One of President Trump’s greatest strengths is his keen instincts for developing relationships as a strategic tools toward accomplishing consequential objectives. To wit, President Trump invites the entire U.N. Security Council delegation to lunch at the White House.

Now, most of us, myself included, do not think highly of the United Nations as an entity that has ever accomplished anything of worth – beyond pushing an incessant drum-beat of left-wing globalism and ridiculous pie-in-the-sky pontificating.

However, that said, the historic invitation to lunch is quite smartly full-throated use of regional political proximity.  President Trump inviting the U.N Security Council ambassadors to the White House is something Vladimir Putin, or any other leader of consequence, cannot recreate.  The Ambassadors themselves acted more like a group of valedictorian school kids on an outing to where the really important people live.

Important leverage is created through personality, nuance, outline of expectations, proximity and exposure to real power. This is far beyond the mere wordy pontificating power of the attendee’s familiarity, this is structurally deploying leverage of consequence to change paradigms.

[TRANSCRIPT] 11:50 A.M. EDT – THE PRESIDENT:  This is a very, very important and powerful group of people, and it’s really wonderful to have you with us.  And I have to say, welcome to the White House.  It’s a privilege to have all of the ambassadors and their spouses.

You know, they were going to leave out the spouses, and I said, you must bring your spouses.  (Laughter.)  You know, I heard there were a lot of very angry spouses — (laughter) — and this is their first time to the White House.  So it’s a great honor to those of you that brought your wife or spouse.

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President Trump welcomed Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni to the White House today and they will be holding a joint press conference shortly:

Video Added:

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Turkish President Recep Erdogan is quick to declare victory today, albeit by a narrow margin, as a national referendum to consolidate power passes during a national vote.

[…]  The 18 constitutional amendments that will come into effect after the next election, scheduled for 2019, will abolish the office of the prime minister and hand sweeping executive powers to the president. –link–

Having watched the Erdogan objectives play out over the past six to eight years the approach he has taken has been highly effective.

Erdogan essentially imported a base of support consisting of mostly Muslim Brotherhood political supporters to aid his desire to transform Turkey from a secular nation into a more Islamic dictatorial endeavor.

He may never fully achieve the goal of recreating the Ottoman Empire, but that doesn’t mean there is going to be anything less than toxic turmoil ahead for Turkey and the EU as his endeavors continue to be successful.

A decade or two from now when our children look back upon the period from 2010 to 2020 there will be a rather obvious similarity between the rise of Erdogan to power and the rise of Libya’s Muamar Qaddafi.

Both power-hungry nuts utilized immigration to construct their objectives, and both were national gatekeepers. Qaddafi held power over Europe via the North African migration gate, and Erdogan gaining power over Europe through the use of the Mid-East gate.

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National Security Advisor HR McMaster has been selected by conspiracy nuts and alt-reality moonbats as a necessary evil foil to retain their pearl-clutching placement at the table of doomsday drum-beating.

Apparently, when candidate Trump, then president-elect Trump, and now President Trump said: “bomb the s**t out of ISIS“, “rebuild our military” and recreate “peace through strength” – a sketchy handful of fools perceived such statements possible without actually ‘bombing‘, ‘rebuilding‘ or ‘reasserting strength‘.

Yes, cognitive dissonance relies upon use of the Mamet Principle; and yes, it happens on the fringe elements of both sides of the circular political continuum.

In the most recent proclamations of the Moonbats any adviser to the President who would be connected with presenting ‘bombing‘, ‘rebuilding‘ or ‘reasserting‘ options of military use to the President, necessarily becomes a war-mongering pod carrier intent on lulling a 70-year-old President to sleep and exit the room converted to John McCain.

The people selling this narrative are both nuts and gnats.

Please pay attention to HR McMaster in this interview laying out a very reasonable perspective on the various regional issues, his praise for the diplomatic approach by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and his accompanying overview to include (@10:38) the answer to the question: “do you think we need more troops in Syria?“.  McMaster’s response: “I don’t think so“.

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Deputy Asst. to President Donald Trump, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, sat down with Maria Bartiromo for an interview discussing the White House global policy.

…”The President is not an interventionist commander-in-chief. Nothing has changed from November 7th to today.  He’s been explicit, we are not invading other peoples’ countries, we are not occupying them. This is not some neo-conservative Bush era administration.”…

~ Dr. Gorka.

