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Or … maybe not, depending on whom one asks. Over the last twenty-four hours, multiple media outlets have reported that the White House has tried to find a communications director to take some of the strain off of press secretary Sean Spicer. Eliana Johnson reports at Politico that two people have turned down the job already, and the Trump administration finds itself frustrated by the gap in “one of the worst jobs in Washington”: Controlling the message coming out of Donald Trump’s White House may seem like an impossible task — and it’s one that many are hesitant to try...

BUD ABBOT, DEMOCRAT STRATEGIST, EXPLAINS FOREIGN POLICY TO LOU COSTELLO A conversation explaining Barack Obama’s superior war policy over Donald Trump’s that took place during the heat of the American election season and the waning days of the Obama Presidency Abbott: Hey Lou, don’t you agree that Obama’s and Hillary’s policy to not put boots on the ground is brilliant? Costello:I dunno. Why?

BEIRUT — President Trump’s tough talk on Iran is winning him friends in the Arab world, but it also carries a significant risk of conflict with a U.S. rival that is now more powerful than at any point since the creation of the Islamic republic nearly 40 years ago. With its warning last week that Iran is “on notice,” the Trump administration signaled a sharp departure from the policies of President Barack Obama, whose focus on pursuing a nuclear deal with Iran eclipsed historic U.S. concerns about Iranian expansionism and heralded a rare period of detente between Washington and Tehran.

Over the weekend, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were given extraordinary access to President Trump and his foreign policy team. On today’s Morning Joe, they gave their takeaways from their interview of the president and a number of his senior advisors. Scarborough painted a picture of White House staffers in a battle with the senior foreign policy team. Scarborough singled out Stephen Miller, saying “you’ve got a very young person in the White House on a power trip thinking that you can just write executive orders and tell all of your cabinet agencies to go to hell.” View the video...

In what seemed like the ramblings of a 19th century Luddite, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner, Tom Friedman appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday where he issued a ridiculous warning about the US economy under President Donald Trump. “So what’s going to happen if prices go up? American companies will build those factories here,” he exclaimed, “And you know what they'll do? They'll completely robotize them. There will be no jobs!”Friedman’s tirade was triggered by the very active first week of the Trump administration where the president signed executive orders on everything from immigration to economics....

America’s foreign policy has changed more in the week since Donald Trump took office than it has at any time since the end of World War II. Given the changes that occurred in 1991 with the end of the Cold War and after the attacks on 9/11, that is saying something. But the changes ushered in by Trump — often without benefit of consultation with his cabinet departments, experts of any sort, or the legislative branch of government — cut to the core philosophies that have guided America in the modern era, as well as to the specifics of relations...

During the time of the founding fathers, America did not have a foreign policy that included having enemies. George Washington warned Americans against too much attachment to foreign nations and causes. Even when Jefferson waged war on North African Arab Muslim nations that kidnapped American sailors, he did not have a foreign enemies list. A foreign policy based on always having enemies is the product of the Cold War. Always having enemies is profitable for defense corporations.

Obama is proud of himself. He and his devoted followers believe he has left America in better shape than when he found it. Wrong. To avoid the accusation of bias and (fake) "fake news," let's use the mainstream news media and government websites, in almost every case, to prove that Obama and his core followers are misjudging their own country and the world. Foreign Affairs 1. His Benghazi policy was deadly for four Americans.These deaths happened in September 2012, before his re-election, so the DNC had to adopt a false narrative about a video because terrorist groups were supposedly in...

As the FT first reported yesetrday, in a dramatic development for Sino-US relations, Trump picked Peter Navarro, a Harvard-trained economist and one-time daytrader, to head the National Trade Council, an organization within the White House to oversee industrial policy and promote manufacturing. Navarro, a hardcore China hawk, is the author of books such as "Death by China" and "Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World" has for years warned that the US is engaged in an economic war with China and should adopt a more aggressive stance, a message that the president-elect sold to voters across the US...

Political leaders across the West piously lined up last week to identify the fall of Aleppo as a stain on our collective conscience. The West, they have said, should have done more to stop the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Syria. At a purely humanitarian level, this is obviously true. States can always do more to deliver humanitarian aid to people on the ground. But in a military sense, the notion that the West should have “done more” is fantastical and learns exactly the wrong lesson from this carnival of carnage. If there is a lesson for the West from the...

