Turns Out The White House Was Behind Ross’ NOAA Threats After All

White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

On President Donald Trump’s orders, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to strong-arm the NOAA into supporting President Donald Trump’s baseless insistence that Alabama was in Hurricane Dorian’s path.

Trump had been complaining about a tweet from the Birmingham, Alabama National Weather Service office correcting his false statements for days, according to the Washington Post. 

That griping led Mulvaney to press Ross to obtain a public disavowal of the Birmingham statement from acting NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs, as first reported by the New York Times.

Ross reportedly called Jacobs on Friday and threatened him and other political staffers with termination should they not obey. Later that day, an unsigned statement went up on the NOAA website criticizing the Birmingham office for speaking in “absolute terms.”

After news broke that Commerce Department Inspector General Peggy Gustafson was looking into the unsigned statement, Senate Democrats wrote her to specifically ask that she see if White House officials were directly involved.

Latest News

Notable Replies

  1. So Mulvaney gets Employee of the Month, and it’s only September 11!

  2. Category 5 shit storm continues to buffet our nation.

    The psychological landscape of our country looks much like Abaco Island.

  3. Is there any rational person who didn’t already know this?

  4. Gee, what a shock…

  5. Trump will deny it and call it fake news. Than at the next campaign rally, he’ll brag about how he forced the NOAA to do his bidding. Then at a subsequent press conference when pressed on his campaign rally admission, he’ll say he was just kidding.

    Trump at a campaign rally, “I says Mulvaney, we can’t have the NOAA saying this stuff. I told Mulvaney to get over there and threaten their jobs. And the NOAA recanted. Boy did they recant”.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

132 more replies

Participants

Avatar for valgalky23 Avatar for heart Avatar for xpurg8d Avatar for bobatkinson Avatar for commiedearest Avatar for krusher Avatar for steviedee111 Avatar for george_spiggott Avatar for losamigos Avatar for irasdad Avatar for inversion Avatar for danny Avatar for lastroth Avatar for stradivarius50t3 Avatar for sfaw Avatar for edhedh Avatar for rickjones Avatar for katscherger Avatar for the_loan_arranger Avatar for kenga Avatar for mtw Avatar for anothertpmreader Avatar for randome Avatar for emiliano4

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: