The Observer view on Donald Trump’s unfitness for office - Guardian

The Observer view on Donald Trump’s unfitness for office

Observer editorial

The incompetence and infighting at the White House dismay America’s allies and encourage its enemies

‘Like some kind of Shakespearean villain-clown, Trump plays not to the gallery but to the pit.’

Sunday 30 July 2017 09.10 AEST

The sense of things falling apart in Washington is palpable – and a matter of growing, serious international concern. Donald Trump’s latest asinine act of gesture politics, the forced resignation of his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, has shone a spotlight on the extraordinary chaos inside the White House. Even normally sober, experienced Washington observers now refer to the West Wing as a viper’s nest of seething rivalry, bitter feuds, gross incompetence and an unparalleled leadership vacuum.

Like some kind of Shakespearean villain-clown, Trump plays not to the gallery but to the pit. He is a Falstaff without the humour or the self-awareness, a cowardly, bullying Richard III without a clue. Late-night US satirists find in this an unending source of high comedy. If they did not laugh, they would cry. The world is witnessing the dramatic unfolding of a tragedy whose main victims are a seemingly helpless American audience, America’s system of balanced governance and its global reputation as a leading democratic light.

As his partisan, demeaning and self-admiring speech to the Boy Scouts of America illustrated, Trump endlessly reruns last year’s presidential election campaign, rails against the “fake news” media and appeals to the lowest common denominator in public debate. Not a word about duty, service, shared purpose or high ideals was to be found in his gutter-level discourse before a youthful gathering of 30,000 in West Virginia. Instead, he served up a sad cocktail of paranoia and narcissism. It was all about him and what he has supposedly achieved against the odds.

Which, for the record, is almost precisely nothing. After more than six months in office, and despite full Republican control of Congress, Trump cannot point to a single substantial legislative achievement. The bid to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, which finally went down in flames in the Senate last week, was the most spectacular and telling of Trump’s failures. His executive orders, such as the racist ban on Muslim travellers and last week’s bigoted attack on transgender people in the military, have mostly run foul of the courts or been pre-emptively ignored by those charged with implementing them.

Trump has instead squandered the political goodwill that traditionally accompanies a presidential honeymoon, shocked and outraged many middle-of-the-road voters who initially gave him the benefit of the doubt, thoroughly alienated Republican party traditionalists, who had tried in vain to swallow their doubts, and undermined the authority of the office of the president. Trump, a supposedly ace chief executive, has now lost a chief of staff, a deputy chief of staff, a national security adviser, a communications director and a press secretary in short order. To lose one or even two of his most senior people might be excused as unfortunate. To lose all five suggests the fault is his.

Perhaps John Kelly, the retired general hired to replace Priebus, can restore some semblance of order to the White House. It looks like a tall order. Kelly has no political experience beyond his brief tenure at the department of homeland security. Perhaps he will find an ally in HR McMaster, another army veteran, who is Trump’s national security adviser. But there is no good reason to believe the internal feuding, and Trump’s inability or disinclination to halt it, will end.

Anthony Scaramucci, the recently appointed, foul-mouthed communications director, has unfinished business with Steve Bannon, Trump’s top strategist. Trump seems determined to undermine his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Then there is the self-interested leverage exerted by Trump family lightweights Ivanka Trump, Donald Jr and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. On top of all that, Kelly must work out how to handle the ever-expanding investigations of special counsel Robert Mueller into the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russia. A good start would be to halt scurrilous White House efforts to dig up dirt on Mueller and his team.

Yet even if Kelly succeeds in cracking the whip, curbing the in-fighting and containing the Russia scandal, he still has to deal with Trump himself. He has proved far more interested in settling scores, berating adversaries and showing off than in advancing a coherent domestic policy agenda. The next prospective car crash, following the Obamacare pile-up, is a September deadline for a federal budget and linked tax reforms and increased military spending promised by Trump. A budget deal proved impossible last spring and may do so again. If there is no agreement, a government shut-down looms, an outcome in line with current Washington trends. Lazy, feckless Trump has no interest in the onerous business of lobbying Congress or working the phones. He wants quick, easy wins or else he walks away.

