we had wondered why were they protecting porter who is not an especially high profile white house official in spite of these credible accusations that he had abused his exwives, coming to light and then with the tariff decision, the report has been that porter was the person controlling that process keeping the president away from making impulsive decisions. with him gone everyone has been able to get in front of the president, rile him up and sort of prod him into making this impulsive decision. i think that s likely to happen in a lot of areas. i think that increasing chaos even though his management philosophy and theory is supposed to be to have the chaos, competitive people under him. because it makes his white house so turbulent it s lookly to make him more volatile in the long run and not to be so happy even if he sort of tried to build that. it has been reported that gary cohn said to the president regarding tariffs, you can t do this. you can t do that. and that may have bee
two exwives then yesterday hicks went behind closed doors for about nine hours testifying before the house intel committee about russia and took heat today after it was revealed she told lawmakers she had told white lies for the president. nonetheless top advisors tell me this exit has nothing to do with yesterday s testimony that hicks had signaled in recent weeks she was already planning to step down. also senior advisor to the president telling me that the real story behind the scenes is chief of staff john kelly is trying to consolidate power. even though kelly did put out a statement declaring that hicks, quote, halls serve her country with great distinction. this comes amid allegations kelly may trying to ease out jared kushner, senior advisor and president sson about series of leaks about security clearance troubles. bloomberg has a breaking news story tonight that says more than 30 white house staffers have been stripped of their top secret clearances. that s a story that s not
became very influential around here. in fact, we re being told that after this story broke late this afternoon, hope hicks was seen crying as were others on the communications team. a sign of how well-liked she is around the west wing but also how abrupt and unexpected this was. she was critical to the president getting that tax cut through, leading the messaging for that. one reason why the president put out a glowing statement praising her three years at his side dating back to that campaign. remember though, there has been controversial recently, hicks received negative publicity when her boyfriend at the time white house aide rob porter left after accusations he had abused two exwives. hicks spent several hours, nine, in fact, testifying behind closed doors to the house intelligence committee about russia. took heat today after it was revealed that she told lawmakers she had told white lies for the president. though there is at least one republican lawmaker tonight saying that s su
surprised porter was old enough to have two exwives. it s unclear what the ramifications of this memo might be when kelly in the past has seed kind of willing to let this go in a sense. especially since you know, in a battle between john kelly and the president s son-in-law, it s a little unclear who would win. you raise something that just popped into my head which is that it has seemed for a long time porter and kushner were somewhat parallel cases. they had long background checks taking a very long time, perhaps because there were red flags raised. they had an interim clearance as an end running around the fact that some recommendation came back they shouldn t have clearance. it occurs to me whatever the red flags are in the case of kushner like in the case of porter have probably been raised to someone, don mccann, kelly may know what they are, right? right. what we saw with porter is the fbi submitted its preliminary investigation in march.
maybe not exclusively at kushner but if the policy is what he says it is, kushner can t do his job. what are the options? it s worg recognizing john kelly before the rob porter scandal was well aware of the allegations against rob porter and still allowed him to both travel with the president and help with the state of the union. when he first found found about the allegations against porter, hires first reaction was to be surprised porter was old enough to have two exwives. it s unclear what the ramifications of this memo might be when kelly in the past has seed kind of willing to let this go in a sense. especially since you know, in a battle between john kelly and the president s son-in-law, it s a little unclear who would win. you raise something that just popped into my head which is that it has seemed for a long