In recent weeks, there’s been an air of mystery surrounding Donald Trump’s announcement of a 90-day “pause” to much of his agenda on trade tariffs. Literally one day earlier, the White House insisted that the president wasn’t even considering such a move, and that declaration followed Trump himself declaring that his tariffs were “here to stay” and would “never change.”
It was against this backdrop that The Wall Street Journal reported on some striking behind-the-scenes details on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick circumventing Peter Navarro when he briefly stopped hovering around the Oval Office and went to a meeting elsewhere in the White House.
It was at that point, the Journal reported, based on multiple sources, that the Cabinet secretaries “made their move.”
They rushed to the Oval Office to see Trump and propose a pause on some of the tariffs—without Navarro there to argue or push back. They knew they had a tight window. The meeting with Bessent and Lutnick wasn’t on Trump’s schedule. The two men convinced Trump of the strategy to pause some of the tariffs and to announce it immediately to calm the markets. They stayed until Trump tapped out a Truth Social post, which surprised Navarro, according to one of the people familiar with the episode.
The reporting hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, and the article is filled with a variety of quotes from spokespersons representing Bessent, Lutnick, Navarro and the White House, who downplayed allegations of internal divisions.
Nevertheless, if the Journal’s account is accurate, it tells us quite a bit about conditions inside the Trump administration.
For one thing, functional White Houses are not supposed to work this way, with Cabinet secretaries quietly scheming to work around a misguided anti-trade trade adviser. For another, if the Journal’s report is correct, it reflects an implicit acknowledgement that Trump has no real understanding of his own policy agenda, which in turn creates an environment in which Cabinet secretaries, confident in the knowledge that the president will agree with the last person he spoke to, have to engage in skullduggery to prevent global economic ruin.
But just as important, if not more so, is the emerging and deepening fissures within Trump’s team. It would appear, for example, that Bessent and Lutnick have linked arms, and they see Navarro as an internal rival. But this is hardly the only relevant crack. Elon Musk has also clashed with Navarro, with the former calling the latter a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.” Meanwhile, Bessent and Musk are also apparently on opposing sides. So are Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as Rubio and the West Wing. Throughout American history, there have been administrations with rival factions, but those divisions usually take time. On Team Trump, the cracks are bursting into view just three months after Inauguration Day. In theory, a strong president could intervene, resolve differences, unite his or her own team and establish a clear vision for his or administration to follow. In practice, however, Trump appears content to play the role of President Bystander, watching these divisions get even worse.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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