This latter is one of several disturbing truths about Trump absorbed, to varying degrees, by Washington’s friends and allies in the past six months. Naive, misguided Theresa May and Liam Fox, the Brexit trade secretary, still seem to think Trump’s word can be trusted and that he will deliver a favourable trade deal. It is one of many delusions explaining why Britain’s government is so disrespected. In sharp contrast, Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, heads the realist, pragmatic group of leaders who are learning to deal with a post-Obama world where the word of the American president cannot be trusted. In this new world, longstanding US commitments and treaties may not be honoured and future collaboration on key policies, such as climate change, Russia and Chinese military expansionism, is held hostage to presidential whim and the blinkered perspectives of the Ohio bar-room.

Merkel suggested earlier this year that the US (and Britain) could no longer be wholly relied upon. While not entirely true, for instance in the case of Anglo-American security guarantees for Germany and its sheltered exporters, it was plain what she meant. And this lesson has been understood by America’s enemies, too. In provocatively firing off another long-range, possibly nuclear-capable missile last week, North Korea seems to be testing how far it can go, geographically and politically. It is counting on Trump proving to be the blowhard that, until now, he has appeared to be.

Recent months have produced a litany of Trump threats and boasts over North Korea. There was no way, he said, that Pyongyang would deploy an ICBM capable of hitting the mainland US. “It’s not going to happen,” he tweeted. Wrong again, Donald. It did. By conducting its own satellite launch last week, ignoring western concerns, Iran has similarly thumbed its nose at Washington. Iran’s leaders should understand there would be “very serious” consequences if they pursued their ballistic missile programme, Trump had warned. Additional hints from Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, and Jim Mattis, Pentagon chief, about regime change in Iran further darkened the strategic horizon. But guess what? Tehran took no notice at all. It went ahead anyway.

Or take Russia. Having played Trump to its advantage, Moscow’s open hand is turning into a clenched fist as it threatens reprisals over a new Congressional sanctions package. It was not hard to see this tactical switch coming, once it was clear Trump could not deliver the sort of concessions on Ukraine Putin craves. Except, in his fecklessness and blind vanity and courting Putin to the end, Trump didn’t see it coming at all. You can almost see Putin’s lip curl.

The common factor in all these situations is Trump’s self-induced powerlessness and ignorance, his chronic lack of credibility and presidential authority and consequent perceptions of US and western weakness. And in the case of all three actual or potential adversaries – North Korea, Iran and Russia – these perceptions are highly dangerous. Precisely because US responses, actions and reactions can no longer be relied upon or predicted, by friends and enemies alike, the potential for calamitous miscalculation is growing. This uncertainty, like the chaos in the White House and the extraordinary disarray of the American body politic, stems from Trump’s glaring unfitness for the highest office. As is now becoming ever plainer, this threatens us all.

Amid Show of Military Might in China, Xi Jinping Puts Rivals on Notice - New York Times

BEIJING — China’s president, Xi Jinping, has opened a public campaign to deepen his grip on power in a coming leadership shake-up, using a huge military parade on Sunday, speeches and propaganda, along with a purge in the past week, to warn officials to back him as the nation’s most powerful leader in two decades.

Wearing his mottled green uniform as commander in chief of the People’s Liberation Army, Mr. Xi watched as 12,000 troops marched and tanks, long-range missile launchers, jet fighters and other new weapons drove or flew past in impeccable arrays.

Mao famously said political power comes from the barrel of a gun, and Mr. Xi signaled that he, too, was counting on the military to stay ramrod loyal while he chooses a new leading lineup to be unveiled at a Communist Party congress in the autumn.

“Troops across the entire military, you must be unwavering in upholding the bedrock principle of absolute party leadership of the military,” Mr. Xi said at the parade, held on a dusty training base in Inner Mongolia region, 270 miles northwest of Beijing. “Always obey and follow the party. Go and fight wherever the party points.”

The ceremony was broadcast across the country.

Officially, the display was to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the creation of the People’s Liberation Army. But it was also the highlight of a week of political theater promoting Mr. Xi as a uniquely qualified politician whose elevated status as China’s “core” leader, endorsed by officials last year, should be entrenched at the party congress.

“These military parades could become a regular, institutionalized thing, but this one also has a special meaning this year,” said Deng Yuwen, a former editor at a party newspaper in Beijing who writes current affairs commentaries. “It’s meant to show that Xi Jinping firmly has the military in his grip, and nobody should have any illusions of challenging him.”

The congress will almost certainly give Mr. Xi, 64, a second, five-year term as the party general secretary and chairman of the commission that controls the military, and it will appoint a new team to work under him.

No exact date has been fixed for the congress. An annual legislative meeting early next year will also almost certainly give Mr. Xi five more years as state president.

Some experts have speculated that Mr. Xi may want to retain power after those terms end, although the constitution says he cannot stay on as president. There are no firm rules for maximum terms as party general secretary.

Mr. Xi has accompanied the demands for unity with a vivid warning to officials who step out of line. In the past week, he oversaw the abrupt purge of Sun Zhengcai, a one-time contender for promotion at the congress. Mr. Sun, 53, had been the party secretary of Chongqing, a city in southwest China, until his dismissal in mid-July.

The party announced last Monday that he was under investigation for violations of “discipline” — usually a euphemism for corruption — and Mr. Sun has since been pilloried in official media. Provincial leaders, including many with a shot at promotion, have called meetings to denounce Mr. Sun as a “tiger,” or corrupt senior official.

“At this point, we can’t say for sure he will be the last big tiger to be brought down before the opening of the party congress,” said Prof. Ding Xueliang, a political scientist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who studies the Chinese Communist Party. “We don’t know, other leaders don’t know either.”

For now, Mr. Xi appears to be seeking to ensure that his second-term lineup includes younger loyalists who will defend him and his policies for years to come. Several are poised to join the Politburo, a council of 25 senior central, provincial and military leaders. Up to 11 members of the Politburo are likely to retire at the congress, including five members of the Politburo Standing Committee, a more powerful body with seven members.

The negotiations over the new lineup happen in secret. But the burst of propaganda and warnings appears designed to pressure officials and retired leaders to go along with Mr. Xi’s wishes over who goes up and who steps down.

Mr. Xi is by the estimate of many observers China’s most powerful leader since Deng Xiaoping, who died in 1997. While the military does not have much direct say in politics, its support is essential for Mr. Xi’s long-term authority, said Professor Ding.

“Xi Jinping has spent more time on the military than any other leader,” Professor Ding said by telephone. “He knows clearly that eventually, if he wants to keep in power, if he wants to concentrate power even more, he must make sure the army is with him.”

Mr. Xi’s recent predecessors as national leader, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, also prepared for leadership turnovers with crescendos of propaganda. But the adulation around Mr. Xi has been strikingly worshipful. More than them, Mr. Xi has made a personal case for power.

On Friday, Study Times, a party newspaper widely read by officials, devoted its front page to an adulatory profile of Mr. Xi that said he was blessed by his “red” upbringing with special leadership mettle. It recounted his tough maturation as the son of a veteran revolutionary who was persecuted by Mao, testing the family’s loyalty to the Communist cause, and his seven years working in the dirt-poor countryside during the Cultural Revolution.

The profile has been was widely promoted by party newspapers and websites, and its anonymous author was described as “special commentator,” a title usually used for articles with high-level endorsement.

“I never saw anything like this for Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao,” said Mr. Deng, the former editor, who used to work for The Study Times. “They didn’t get this treatment.”

Mr. Xi, “grew up with an inheritance of red genes, was tempered by harsh setbacks and suffering, and has steeled himself in complicated international struggle,” said the profile, referring to his revolutionary background and career.

“The lion of the east has woken,” it said, referring to China. “But it faces tremendous risks of being surrounded by tigers and wolves and suffering even more intense strategic encirclement, clashes and meddling.”

