President Trump’s first week as POTUS begins with plenty to discuss following his first few days and actions in office.
Already, tensions between the media and President Trump are surfacing. On Saturday, Sean Spicer made his first official appearance as White House press secretary, and in a briefing that lasted less than six minutes he called out the media for their coverage of the inauguration, including an erroneous report that was later corrected by a TIME Magazine reporter alleging that a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been removed from the White House. Spicer also took issue with photos that were tweeted out comparing crowd sizes at President Trump’s inauguration to those at President Obama’s first inaugural in 2009.
Mr. Trump has wasted no time getting the ball rolling on some of his top priorities, including signing an executive order that directs federal agencies not to enforce big portions of the Affordable Care Act. He withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal on Monday and says that he plans to meet with Canadian and Mexican leaders to discuss the renegotiation of NAFTA, though he has not said specifically what he wants to do with the decades-old trade deal.
We’ll also take a look at which Trump cabinet members will be confirmed this week on the heels of word that Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who had been reticent to declare his support for Secretary of State nominee and former Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, will vote in favor of confirming him for the post of top U.S. diplomat.
Guests:
Matt Rodriguez, Democratic strategist and founder and chief executive officer of Rodriguez Strategies. He is also a former senior Obama advisor in 2008; he tweets
Charles Kesler, Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and editor of the Claremont Review of Books
Burgess Everett, congressional reporter for POLITICO who’s been following the story on Marco Rubio’s backing of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state; he authored the recent article, “Rubio to back Tillerson, effectively ensuring confirmation”