Think Tankers "Hope They'll be Rescued" From Their Jobs

This is from the opening of a new piece on Brookings Institution scholar and former Trump Administration official Fiona Hill that was penned by New Yorker writer Adam Entous:

The Brookings Institution is one of many think tanks in Washington, D.C., where scholars and bureaucrats sit in quiet offices and wait by the phone. They write op-eds and books, give talks and convene seminars, hoping that, when reputations falter or Administrations shift, they will be rescued from the life of opining and contemplation and return to the adrenaline rush and consequence of government. Nearly always, the yearning is to be inside. Strobe Talbott, who became the president of Brookings in 2002, served in Bill Clinton’s Administration as his leading Russia expert, and he was rumored to be on the shortlist for Hillary Clinton’s Secretary of State. Others, too, may have expected a call. But, after Donald Trump was elected, only one prominent Brookings stalwart was summoned, and her story became emblematic of all those in Washington who entered the Administration full of trepidation but hoping to be a “normalizing” influence on a distinctly abnormal President.

Former managing director at Brookings, William Antholis, said he was "deeply offended" by the line about being "rescued" from life at a think tank.

Think Tank Watch's favorite line from the New Yorker piece:  "After Trump’s victory, the mood at Brookings was funereal."

After her stint within the Trump Administration, Hill returned to Brookings where she is currently a Senior Fellow in the Center for on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy Program.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece about Hill.

Marie Yovanovitch to Join Foreign Affairs Think Tank

Here is more from Politico:

Marie Yovanovitch is joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program. Yovanovitch will primarily be working on her book while there.

Yovanovitch is a recently-retired US diplomat whose abrupt removal by President Trump from her post as ambassador to Ukraine became a focus of impeachment hearings. William Burns, President of Carnegie, has defended her on numerous occasions.

She is also a Senior State Department Fellow at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.

Volker Resigns as Head of McCain Institute

Here is more from Politico:

Kurt Volker, the president’s former special envoy to Ukraine, has stepped down from yet another post, his executive directorship of the McCain Institute, amid the fallout from House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

Volker resigned from his role at the State Department a little over a week ago, and his resignation as the head of the D.C.-based think tank came days after he appeared as Democrats’ first witness in their widening impeachment probe, turning over damaging text messages that appeared to undermine President Donald Trump’s claims that he did not seek to pressure Ukraine into investigating his political opponents.

In a statement released Monday announcing his departure, Volker specifically referenced the growing Ukraine scandal and the ensuing media frenzy. 

“Today, I informed ASU President Crow and Mrs. McCain that I believe the recent media focus on my work as U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations risks becoming a distraction from the accomplishments and continued growth of the Institute, and therefore I am stepping down as Executive Director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership,” he said, referring to the wife of the late Sen. John McCain, for whom the think tank was founded, and the president of Arizona State University, which is a partner of the institute. 

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on Volker and the McCain Institute.

According to CNN, Volker told staff at the Institute last week that he had no plans to resign.

In a statement, Cindy McCain said the executive committee of the trustees has asked Fran Townsend to serve as trustee representative of the think tank to coordinate the transition to a new executive director.  In the meantime, Nick Rasmussen has been asked by ASU leadership to serve as acting executive director.

Think Tankers Who Signed "Never Trump" Letters Remain Shut Out of Trump Administration

Here is more from the Washington Post:

Two and a half years into President Trump’s tenure, the Republican national security heavyweights blacklisted from his administration for signing a pair of “never Trump” letters in 2016 face a crossroads — remain opposed or support him in 2020.

While some have become prominent figures of the anti-Trump resistance — denouncing him in op-eds and on cable news — others have offered policy advice from outside perches, and a select few have quietly, though mostly unsuccessfully, angled for administration jobs, hopeful that a mea culpa could end their days in purgatory.

“I’m not comfortable with letters anymore,” said Patrick Cronin, head of the Asia-Pacific security program at the Hudson Institute, who signed the first letter, which called Trump “fundamentally dishonest” and “utterly unfitted to the office.” In March 2017, Cronin was forced to withdraw from a new position overseeing a Pentagon think tank after Trump allies blasted his appointment by then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

Of the 149 experts who signed at least one of the two letters warning that Trump was unfit for office — the first published on the War on the Rocks website during the 2016 GOP primaries and the second on the New York Times’s site during the general election campaign — just one has been hired by the Trump administration. James Jeffrey, a Middle East expert who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, was named the State Department’s special representative for Syria last summer and in January was given the additional role of special envoy to counter the Islamic State.

A number of think tankers recently divided themselves on China policy, with some supporting President Trump's policies and tactics and others calling for a new strategy.

Could VP's Upcoming Wilson Center Speech Sink a US-China Deal?

Here is more from Bloomberg:

Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech last year that sounded a lot like a new Cold War with China and quickly became one of the most important on Sino-U.S. relations by an American official in recent years. Next Monday, June 24, he’s giving another at the Wilson Center, a talk originally planned for June 4, the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. There’s a risk that an overly hawkish tone just days before the G-20 could cause Beijing to recoil and jeopardize any hope of a substantive leaders’ meeting.

The speech referred to above was given by Pence in October 2018 at the Hudson Institute, a think tank that has become a major anti-China platform.

Update: The speech has been postponed again.

Scholars Try to Block Kirstjen Nielsen from Think Tank Post

Here is more from Vox:

Kirstjen Nielsen is out of a job. Now some scholars want to make sure she doesn’t get a new one — at least, not anywhere near them.

A handful of scholars and media figures have signed a petition, written on Monday by George Washington University political scientist Henry Farrell, vowing not to “associate myself in any way” with any think tank or university department that employs the homeland security secretary, who resigned on Sunday.