The profile also said Mr. Xi personally pushed through difficult and contentious policy changes in his first five years in power, including building artificial islands fitted with military installations in the disputed South China Sea.

“In the South China Sea, he personally decided on building islands and consolidating reefs,” said the profile. Mr. Xi had, it said, “built a robust strategic base for ultimately prevailing in the struggle to defend the South China Sea, and has in effect constructed a Great Wall at sea.”

Mr. Xi’s power has already unsettled critics, including some inside the party, who worry that he has destabilized norms of collective leadership that can slow decision-making but also prevent dangerous overreach.

“This over-concentration of authority can really get you in trouble,” Susan L. Shirk, a former State Department deputy assistant secretary for China policy, said in an interview before the parade. “I especially think about foreign and security policy.”

As well as endorsing a new leadership, the congress will endorse a report laying out, in the dry jargon of party documents, Mr. Xi’s broad goals for his next five years. He told senior officials at the two-day meeting that ended on Thursday that the report should treat China’s next few years as a time of great risk.

“Look to the developments that are bring us risks,” he told the officials, according to a report in People’s Daily, the official party paper. “Be ready for the worst, and make the fullest preparations for that, while working toward a good outcome and striving for the best.”

Donald Trump appears to threaten members of Congress with 'BAILOUT' tweet - Independent

Donald Trump appears to threaten members of Congress with 'BAILOUT' tweet

Donald Trump appears to have threatened members of Congress after Republicans failed to deliver on one of his key campaign promises to repeal and replace Obamacare.

In one of his latest tweets, Mr Trump wrote, “If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!”

The Senate's Republican leadership suffered a colossal defeat earlier this week when a majority of senators, including members of their own party, rejected multiple proposals aimed at dismantling the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.

Democrats laud 'turning point' on healthcare

After the final failed vote in the early hours of Friday morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the upper chamber would move on from healthcare to other matters, but the President appears to have other plans.

Observers have suggested that Mr Trump in the second part of his tweet asserted he will eliminate subsidised health insurance for members of Congress unless they pass a healthcare bill quickly.

Meanwhile, in the first part, he appears to have threatened to cancel payments that compensate insurance companies for reducing out-of-pocket costs for low-income people. Insurance companies have been demanding big rate increases or fleeing from individual insurance markets created by Obamacare, and making those cost-sharing reduction payments could be key to keeping insurers in the market and preventing spikes in premiums.

While the Trump administration has previously threatened to cancel those payments to destabilise markets and bring Democrats to the negotiating table on healthcare reform, some powerful Republican legislators have also called for guaranteeing the cost-sharing subsidies.

Anthony Scaramucci's wife 'files for divorce because of her dislike of President Trump' - Telegraph

Anthony Scaramucci's wife 'files for divorce because of her dislike of President Trump'

Harriet Alexander, washington

28 JULY 2017 • 11:06PM

Anthony Scaramucci’s wife has reportedly filed for divorce a week after he was named White House communications director, with friends claiming that her dislike of President Donald Trump and her husband’s “naked political ambition” has forced them apart.

Deidre Ball, who worked as a vice president in investor relations for SkyBridge Capital, the firm he founded in 2005 and sold to ascend to the White House, has filed for divorce after three years of marriage, according to The New York Post.

White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci walks down the steps of Air Force One after arriving at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, N.Y.

White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci walks down the steps of Air Force One after arriving at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. CREDIT: AP

“She liked the nice Wall Street life and their home on Long Island, not the insane world of DC,” a source told the paper.

“She is tired of his naked ambition, which is so enormous that it left her at her wits’ end. She has left him even though they have two children together.”

Mr Scaramucci responded to the news by tweeting: “Leave civilians out of this. I can take the hits, but I would ask that you would put my family in your thoughts and prayers and nothing more.”

Anthony Scaramucci ✔ @Scaramucci

Leave civilians out of this. I can take the hits, but I would ask that you would put my family in your thoughts and prayers & nothing more.

