Free Republic

Washington veteran Michael Pillsbury has quietly become a key figure behind Trump's confrontational China policy, to the dismay of Beijing — and some fellow China experts. -- A day before President Donald Trump departed for the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, several top officials gathered in the Oval Office to strategize about Trump's highly anticipated meeting there with China's president. Seated around Trump's Resolute Desk were Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. On couches a few feet away were White House chief of staff John Kelly, Trump's son...

Any former White House aide’s opinion about the op-ed will be slightly more interesting than the average joe’s, just because there’s a chance they really do have some insider insight into the author’s identity.But even so: This is so, so stupid.The only real news angle here is what Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, could have possibly done to Omarosa to make himself the subject of this vindictive whispering campaign. “I took some time and went back and looked through all of my emails, particularly emails out of the vice president’s office, because the first time I read the...

As the team on Gov. Pawlenty’s now concluded presidential campaign works to recoup a campaign debt of some half-million dollars, their fingers have begun pointing toward the campaign’s manager, Nick Ayers, as the person to blame for the decisions that put the campaign into debt — and, by many accounts, as simply an unpleasant human being to work with. “I would blame him 100 percent for racking up the debt,” said one senior staff member of the Pawlenty campaign. Ayers declined to weigh in on that statement, or any of the others made in this story. “I believe a campaign...

Pawlenty Snaps Up Former Gingrich Co-Chair June 9, 2011 5:49 P.M. By Katrina Trinko While there’s plenty of buzz over what Newt Gingrich’s team resigning means for Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty’s team has already added Gingrich’s former national co-chair, former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue. “Tim Pawlenty is a great man, he was a phenomenal governor, and he is the person I now believe stands the greatest chance of defeating President Obama. He is the only candidate who has laid out a real plan to grow the American economy, and his track record in Minnesota is proof he’s the right man...