Mar 13, 2018

Report: Trump's personal assistant fired

McEntee follows Trump to Air Force One last year. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

There's been another ouster from President Trump's team. John McEntee was fired and "escorted out of the White House" yesterday over an "unspecified security issue", the Wall Street Journal reports, citing unidentified White House officials. The White House declined to comment to the WSJ.

Why it matters: McEntee was one of Trump's longest serving aides and Axios' Jonathan Swan reports he was beloved by the Trump family. The firing is sudden and shocking to Trump's inner circle.

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Axios
Updated 49 mins ago - Politics & Policy

Coronavirus dashboard

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

  1. Politics: Americans feel Trump's sickness makes him harder to trust — Florida breaks record for in-person early voting.
  2. Health: The next wave is gaining steam.
  3. Education: Schools haven't become hotspots.
  4. World: Ireland moving back into lockdown — Argentina becomes 5th country to report 1 million infections.
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Oriana Gonzalez
2 hours ago - Politics & Policy

Meadows confirms Trump's tweets "declassifying" Russia documents were false

Photo: Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows confirmed in court on Tuesday that President Trump's tweets authorizing the disclosure of documents related to the Russia investigation and Hillary Clinton's emails "were not self-executing declassification orders," after a federal judge demanded that Trump be asked about his intentions.

Why it matters: BuzzFeed News reporter Jason Leopold cited the tweets in an emergency motion seeking to gain access to special counsel Robert Mueller's unredacted report as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. This is the first time Trump himself has indicated, according to Meadows, that his tweets are not official directives.

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Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, author of China
2 hours ago - World

China embraces hostage diplomacy

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

The Chinese government is threatening to detain foreign citizens unless their home governments do what Beijing demands. In some cases, China has already made good on those threats.

The big picture: This marks a potential evolution of China's "wolf warrior diplomacy" to outright rogue state behavior, putting it in the company of countries like North Korea and Iran, which have also engaged in hostage diplomacy.

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