TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP FAMILY/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Following the biggest legislative debacle of President Donald Trump’s first six months in office, the White House on Tuesday [7-18-17] was some hands on deck.
The president’s most senior aides appeared eager to move on from the health care loss, busying themselves with their own pet projects. Counselor Kellyanne Conway spent the morning in the Cannon House Office Building, participating in a two-hour-long bipartisan round table on veterans and the opioid crisis.
Ivanka Trump made an appearance at a global robotics competition celebrating girls from Afghanistan pursuing careers in STEM. Meanwhile, her husband, White House adviser Jared Kushner — who has taken little interest in the health care bill since its early, troubled days in the House, when he went skiing in Aspen with his family — was busy leading a meeting with his Office of American Innovation.
In the West Wing, chief strategist Steve Bannon took a meeting with Wayne Berman, a Republican operative and board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition whose name has surfaced as a potential future chief of staff. He also met with Kris Kobach, head of Trump’s voter fraud commission, and former campaign operatives David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, among others. But Bannon was conspicuously absent from senior staff meetings on trade and tax reform that brought Cabinet officials into the White House.”
-Annie Karnie and Eliana Johnson, “Trump aides move on after health care loss,” Politico, July 18, 2017 06:03pm