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Today President Trump and President Xi JinPing of China conducted bi-lateral meetings to discuss ongoing concerns surrounding trade, finance, military engagement, and the need for China to assist in leverage over North Korea’s hostilities.

[Transcript] 11:22 A.M. EDT – PRESIDENT TRUMP:  I just want to say that President Xi and all of his representatives have been really interesting to be with.  I think we have made tremendous progress in our relationship with China.  My representatives have been meeting one-on-one with their counterparts from China.  And I think, truly, progress has been made.  We’ll be making a lot of additional progress.

The relationship developed by President Xi and myself I think is outstanding.  We look forward to being together many times in the future.  And I believe lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away.

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It was August 15th 2015 when I realized candidate Donald Trump knew the agenda, scope and scheme of the GOPe, the Republican Guard.   Since then it has actually been a little humorous to watch politician Trump navigate around the GOPe, choosing when to battle against republicans exclusively on his terms.

The Trump approach at choosing the battle-space timing and geography has proven to be successful.  Indeed, it makes no sense to wage a fight on your rear while the frontal assault is ongoing; the goal is always forward progress.  Beyond the battle-lines this larger understanding of strategy has also been a key element in comprehending how President Trump positions the GOPe party members.

So when Mrs. Rubio rises today at the U.N. to decry the horrible Syrian dictator Bashir Assad, what we witness is just another example of a predictable and useful placement. Everyone selected by Trump was for a reason and a purpose.  Everyone has a role to play, and Mrs. Rubio is playing her role exactly as President Trump would expect.

If you think that President Trump’s larger goals are being undermined by Mrs. Rubio, you are undervaluing President Trump’s understanding of his adversaries in the Republican Party.

Mrs. Rubio strokes the war-mongering GOPe panda fur in the direction that keeps them satiated. A comfy, unconcerned and content GOPe is part of the Trump political strategy to accomplish change.

It’s the U.N !

Nothing would be better for President Trump than to have Ambassador Mrs. Rubio spend a few weeks constructing a U.N. Security Council resolution against Bashir Assad, when two of the five permanent veto-holding member nations are China and Russia.

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U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks to Paul Ryan’s best media friend John Dickerson about Russia, China, Tweeting and finally U.N. food relief.

Haley did surprisingly (very surprisingly) well in this interview with CBS swamp defender John Dickerson on Fact The Nation.

After reminding Dickerson eleventy times that diplomatic U.N. heads are not concerned about the U.S.’s insufferable ‘Vast Muh Russia Conspiracy‘ narrative; and after eventually getting beyond the “but what about Trump’s tweets” angle; Haley appropriately presented a solid U.S. policy that President Trump’s focus toward humanitarian relief is first eliminating the fraud and corruption within the destination of the relief effort.

Essentially: It does no good to send money and food to countries where the money and food are taken by the central government and used as leverage toward keeping their own power and people impoverished as weak dependents.   Duh, common sense. Go figure.

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Last Thursday Secretary T-Rex was in Japan (below left); Friday he was in South Korea (below right); tonight (tomorrow local) Secretary Tillerson will arrive in China.

During a flight between nations, Secretary Tillerson gave an interview to IJR reporter Erin McPike.  A full audio file has been provided CLICK HERE (will open in separate window) The interview is almost 30 minutes in duration and takes place aboard the flight.

In addition, IJR has posted a transcript of the interview which is AVAILABLE HERE.

I would again strongly urge everyone to ignore the media presentations of the comments from Secretary Tillerson, and instead go directly to the unfiltered source material.
The Audio Interview is very interesting.  Understandably, with the full content available, the DC media and their Deep State partnerships are frustrated and angry about their inability to manipulate the Tillerson narrative.
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Earlier today President Trump met with his cabinet members and outlined the administrations’ expectation they immediately conduct a wholesale review of each department in order to lower costs, shrink the size of their departments and utilize their leadership and executive skills to remove cost redundancy with extreme urgency.

To accomplish this goal, President Trump signed an Executive Order initiating an immediate reorganization of the executive branch –SEE HERE–   Including the elimination of “unnecessary agencies” as identified in the review.

Section 1.  Purpose.  This order is intended to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the executive branch by directing the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (Director) to propose a plan to reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies (as defined in section 551(1) of title 5, United States Code), components of agencies, and agency programs.

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[Transcript] 3:07 P.M. EDT – THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, everybody.  I’m proud to welcome everyone to our first official Cabinet meeting. (more…)