Mr Scaramucci, 52, and Ball, 38, began dating in 2011 and are believed to have married in 2014.

Mr Scaramucci is yet to confirm the news, which comes at the end of a tumultuous first week in Washington, in which he attempted to schmooze the White House press corps and ended up in a wild expletive-laced rant about his colleagues, published in The New Yorker.

The source said that Mr Scaramucci had been “hell-bent” on claiming his position at the White House after he was originally positioned for a senior role, and sold SkyBridge Capital in preparation in January.

He was blocked by Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, who was fired on Friday.

Anthony Scaramucci, White House communications director

A second source told the Post: “Deidre is not a fan of Trump, and she hasn’t exactly been on board and supportive of Anthony and his push to get back into the White House.”

The friend added: “Anthony is focusing on his children, his work for the president and the American people. There is nothing more important to him.

“I don’t know who Deidre thought she was marrying but anyone who knows Anthony knows he’s an ambitious man.”

The divorce is the second “Trump divorce” in two days.

On Thursday a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader announced that she and her state attorney husband are to divorce, with the president to blame.

Lynn and David Aronberg married two years ago after Mr Aronberg, 46, proposed at the Eiffel Tower.

Now Mrs Aronberg's PR firm, TransMedia, has issued a remarkably personal press release announcing their separation, describing it as a “Trump divorce”.

Mr Aronberg is yet to comment.

Latest failure to repeal Obamacare in the Senate "the beginning of the unravelling" of Republican support for Donald Trump - Independent

US political analysts are calling the latest failure to repeal Obamacare in the Senate "the beginning of the unravelling" of Republican support for Donald Trump.

During a panel discussion on the President’s “skinny repeal bill”, which was voted down by a thin margin of 51-49 after three GOP rebellions led by Senator John McCain, CNN commentator Margaret Hoover warned that “Trump is clearly acting on his own; he’s not listening to anybody.”

Two other Republicans joined Senator McCain, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, on voting no on a bill that critics had warned would have led to the deaths of 20,000 additional people.

In a statement shortly after the results of the vote were announced, the senator for Arizona said: “From the beginning, I have believed that Obamacare should be repealed and replaced with a solution that increases competition, lowers costs, and improves care for the American people. The so-called ‘skinny repeal’ amendment the Senate voted on today would not accomplish those goals.

“While the amendment would have repealed some of Obamacare’s most burdensome regulations, it offered no replacement to actually reform our health care system and deliver affordable, quality health care to our citizens.”

Failure to pass the repeal act demonstrated a “haphazard policy-making process on behalf of the White House,” Ms Hoover added.

In response to the results, Democrat Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts on CNN encouraged the US president to put aside partisanship and work together with Democrats: “We do want to work with Republicans. The Affordable Care Act has to be improved…but we have to do it on a bipartisan basis and hopefully those millions of Americans can sleep easier tonight knowing their healthcare has not been ripped away from them can now look to democrats and republicans finally coming together to make this healthcare system work better.”

The US president’s approval rating has plummeted in the last week following the GOP’s disunited front on the topic of Obamacare, as well as the US president’s criticisms following Attorney General Jeff Sessions' decision to recuse himself.

A Reuters poll conducted on the 24 July, less than a week before the vote on Obamacare found that just 35.1 per cent of GOP party members polled approved of the US president’s work. Over half (58.1 per cent) disapproved, and 4.1 per cent had “mixed feelings.”

Political scientist Matt Glassman echoed these sentiments, telling The New York Times: “The current congressional GOP seems less supportive and more constraining of the Potus than basically any in history.”

The US president has previously expressed exasperation at his party's lack of support, stating on Twitter that: “It’s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President.”

Anthony Scaramucci has already signally failed to restore order at the White House - Independent

Donald Trump’s appointment of Anthony Scaramucci to be his director of communications has brought the chaotic, political fandango inside the White House to a new, dizzying pitch. Characterised by aggressive gestures, passionate yells and frequent missteps, it’s not a dance for the faint of heart. Scaramucci has taken to it with aplomb.