According to a leaked Pentagon memo, Russia is not on the list of Donald Trump's defense priorities. The priorities, as they have been outlined by the incoming Trump administration, include defeating ISIS, eliminating budget caps, developing a new cyber strategy, and finding greater efficiencies. The memo, obtained by Foreign Policy, does not include any mention of Russia, which has been identified by senior military officials in the Obama administration as the No. 1 threat to the United States.

Mentioned by a fox news analyst whose name I cannot remember or find. It was on Bret Baier tonight. He say's that this is Trumps roadmap to defeating ISIS. I went and rewatched and and was surprised what's been overlooked in this speech. Find the spot where Trump says we're going to be brutal. Is Trump going to break the Western Paradigm as noted by Charles De Gaulle in recollecting the Algerian war? That "The west is not brutal enough to beat the Arabs" and "The world would not tolerate it". I hope Trump is Militarily brutal and completely destroys...

Donald Trump shook up America. Now it's the world's turn. The President-elect's decision to flout 40 years of diplomatic convention and take a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen last week suggested he may be just as disrespectful of protocol on the world stage as at home. The call produced days of speculation about how the President-elect's impulsive style will reverberate around the globe and whether it could threaten the architecture of international relations. There are many global traditions and arrangements that he could target, though each could carry a geopolitical or diplomatic price -- one reason even presidents who...

Amid the media mourning and eulogizing of Fidel Castro, on Monday, the network morning shows turned to worrying about the impact President-elect Donald Trump would have on American/Cuban relations, declaring the opening of diplomatic relations with the authoritarian regime to be the “centerpiece” of President Obama’s “legacy.” On NBC’s Today, correspondent Andrea Mitchell – who on Sunday fondly reminisced over her past meetings with Castro – proclaimed: “The White House sees Obama’s opening to Cuban as the centerpiece of his legacy. Direct commercial flights starting this week, postal service with the U.S., credit cards and banking, internet service. Cracks in...

The Wall Street Journal recently posted that Mitt Romney is emerging as the leading candidate to be Secretary of State in the Trump administration. Obviously we all know Romney is the poster child for GOPe, and that for whatever reason he threw his debates against Obama in 2012. Personally, I would like to see him lead a task force to eliminate vast numbers of Federal regulations, but it is not up to me. In this thread I am concerned with Foreign Policy and nothing else. Where can we expect Romney to differ from what we expect from President Trump on...

Headline and link only because of AP rules.

Dear President-Elect Trump: Congratulations on a winning a hard-fought campaign. I haven’t always been your biggest fan (I wasn’t your opponent’s either) but you will soon enter the Oval Office facing more diverse security challenges, in more corners of the globe, than perhaps any of your predecessors. You’ll need help. The world you’re about to encounter as our commander-in-chief is more dangerous and discombobulated than any new president has encountered in many decades. Your bumbling predecessor hasn’t exactly done you many favors either. Let’s walk through some must-dos, with a healthy dose of geopolitical reality. See link for: Russia, Europe/NATO/,...

Shortened title. Full title: Secret Emails From Hillary Clinton Reveal: There Is A Very Powerful Circle Of People Ruling Over Hillary Who Hate Christians And Who Are Now Executing A Plan To Annihilate Christians And Advance Islam Reading through Hillary and her ‘gang’ leaked emails, gives us a picture as to how America’s foreign policy was run, a policy that nearly wiped out Christians from the Middle East. Looking through Hillary’s email shows a gang bent on destroying the Middle East. It was as if a college Muslim Student Association (which Huma Abedin was member) took over the realm of power, not just...

Shocking reports reveal Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and Boko Haram fighters in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa beheading, kidnapping, enslaving and displacing millions of Christians, Kurds and other minorities. Evidence is mounting that the treaty negotiated with Iran will not prevent their development of nuclear weapons, which they have threatened to use against Israel. Has the world faced similar crises in the past? If so, how did American Presidents respond?

Donald Trump's strategic approach to confronting Russia under President Vladimir Putin is more complex and nuanced than the Republican nominee's campaign trail rhetoric often indicates, his new senior adviser, former CIA Director James Woolsey, said Tuesday. "I think what Mr. Trump does is much more important than what he says," Woolsey said. "You don't succeed at something like this based just on language. Language is a tool. I don't think it is an absolute."