It was yet another eventful week for the Trump administration.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has come under fire after revelations concerning his excessive spending on first-class travel, ritzy accomodations, and outsize security detail. EPA officials who questioned Pruitt's spending habits have been punished with demotions or reassignments. Trump's staff encouraged him to dismiss Pruitt, but Trump has shown reluctance to do so.
Pruitt has continued advancing Trump's environmental deregulation agenda, recently announcing rollbacks on an Obama-era rule requiring cars and light trucks to average 50 miles to a gallon of fuel by 2025. Pruitt has also availed himself of the EPA's power to waive particular biofuel regulations. Though traditionally reserved to protect small companies on the brink of bankruptcy, Pruitt has used the waiver to help Andeavor (NYSE: ANDV), one of the largest refineries in the U.S., which is nowhere near insolvent.
Deeming DACA to be "dead," Trump has continued to pursue his border policy. Trump has sent conflicting messages about the border, touting massive success in lowering the rate of illegal crossings while simultaneously characterizing the situation there as a "crisis" necessitating the deployment of National Guard troops. Trump also used Twitter this past week to spread widely unfounded claims of voter fraud, insisting that it was "not a conspiracy theory, folks."
Trump has also continued to stoke the fires of a trade war with China. In Tweets on the topic, Trump drastically overstated the trade deficit with China, rounding it up by $163 billion, while threatening a massive $100 billion tariff plan. Meanwhile, Trump denied that there is any trade war, or even potential trade war, with China.
Trump also took to Twitter this past week to tout his administration's tax package, claiming incorrectly that it was the first tax cut in 40 years. The White House has also claimed that it was the largest gross tax cut in U.S. history, though experts note that this is not entirely accurate; when the cost of net tax cuts is compared to the gross domestic product, Trump's tax cuts are far behind Reagan's tax cuts in 1981, and even Obama's 2013 extension of tax cuts first introduced by the Bush administration.
Trump also sent conflicting messages about U.S. involvement in Syria this past week. In a speech that was supposed to be on the topic of infrastructure, Trump went on a brief tangent about Syria, announcing that the U.S. military would be out "like, very soon." Trump reiterated the sentiment at a press conference. After senior administration officials expressed their concerns, Trump backed off on the idea of an immediate withdrawal, though he is still insisting that troops be pulled out within five or six months and the civilian stabilization program be halted. Meanwhile, Trump condemned a chemical attack in Syria.
And finally, according to a CNN report, Trump has also begun preparing for an interview with Special Investigator Mueller. Expect more turbulence in the coming weeks.