monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

...At a White House cabinet meeting this morning, Donald Trump pointed to the figure as proof of his underappreciated successes. From the official transcript:

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"We have a GDP, on Friday -- it got very little mention, although I guess in the business areas it did. But it got, I think, very little mention. 2.6 is a number that nobody thought they'd see for a long period of time.... And 2.6 is an unbelievable number, announced on Friday."

It's hard to say with confidence whether Trump has any idea what the GDP is or what the quarterly reports show, but 2.6% growth is clearly not an "unbelievable number." It's actually quite believable.

Indeed, when the president says "nobody" expected to see quarterly growth of 2.6 "for a long period of time," that plainly ridiculous. As recently as last fall, which really isn't that long ago, we saw 2.8% growth.

Throughout the Obama era, most notably after the Great Recession ended, we saw plenty of individual quarters in which growth topped 4% and, at one point, 5%. Barack Obama didn't do much to pat himself on the back, and the Democratic White House didn't tout the figures as "unbelievable." They were simply seen as evidence of a domestic economy that was growing steadily.

[T]he decision to remove him came at Mr. Kelly’s request, the people said....While Mr. Kelly’s objection was the decisive factor in Mr. Scaramucci’s departure, people close to the decision said that Mr. Trump had quickly soured on the wisecracking, Long Island-bred former hedge fund manager, and so had his family.

Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, and Jared Kushner, her husband, had pushed the president to hire Mr. Scaramucci, seeing him as away to force out Mr. Priebus, the former national Republican committee chairman, and his allies in the West Wing.

Mr. Trump was initially pleased by Mr. Scaramucci’s harsh remarks, directed at Mr. Priebus and Steve Bannon, the chief White House strategist. But over the weekend, after speaking with his family and Mr. Kelly, the president began to see the brash actions of his subordinate as a political liability and potential embarrassment, according to two people familiar with his thinking.

Mr. Scaramucci’s swift departure is an early indication that Mr. Kelly intends to assert his authority over the operations of the White House, and that several of the big personalities there — including Mr. Kushner, Ms. Trump and Mr. Bannon — may be inclined to defer to him. It also suggests that, at least for the moment, Mr. Kelly has the president’s support in that effort.

The president still values Mr. Scaramucci, people close Mr. Trump and his family, and is hoping to find another, less high profile, position for him in the White House — although it is uncertain if Mr. Scaramucci would be willing to accept a demotion.

President Donald Trump's first six months in office have not necessarily been conservative enough, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake argued on Monday.

"I do think that ... some things he has done has been conservative. I think he appointed a great Supreme Court justice. The regulatory policy that he has embraced is conservative. His instincts on tax policy are conservative," Flake, a Republican who is up for reelection in 2018, said on CBS. "But some things are profoundly unconservative. Protectionist attitude, trying to get out of multinational free trade agreements. Isolationism. That's not conservative."

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the new White House Chief of Staff, Gen Kelley had a decisive role in firing Scaramucci

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I certainly understand why you think it's such a great piece.

apparently not

That Scaramucci was even brought on.

But over the weekend, after speaking with his family and Mr. Kelly, the president began to see the brash actions of his subordinate as a political liability and potential embarrassment, according to two people familiar with his thinking.

...two people familiar with his thinking

The Mooch just resigned! WTF!! Guess he couldn't stand the idea of reporting to a chief of staff.

snood wrote:

The Mooch just resigned! WTF!! Guess he couldn't stand the idea of reporting to a chief of staff.

Not surprising at all. We predicted on Friday that Mooch would soon follow Priebus. Trump might still keep him around as court jester.

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...that's weak. Even for you.

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...it reveals just a little about what an intensely phony blowhard you are

And with these cordial comments you've revealed, to anyone who might possibly have thought otherwise, that your question was tendered in bad faith.

BTW - You just demonstrated one of the behaviors of an A2K "coward," selecting a single sentence from a post and using it for an attack, sans context.