After just a week in the job, the ex-Goldman Sachs man has done what few thought possible by making the White House operation seem more gauche, more bullying and more shambolic than it did already. It is quite an achievement. His latest, unguarded broadsides against Reince “dear friend” Priebus and Steve “one of the smartest people I know” Bannon were so vulgar that the report of his comments on Radio 4’s Today programme was the broadcasting equivalent of an embarrassed blush.

A former financier who helped to raise funds for Barack Obama in 2008, Scaramucci switched sides four years later to back Mitt Romney. No wonder he seems to feel so comfortable stabbing colleagues in the back – or, as he put it in his extraordinarily oily interview with the BBC’s Emily Maitlis, in the front.

Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist, is reported to have said that Scaramucci would get the director of comms job “over my dead body”. Bannon remains alive and kicking, although another prominent Trump staffer, Sean Spicer, was sufficiently angered by the appointment that he decided to fall on his sword – which, as it happens, is a euphemism Radio 4’s finest might have thought fitting to deploy.

Scaramucci’s outburst about Bannon and Priebus came in a phone conversation with the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, who had angered the White House man by tweeting information about who he was dining with (the Trumps, Fox News’s Sean Hannity and ex-Fox executive Bill Shine). That he made the call in the first place shows the degree to which the bulls in the White House cannot stand the reality of not being able to control the media. That he went on to make such extraordinary, profane remarks provides an insight into Scaramucci’s own character; but also into the febrile atmosphere which reigns at the White House. After all, when the man at the helm regularly aims volleys of abuse at all and sundry, why should his first mates not follow suit.

Having slated his colleagues/rivals, Scaramucci dispatched a tweet (natch) indicating that he would pull back from using “colourful language” in the future. But a couple of hours later he was turning his sights on Lizza, tweeting that “I made a mistake in trusting a reporter. It won’t happen again”. The seamless fit with the President’s anti-media narrative will no doubt play well with core supporters.

Indeed, even some who are hardly fans of the President questioned whether Scaramucci’s fruity remarks ought to have been published if he hadn’t known he was talking “on the record”. Frankly, that is absurd. Scaramucci is the White House director of communications, not a media naïf. If he had wanted to talk without fear of being quoted, it was up to him to make clear that was speaking not for publication. It’s not up to a reporter to ask the question in such circumstances.

Scaramucci: Trump sinks 3-foot putts. Official transcript: Trump sinks 30-foot putts

More obviously, Scaramucci could have avoided this latest rumpus by simply not attacking other members of the inner sanctum to a journalist. That he did not restrain himself must at least beg the question of whether he intended his remarks to be reported – and, by extension, whether he had the President’s approval when he made them? With Trump himself seemingly at odds with half of his own appointees – including Priebus – it is almost impossible to know quite what games are being played, or even who is on which side.

Scandal and disorder have never been far from the White House since Trump’s arrival. Appointees come and appointees go; allegations about the administration’s supposed links with Russia rumble on; the rift between the President and the media grows ever wider. To make matters worse, Trump makes little headway on matters of policy. The humiliating failure by Republicans in the senate to repeal Obamacare is the latest blow.

If Scaramucci, part used-car salesman and part playground bully, was brought in to bring order to the chaos (a big if), he has signally failed. Instead, he has brought with him more of the thunderbolts and lightning that already crash around the White House. As an exemplar of professional, political communications it is very, very frightening.

An official with the Boy Scouts of America apologized to the Scouting community on Thursday for the political content of President Donald Trump - CNN News

(CNN)An official with the Boy Scouts of America apologized to the Scouting community on Thursday for the political content of President Donald Trump's speech at the National Scout Jamboree.

"I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree," said Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh. "That was never our intent."

Speaking Monday before about 40,000 Scouts, Trump delivered a speech that would not have been out of place on his campaign or in his tweets.

He slammed the "fake news" media, promoted the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, boasted about his election night victory and called out the Washington "cesspool."

"Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I'm in front of the Boy Scouts," he said, continuing to speak about politics.

Trump also riffed on the Boy Scouts loyalty pledge to criticize those in Washington.

"We could really use some more loyalty, I will tell you that," Trump said.

The speech represented a marked change from prior presidential speeches to the Boy Scouts, which generally discussed values and service rather than partisan issues. A number of former Scouts criticized the nakedly partisan speech, and CNN contributor and retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling said the President "did not provide the proper example" to the crowd of young men.

In his letter, Surbaugh said Trump's speech had overshadowed the rest of the jamboree and its focus on Scouting.

"These character-building experiences have not diminished in recent days at the jamboree -- Scouts have continued to trade patches, climb rock walls, and share stories about the day's adventures," he said. "But for our Scouting family at home not able to see these real moments of Scouting, we know the past few days have been overshadowed by the remarks offered by the President of the United States."

Surbaugh said the invitation to the sitting President to visit the Jamboree is a "longstanding tradition" dating to 1937.

"It is in no way an endorsement of any person, party or policies," Surbaugh said. "For years, people have called upon us to take a position on political issues, and we have steadfastly remained nonpartisan and refused to comment on political matters. We sincerely regret that politics were inserted into the Scouting program.

"While we live in a challenging time in a country divided along political lines, the focus of Scouting remains the same today as every day," he said.

At the press briefing on Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she had not seen the letter yet. She said from her firsthand view the Jamboree was "one of the most energetic crowds" she has seen for Trump.

"I was at that event and I saw nothing but roughly 40-45,000 Boy Scouts cheering the President on throughout his remarks," she said. "I think they were pretty excited that he was there and happy to hear him speak to them."

CNN's Allie Malloy contributed to this report.

White House at war with itself - NBC News

Scaramucci vs. Priebus: A White House at war with itself

Last Updated Jul 27, 2017 6:54 PM EDT

If it wasn't already apparent a war is brewing between new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci and chief of staff Reince Priebus, Scaramucci has now made that clear. 

Scaramucci -- who has threatened to fire his entire communications staff in reaction to White House leaks -- all but accused Priebus of being a leaker in a tweet he posted then deleted late Wednesday night, after Politico reported Scaramucci's financial disclosure information. 

"In light of the leak of my financial info which is a felony. I will be contacting @FBI and the @TheJusticeDept #swamp @Reince45," the now-deleted tweet read. 

Scaramucci didn't end the tough talk there. On CNN's "New Day" Thursday, he again targeted Priebus in relation to leaks. 

"When I put out a tweet and I put Reince's name in a tweet, they're all making the assumption that it's him because journalists know who the leakers are," Scaramucci said on CNN Thursday. "So if Reince wants to explain he's not a leaker, let him do that. But let me tell you about myself. I'm a straight shooter and I'll go right to the heart of the matter."

• Anthony Scaramucci rips Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon in interview

Hours later, incoming press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders coaxed the concept of the rivalry between the two in the press briefing room.

"I think the president as always enjoys healthy competition and conversation and he sees that as such," Sanders said.

Scaramucci exploded onto the White House scene last week, making it clear in his first press briefing he would not only be taking over the communications reins from outgoing press secretary and Priebus ally Sean Spicer, but that he would also have the access and powers normally designated to the chief of staff. He said he reports directly to the president, instead of to Priebus, and wields the authority to fire people.

At the same time, Priebus' presence has seemed to diminish in the White House. But the distance between the two represents more than just "healthy competition," as Sanders coined it. 

Priebus, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, represents the establishment Republican wing brought on in efforts to provide Washington know-how to a president with no experience holding public office. Other RNC allies brought aboard included Spicer and Kate Walsh, former deputy White House chief of staff. They're now gone.

Scaramucci has indicated his allegiance is to the president alone, and he's willing to go to bat for him. Like Mr. Trump, he's a New Yorker. Like Mr. Trump, his past political views don't reflect typical Republican party positions, but Scaramucci said his ideas have since "evolved."