So you assumed Trump assembles a group of knowledgeable experts to discuss policy. Wrong. He assembles his e Peet’s and calls on commentator Lou Dobbs of FOX News to tell them what to do.

Trump should stop pretending and put Hannity, Dobbs, Pirro, and other FOX hosts into his Cabinet.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/hardline-views-made-lou-dobbs-a-fox-powerhouse-now-hes-shaping-trumps-border-policy/2019/04/26/cb8ebd6c-5fa4-11e9-bfad-36a7eb36cb60_story.html

”One day in mid-March, President Trump gathered his top economic team at the White House to get its read on the state of the nation’s financial health.

“But before the Council of Economic Advisers finished its annual get-together with the nation’s chief executive, a basso profundo voice thundered into the room via speakerphone. With the council sitting by, Trump had placed a call to his unofficial policy whisperer — Lou Dobbs, the Fox Business Network host. The call ushered Dobbs into a traditionally private gathering, shielded from the media and investors eager to get a crystal-ball view of what lies ahead.

“The Dobbs-Trump mind meld on display that day is emblematic of a White House where the unusual has become the norm. Day by day, the relationship between the bombastic president and the cranky anchorman has become an object of curiosity and amusement. But it is also something much more profound.

”An echo chamber on ideology and policy has evolved; Trump often takes steps urged by Dobbs, such as declaring a national emergency to pay for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, pushing out Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and pulling back from a proposed cessation of the trade war with China.

“Born just nine months apart, the 70-somethings share a penchant for schoolyard-style name-calling, grumbling about enemies seen and unseen, an apocalyptic view of illegal immigration and a deep embrace of hair-color shades not found in the natural world.

“Dobbs and Trump, among the most vocal border hawks in recent American history, also both happen to be married to women with recent immigrant heritages. First lady Melania Trump emigrated from Slovenia, and Dobbs’s wife, former CNN sports reporter Debi Lee Segura, is from a family with Mexican American roots.

”In public, Trump and Dobbs have engaged in a kind of lovefest. In a much-discussed October 2017 interview of Trump, Dobbs gushed, “You have accomplished so much” in his introduction and signed off by adding, “You are, if I may say, everything as advertised as you ran for president.” A left-leaning columnist dubbed the sit-down “a masterpiece of sycophancy.”

“Trump, in turn, typically refers to the television host as “The Great Lou Dobbs.” At the New Year’s Eve gala at Mar-a-Lago two months later, the president asked Dobbs to stand and be recognized: “I just wanted to tell you, you are fantastic and we appreciate it,” Trump said…

”Managing Dobbs can be treacherous. Former deputy White House chief of staff Bill Shine, a onetime top Fox News executive, strained to reassure Dobbs that Trump would follow through on promises to take dramatic immigration measures. A White House official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Trump grew frustrated with Shine as Dobbs carried on with monologues saying Trump was not taking a hard enough line on immigration.

“The president noticed that, and that was the start of Bill’s problems, in some ways,” the official said.

“The firebrand anchor was pushing for quick action.

“This is the president of the United States,” Dobbs told his audience in January. “He says a wall should be built. That it’s a national emergency. At that point the nation should rally behind him.”

“A month later, Dobbs got his wish: the president declared a national emergency.

“Shine, in office for just eight months, was out of a job before the national emergency went to a vote in Congress.

“Even after the national emergency declaration, Dobbs was grumpy. He set his sights on Nielsen, the beleaguered DHS secretary, who’d managed to anger immigrant advocates who thought she was too tough and the president who was pushing her to be tougher.

“In early March, Dobbs was asking, “Why doesn’t Trump fire Kirstjen Nielsen?”

“Within weeks Nielsen was announcing her resignation.

“Many Trump allies say Dobbs’s repeated criticism of Nielsen, more than anything else, made her position untenable in the administration.

“Think about it,” said one ally who works closely with the administration on immigration and requested anonymity to speak candidly. “Every night at 7 p.m. on Fox you’re getting slammed by Lou as the president watches.”