Judging a book by its cover

Politico

3 days ago

Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government, your guide to Donald Trump's unprecedented overhaul of the federal government — the key decisions, the critical characters and the power dynamics that are upending Washington and beyond.
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President DONALD TRUMP learned the importance of appearance at a young age.
'I had a wonderful father, very smart, and he used to say, 'Son, when you walk into a restaurant and you see a dirty front door, don't go in, because if the front door is dirty, the kitchen is dirty also,'' Trump told reporters today.
That advice has been key to understanding Trump for decades, and it's part of his justification for taking over the Metropolitan Police Department. For as much as the president pointed to murder rates and other statistics, it's what he saw from his motorcade, out the window of Marine One and in a photo of an aide injured in the district that disturbed him most and pushed him to act.
'If our capital is dirty, our whole country is dirty,' the president said today during a news conference where he announced he was federalizing the Washington, D.C., police department and calling about 800 National Guard troops to the capital in an effort to clean up the city.
'Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of violent youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people, and we're not going to let it happen anymore,' he said.
The reality is a bit more complicated. The district has historically had higher crime rates than other big cities. But critics of Trump — including Del. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, a Democrat and the district's non-voting representative in Congress — have pointed out that crime in Washington has been dropping, hitting a 30-year low last year.
The White House's official line on that data? Officials cooked the books.
But that argument misses a key part of the point. Much of what Trump is talking about isn't going to be reflected in crime statistics. It's the unsightly urban landscape that bothers a man who surrounds himself with gold and marble.
Medians have 'fallen down.' Potholes must be replaced. Graffiti must be scrubbed.
At today's briefing and on social media over the weekend, Trump shared photos of trash and homeless encampments that appear to have been taken from his motorcade.
'Not only are we stopping the crime, we're going to clean up the trash and the graffiti and the grime and the dirt and the broken marble panels and all of the things they've done to hurt this city,' he said. 'And we're going to restore the city back to the gleaming capital that everybody wants it to be.'
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POTUS PUZZLER
Which president signed the law that grants residents of Washington, D.C., 'home rule,' allowing them to elect officials to set the district's local laws and budget?
(Answer at bottom.)
Agenda Setting
420 FLIP FLOP? Trump said today his administration was 'looking at reclassification' of marijuana and intends to make a decision in the coming weeks, our NICOLE MARKUS reports. Trump did not indicate during a press briefing whether he intends to reclassify the drug, just that his administration would consider it.
Reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug would reduce penalties without making it fully legal. The Biden administration considered the move but did not ultimately enact it.
KEEP ON WAITING: Farmers, food manufacturers, chemical companies, anti-vaccine activists and MAHA moms — all waiting anxiously for the release of Health Secretary ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.'s strategy for 'making children healthy again' — will have to wait a bit longer, our DAVID LIM, MARCIA BROWN and MEGAN MESSERLY report.
The White House today said it expected the Make America Healthy Again Commission to send its strategy to the president Tuesday, as required by an executive order. But spokesperson KUSH DESAI added that it will take more time to coordinate officials' schedules to release the report to the public.
Trump created the commission in February to revamp the nation's food supply and chronic health outcomes. Its upcoming policy recommendations are expected to suggest a restructuring of the government's response to childhood chronic diseases and will have wide-ranging implications for food, farm and health policy.
WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT
A BLS CRITIC FOR BLS HEAD? Trump administration officials are considering elevating a longtime critic of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to run the agency, WSJ's BRIAN SCHWARTZ and MERIDITH McGRAW report.
E.J. ANTONI, the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, is being interviewed to replace ERIKA McENTARFER, whom Trump fired last week over claims that she had manipulated data.
Antoni has long criticized the agency's approach to collecting jobs data — as recently as in an X post last week, when he wrote that finding 'better ways to collect, process, and disseminate data … is the task for the next BLS commissioner.'
'President Trump has selected the best and brightest individuals to lead the federal government. He will announce the next BLS Commissioner when he has made a decision,' a White House spokesperson told the Journal. Antoni did not return requests for comment.
CLIMATE DENIERS, ASSEMBLE: Energy Secretary CHRIS WRIGHT handpicked climate contrarians to write a report the EPA is using to undermine U.S. regulation of greenhouse gases, POLITICO's E&E News' BENJAMIN STORROW reports.
That team — composed of individuals who each spent years questioning the mainstream consensus around climate science — last month released a 141-page DOE report that questioned the basic tenets of climate science, including the accuracy of climate models, the threats posed by sea-level rise and the links between extreme weather events and humanity's use of fossil fuels.
Most have worked with conservative activists and fossil fuel interests to cast doubt over the dangers of a warming planet.
BACK AGAIN: Less than two weeks after he was pressured to step down as the country's top vaccine regulator at the Food and Drug Administration, VINAY PRASAD is resuming leadership at the center, the AP reports.
Prasad left the agency following a pressure campaign from right-wing activists, including LAURA LOOMER, but had the backing of Kennedy and FDA Commissioner MARTY MAKARY.
What We're Reading
The Harvard-Trained Lawyer Behind Trump's Fight Against Top Universities (NYT's Michael C. Bender)
Inflation Up or Down? What About Jobs? The Agency That Should Know Is on the Rocks (WSJ's Matt Grossman, Brian Schwartz and Rachel Louise Ensign)
The Number: How much is Trump pocketing off the Presidency? (The New Yorker's David D. Kirkpatrick)
POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER
That would be former President RICHARD NIXON, who in 1973 signed the D.C. Home Rule Act into law. Before that, members of Congress ran day-to-day affairs in the capital.