Politics

Report: Kelly Is Blocking Negative Amnesty Coverage From Trump

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Alex Pfeiffer White House Correspondent
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President Donald Trump’s embrace of amnesty is in part due to White House chief of staff John Kelly blocking negative coverage from the president, according to a Friday report from Axios.

Trump has reversed his stance from the campaign trail and asked Congress last week to “legalize” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty program that protects roughly 800,000 illegal immigrants. The reaction has been negative from conservative commentators and news outlets.

Trump has paid attention to outlets like Breitbart and The Daily Caller in office, which have been highlighting Trump’s flip-flop, two sources who speak with the president told The Daily Caller. However, a recent report from The New York Times said that Kelly has started to take TheDC and Breitbart stories out of Trump’s pile of media reports.

This is part of Kelly’s new regime in which there is more control over the flow of information to Trump. Axios’ Friday report noted: “Instead of being able to march into the Oval Office and hand Trump the latest Breitbart headline or printouts of tweets showing how badly his amnesty drive is playing with his fiercest nationalist supporters, aides opposing the decision would now have to go through the Kelly process, which would involve submitting an official, documented, request to meet with the president.”

White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who used to work for Trump critic Sen. Mike Lee, manages Trump’s news clips and briefing materials, according to the Axios report.