’s most powerful nation, sitting beneath the crystal chandeliers in the home in which he announced his shock run for the White House.
And there was a family meal out at their favourite restaurant, a former speakeasy the Presidentelect once used for a scene when starring in The Apprentice. Beyond that, it has been full steam ahead on choosing ‘the great men and women who will be helping to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’, as Donald Trump told his 15.4million Twitter followers.
And now, as the names slowly emerge of these people, the world begins to get a glimmer of how the most unlikely US President in history intends to govern.
The good news is he seems to be sticking to campaign pledges, unlike more traditional politicians. But this means an administration headed by hardline, nationalist advisers who share his dystopian view of the world and protectionist stance on the economy.
So his pick for attorney general is an anti-immigration zealot once barred from serving as a judge over racism concerns, while his national security adviser is a combative former general who has appeared regularly on a Russian propaganda television station.
Clearly he plans to turn the White House into the hard-Right House – or as Democrats may perceive it, the Fright House.
These alarming appointments show the property magnate intends to overhaul the legacy of Barack Obama’s eight years in power and reward loyalists who gambled early on a Trump triumph.
They also indicate a determination to follow through his fiery, controversial and frankly racist rhetoric on the campaign stump by overthrowing the Washington consensus on foreign affairs when it comes to issues such as Islam, immigration and the Russian threat.
Meanwhile, Trump has tried to clear aside one of the major controversies that dogged him through his campaign by settling three lawsuits for fraud over his Trump University.
Trump had vowed to fight the challenge from angry former students who paid £28,000 for real estate ‘secrets’ from supposedly ‘handpicked’ experts. One case was due to be heard later this month.
This long-running saga offered a disturbing insight into the business practices of the wealthy President-elect, in which (despite promises of his personal involvement) the closest students got to Trump was posing for pictures beside a life-size photograph of the tycoon. The so-called university used high-pressure tactics familiar to the time-share world. Ronald Schnackenberg, a former salesman, said in an affidavit the set-up was designed purely to sell expensive seminars rather than fulfil pledges of offering insight into property dealing.
‘Trump University was a fraudulent scheme,’ he declared. Schnackenberg testified that after one hard-sell presentation he decided against selling a £28,000 Elite programme to a disabled man in a precarious financial state. But instead of being commended by his bosses, he was told off and another salesman closed the deal.
When pressed earlier in the year about the allegations, Trump responded: ‘I could settle it right now for very little money, but I don’t want to do it out of principle.’
Now he has settled hastily – and for the substantial sum of £20.4 million. The deal ensures Trump does not have to take time out from building his team to run the country in order to take the stand in a San Diego court and answer allegations of dishonesty.
This would have been embarrassing even for this self-adoring braggart who so clearly revels in publicity – not unlike his pal Piers Morgan, who was given more time to talk to the President-elect on the phone last week than our Prime Minister Theresa May.
‘I settled the Trump University lawsuit for a small fraction of the potential award because as President I have to focus on our country,’ Trump tweeted yesterday. Clearly he intends to continue public discourse through social media, despite his elevation from reality TV star to leader of the free world. This includes feuding with critics: first the ‘failing’ New York Times and now theatregoers at hit Broadway show ‘Hamilton’.
Yesterday, he demanded the cast of the musical apologise for harassing ‘our wonderful future VP’ after Mike Pence, the man who will be Vice President, was booed by members of the audience when attending the show. When the curtain came down, a cast member then urged Pence to uphold ‘American values’ and respect diversity. For Trump, it was an insult that could not go unchallenged. ‘This should not happen’ he thundered. ‘Apologise.’
Aside from this circus, the focus yesterday was on the presidential team being assembled in Trump Tower. It has attracted huge controversy from the start with the appointment of ultra-Right ideologue Steve Bannon as chief strategist, accused of being a white supremacist.
Initial appointments suggest an administration with strident views on Islam and immigration, along with admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin that will lead to softening of criticism over his bloodstained interventions in Ukraine and Syria.
Ominously, Trump’s first call with a world leader was not with a trusted ally such as Britain but with repressive Egyptian dictator Abdel al-Sisi. His recruits hail from outside the Republican establishment, often shunned for extreme views.
There are also, as critics pointed out, three men called Michael in the first six appointments – but no women nor members of minorities. Retired army lieutenant general Michael Flynn will be the most high-profile, offered the key post of national security adviser after advising Trump on foreign affairs. Flynn, a combative former intelligence operative, was a registered Democrat until last year – yet led chants calling for Hillary Clinton to be locked up at rallies. He uses inflammatory language on Islam, like Trump, ignoring the Washington consensus that attacking the religion rather than extremists boosts recruitment for terrorists.
Flynn has compared Islam to cancer, called it a political ideology disguised as religion and claimed ‘fear of Muslims is RATIONAL’ on Twitter. He seems to have found a soulmate in Putin, appearing often on Russian state TV and sitting two places from the President at a gala dinner for the station. His approach to the Kremlin reflects his prospective boss – but sends alarm through Washington.
Moscow has revelled in the US election result, knowing that having ‘useful idiots’ in power will give greater freedom to flex its muscles while weakening traditional Western alliances. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama senator offered the job of attorney general, was born in
I settled the lawsuit... I have to focus on our country
Selma – home to one of the most famous civil rights incidents in US history. Yet he is renowned for an uncompromising stance on race.
As a young lawyer he was nominated by Ronald Reagan for a federal judgeship, then rejected amid allegations he made racist remarks. One witness said Sessions claimed the Ku Klux Klan were ‘OK until I found out they smoked pot’.
Mike Pompeo, the army veteran offered the post of CIA chief, is a more sober figure. When tapes emerged during the campaign of Trump boasting about groping women, the conservative congressman rightly called them ‘horrible, offensive and indefensible’. Yet he is also a hardliner who backed waterboarding of prisoners and opposed the closure of Guantanamo Bay. In one apparent olive branch to moderates, Trump was scheduled yester- day to meet Mitt Romney, the former Republican presidential candidate and one of his fiercest critics.
Romney declared that ‘Donald Trump tells us he is very, very smart. I’m afraid that when it comes to foreign policy he is very, very not smart’ – yet there is speculation the pair are discussing the post of Secretary of State.
There is intense concern over the central role being played by Trump’s family in the shambolic transition process. Both his daughter Ivanka and Jared Kushner, the Presidentelect’s influential son-in-law, bizarrely sat in on the meeting with Japan’s Shinzo Abe.
Ivanka has been accused of using an interview to promote a $10,000 bracelet that her jewellery company sells. Kushner is thought to have knifed Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who originally led Trump’s transition team, in revenge for his role in the jailing of Kushner’s father for tax evasion. Now Ken Blackwell, who says gays can be ‘reformed’, is on that same team.
Welcome to the weird new world of Washington. A billionaire populist sits with his family in his gilded Rococo skyscraper home, summoning courtiers to create a new team at the top of the planet’s most powerful nation while the rest of the world looks on anxiously.