Trump's freewheeling and unorthodox West Wing: From the Politics Desk
In today's edition, our White House team dives into the informal and unorthodox way President Donald Trump holds court in the Oval Office, while out Capitol Hill team provides an update on the 'big, beautiful bill' in the House. Plus, Andrea Mitchell marks the demise of USAID.
Programming note: We're taking a break the rest of the week for the Fourth of July holiday. We'll be back in your inbox on Monday, July 7.
— Adam Wollner
Inside Trump's freewheeling West Wing
By Peter Nicholas, Monica Alba, Courtney Kube, Katherine Doyle and Carol E. Lee
President Donald Trump affectionately refers to the Oval Office as 'Grand Central Terminal' because of all the comings and goings, a senior White House official said.
Various aides have tried over the years to impose a certain discipline in the Trump White House, with limited results. Trump likes to see whom he wants and call whom he chooses, and in the new term, he presides over a freewheeling West Wing that mirrors the man, current and former aides say.
Trump will interrupt an Oval Office meeting and spontaneously pick up the phone and call a friend or confidant, a senior administration official said.
Cabinet secretaries often mill around the building, popping in and out of offices with powerful advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
One meeting rolls into another. Cabinet members who'd planned 30-minute visits to the White House may end up staying for hours at the president's invitation.
If Trump's methods are unorthodox, his supporters say, he is delivering results. Yet Trump's managerial style also poses risks, current and former officials say.
Cabinet secretaries run complex agencies that need attention and leadership. Decamping to the West Wing can deprive the federal workforce of both. A staff's careful effort to provide balanced viewpoints before the president sets policy can blow up if he's also hearing from friends and associates sharing unvetted information. And, unlike Grand Central Station, the White House is a zone where secrets need to be protected.
NBC News spoke to more than a dozen past and current administration officials, lawmakers and Trump allies about the West Wing's rhythms. What's noteworthy is the informality, they said.
House Republican leaders are moving rapidly today to try to pass the party's massive domestic policy package after the Senate approved it, launching a full-court press and enlisting the help of President Donald Trump to sway a broad group of holdouts.
The House is the last stop for the bill before Trump can sign it into law, which he wants to do by Friday, July 4.
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After 60 years, USAID comes to an end
Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio heralded the demise of the U.S. Agency for International Development this week after more than 60 years. He wrote on Substack: 'USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War. Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown.'
That would be news to the volunteer doctors and other relief workers I have met in Darfur, Chad and refugee camps throughout the Middle East. According to a study released this week by The Lancet, a British medical journal, USAID funding is credited with saving more than 90 million lives in the last 20 years, including a 65% reduction in mortality from HIV/AIDS, 51% from malaria and 50% from neglected tropical diseases.
Rubio wrote: 'Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies — and which advance American interests — will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency.'
Created in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, USAID had as many as 15,000 staffers administering contracts to organizations in 133 countries and territories. It is expected that the staff of the new division will be far smaller. The reductions are in addition to a proposed 15% cut in the State Department's domestic staff of foreign service officers and civil servants set to take place within days.
Much of USAID's success in saving 25 million lives from HIV/AIDS, acknowledged by bipartisan majorities in Congress, is credited to PEPFAR, a program launched by former President George W. Bush with support from U2 front man and public health advocate Bono, the World Bank and the Gates Foundation.
Marking the end of America's global foreign aid commitment this week, Bush issued a video message obtained by The New York Times telling the USAID staff, 'Is it in our interest that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is. On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you for your hard work and God bless you.' Bono was more poetic in his video lament. 'It's not left-wing rhetoric to feed the hungry, heal the sick,' he said. 'If this isn't murder, I don't know what is.'
Rubio announced today that a dozen U.S. foreign aid agencies will be rebranded under an American flag insignia. The Trump administration also revealed this week that the vacated USAID offices in the Ronald Reagan building will be taken over by the FBI, moving from its outmoded nearby headquarters.
🗞️ Today's other top stories
💬 Ceasefire talks: Israel confirmed that it agreed to a Gaza ceasefire proposal by Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, while Hamas said it was considering it. Read more →
👀 Looming deadline: Trump's trade war risks reigniting next week when a temporary pause on sweeping tariffs is set to expire, potentially driving up costs for businesses and raising prices for consumers. Read more →
🎊 Elon's party: Elon Musk is returning to the idea of starting a new political party amid his feud with Trump over the GOP's domestic policy bill. Read more →
⚖️ In the courts: A federal judge blocked Trump's asylum ban at the U.S.-Mexico border. Read more →
⚖️ Post-Roe landscape: The Wisconsin Supreme Court formally struck down the state's abortion ban from 1849, ruling more recent laws had effectively replaced it. Read more →
🎤 Trump v. the media: Paramount has agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump that had alleged an interview with Kamala Harris that aired on CBS's '60 Minutes' last year was deceptively edited. Read more →
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