Donald Trump‘s love-hate relationship with The New York Times just got even more interesting. In a Sunday article, the Times implies that Donald Trump didn’t fully know what he was doing when he put advisor Steve Bannon into a high-level position on the National Security Council — a seat at a table usually reserved for people more like General Colin Powell and Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Times reports that:
“Mr. Bannon remains the president’s dominant adviser, despite Mr. Trump’s anger that he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council, a greater source of frustration to the president than the fallout from the travel ban.”
That’s right, the Times asserts that Trump didn’t know exactly what he was signing when he signed the Presidential Memorandum that put Bannon on the Principals Committee (PC) — and that his frustration over it is great. The memo reads in part:
“PC shall have as its regular attendees the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, the Assistant to the President and Chief Strategist, the National Security Advisor, and the Homeland Security Advisor.”
The Times does not say directly that Trump’s anger is directed at Bannon, only that it stems from his not being “fully briefed.”
