Tag Archives: Swearing in

Trump praises new chief of staff for avoiding controversy

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with John Kelly after he was sworn in as White House Chief of Staff in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 31, 2017.

By Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump swore in his new chief of staff John Kelly on Monday, a retired Marine Corps general who he praised for averting controversy during his tenure overseeing border security issues at the Department of Homeland Security.

Kelly is expected to bring a more disciplined approach to running Trump’s White House. He replaced Reince Priebus, who failed to mesh with the president’s freewheeling and untraditional management style and grappled with infighting during his six months in the job.

Trump praised Kelly for his work at the DHS, crediting him with reducing the number of people illegally crossing the southern U.S. border, and implementing a travel ban for refugees and people from a group of Muslim majority countries.

“He will do a spectacular job, I have no doubt, as chief of staff,” the Republican president said in brief remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, surrounded by his senior advisers, after Kelly was sworn in.

“With a very controversial situation, there’s been very little controversy, which is really amazing by itself,” Trump said.

Trump announced last Friday that Kelly would replace Priebus, at the end of a particularly chaotic week that saw his first legislative effort – healthcare reform – fail in Congress.

The last week heightened concerns in Trump’s party that the distractions and West Wing dysfunction would derail other legislative priorities, including tax reform and debt ceiling negotiations.

Trump pointed to the buoyant stock market and low unemployment rate as signs that his White House was working well. “No WH chaos!” he tweeted on Monday.

Asked by reporters what Kelly would do differently, Trump brushed aside concerns.

“We’re doing very well, we have a tremendous base, we have a tremendous group of support. The country is optimistic, and I think the general will just add to it,” he said.

 

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Frances Kerry)

 

Trump’s pick Gorsuch sworn in, restoring top court’s conservative tilt

Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts (C) looks on as Judge Neil Gorsuch (R) signs the constitutional oath during swearing-in ceremony at the Supreme Court in Washington, U.S.

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Neil Gorsuch, picked by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Republican-led Senate, was sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court justice at the White House on Monday and was poised to have an instant impact on a court once again dominated by conservatives.

Trump earned the biggest political victory of his presidency and fulfilled a major campaign promise when the Senate voted on Friday to confirm the conservative federal appeals court judge from Colorado to the lifetime job despite vehement Democratic opposition. With Gorsuch aboard, the court once again has five conservative justices and four liberals.

Gorsuch took his judicial oath in a White House Rose Garden ceremony with Trump watching on, filling a vacancy that lingered for nearly 14 months after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016. The oath was administered by Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom Gorsuch worked as a clerk as a young lawyer. Gorsuch will become the first justice to serve alongside a former boss.

All the other members of the court were at the ceremony, including liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who called Trump “a faker” last year during the presidential campaign but later said she regretted the remark. Trump at the time called on her to resign and said her “mind is shot.”

Scalia’s widow, Maureen, also attended the ceremony.

Gorsuch earlier in the day took his separate constitutional oath, administered by Chief Justice John Roberts, in a private ceremony at the Supreme Court with the other justices.

Trump made Gorsuch, 49, the youngest Supreme Court nominee since Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1991 selected Clarence Thomas, who was then 43. Gorsuch could be expected to serve for decades, and Trump could make further appointments to the high court to make it even more solidly conservative, with three of the eight justices 78 or older: Ginsburg, 84; fellow liberal Stephen Breyer, 78; and conservative swing vote Kennedy, 80.

Gorsuch will take part in the court’s next round of oral arguments, starting on April 17. They include a closely watched religious rights case on April 19 in which a Missouri church is objecting to being frozen out of state funds for a playground project due to a state ban on providing public money to religious organizations.

He is expected to take part in oral arguments in 13 cases during the court’s current term, which ends in June.

Gorsuch can be expected to have have an immediate impact of the court. He takes part on Thursday in the justices’ private conference to decide which cases to take up. Appeals are pending before the justices on expanding gun rights to include carrying concealed firearms in public, state voting restrictions that critics say are aimed at reducing minority turnout, and letting Christian business owners object on religious grounds to providing gay couples certain services.

Gorsuch could also play a vital role in some cases on which his new colleagues may have been split 4-4 along ideological lines and therefore did not yet decide. Those cases potentially could be reargued in the court’s next term, which starts in October.

Gorsuch’s wife, Louise, and his two daughters were also present at the private constitutional oath ceremony at the court, said Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg. Louise Gorsuch held a family Bible as her husband took the oath, Arberg said.

The Senate, which last year refused to consider Democratic former President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, voted 54-45 to confirm Gorsuch.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)