It’s pretty typical for former administration officials to take jobs in the American intelligentsia: Two former Trump allies have landed at Harvard alone. But Farrell and his allies think Nielsen shouldn’t get this kind of soft landing in the intellectual class. The harsh immigration policies she instituted — most infamously the “zero tolerance” policy that led to thousands of family separations at the border — are, in their view, morally intolerable.

Here is a link to the petition, which has around 200 signatories so far.  Dr. Henry Farrell, who started the petition, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Here is a recent piece by Charles Pierce of Esquire entitled "Kirstjen Nielsen Will Have a Book Deal and a Think Tank Job Before You Can Say 'Kids in Cages.'"

Japanese Government Funding More Japan Chairs at Think Tanks

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is making an intense push to fund more Japan Chairs at think tanks in the US and Europe as is seeks to influence Western allies.

In March, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) announced the establishment of a new full-time Senior Fellow for Japanese Studies who will be based at the think tank's London headquarters.  The position, which has not yet been filled (job ad here), was created through a multi-million dollar donation from the government of Japan.

In the United States, the Hudson Institute is also launching a Japan Chair, with President Donald Trump's former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster to be the new chair.

Some of the people spotted in attendance at a launch event for Hudson's Japan Chair, according to Politico, include:

H.R. McMaster, Ken Weinstein, Matt Pottinger, Patrick Cronin, Mike Pillsbury, Scooter Libby, Jim Carafano, Leslie Schweitzer, Francesca Craig, Dave Lawler, Zeke Miller, Josh Rogin, Halley Toosi and Steve Herman.

In 2018, after being pushed out of the Trump Administration, McMaster returned to Stanford's Hoover Institution.  McMaster had his first stint at Hoover in 2002 as a national security affairs fellow and then served as a visiting fellow from 2003 to 2017.

He has also been a Consulting Senior Fellow at IISS.  Conservatives launched numerous attacks (see here, here, and here) for his affiliation with the UK-based think tank.  Dr. Patrick Cronin, who holds Hudson's Asia-Pacific Security Chair, formerly served as Director of Studies at IISS.  Cronin recently left the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) to join Hudson.

The largest and most influential Japan Chair is at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).  It is run by Dr. Michael Green, former Senior Director for Asia at the National Security Council (NSC).

In 2018, Hudson hosted more than 115 events in Washington, DC, including a major China speech by Vice President Mike Pence.  Hudson also says its experts penned 446 op-eds in major newspapers in 2018.

Last year, Hudson had total revenues of $17.5 million.  Of that, 40% came from individuals, 30% from foundations, 12% from corporations, 11% from endowment distributions, and 7% from governments.

Besides the government of Japan, other Japanese donors to Hudson include: All Nippon Airways (ANA), The Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), Mitsui Corporation, and Hitachi.

Non-Japanese donors to the think tank include the Government of Denmark, MacArthur Foundation, Microsoft, Rupert Murdoch, Northrop Grumman, Oracle, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), Boeing, and Ford Motor.

Besides think tanks, the Japanese government has also given generously to various US colleges and universities in recent years, including $5 million each to Georgetown, Columbia, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

White House Working on Secret Health Care Plan With 3 Think Tanks

Here is more from the Washington Examiner:

The White House is quietly working on a healthcare policy proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter.

While it is not clear how far along the process is, work on a proposal has been going on for months. The effort appears to belie criticism that Trump's decision to restart the debate on healthcare, an issue Democrats used to their advantage in the 2018 midterms, was an error committed without forethought.

The analyst said the administration has been “having conversations” on healthcare policy and has reached out to numerous think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, the Mercatus Center, and the Hoover Institute.

And in related healthcare news, Scott Gottlieb, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), recently announced that he would be returning to his old think tank, American Enterprise Institute (AEI).  He reportedly plans to focus on drug prices and will commute to Washington, DC around six days per month.

H.R. McMaster Returns to Hoover Institution

Here is more from the Wall Street Journal:

H.R. McMaster, pushed out in April as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, is joining Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, where he hopes to develop bipartisan national security ideas.

Mr. McMaster, who struggled to retain influence in the fractious White House, said, as a senior fellow, he hopes his work can influence national security policy as the U.S. works to combat rising threats from rivals such as Russia and China.

While working at Hoover, Mr. McMaster said he also is planning to write a book. But those looking for a tell-all tale of West Wing intrigue are likely to be disappointed. Mr. McMaster said he plans to write a substantive book about national security.

Mr. McMaster first worked at Hoover in 2002 as a national security affairs fellow and then served as a visiting fellow from 2003 to 2017. He will now become the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow, a post commemorating the Middle East scholar who was friends with Mr. McMaster.

It was already expected that McMaster would return to think tank land.  Here is a Think Tank Watch post about conservatives attacking McMaster for his previous think tank work.

White House Visitor Logs Show Lots of Think Tank Visits

Here is more from Politico:

President Donald Trump has kept White House visitor logs under wraps after eight years of transparency from President Barack Obama, but beginning this week voters will get a peek, at least, at the comings and goings on campus, POLITICO’s Lorraine Woellert reports. The Secret Service released a set of heavily redacted visitor logs Wednesday as part of a legal settlement between the Trump administration and watchdog group Public Citizen, which had sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain records of four agencies housed inside the White House compound: the offices of Management and Budget, Science and Technology Policy and National Drug Control Policy, and the Council on Environmental Quality.

The logs track visitors for the month of February, which included conservative think-tank types Myron Ebell and Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation and Jim Tozzi of the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness. Trump administration loyalist C. Boyden Gray dropped in twice to chat with Mark Paoletta, the former veep chief counsel who’s now at OMB. Ellen Lurie Hoffman of the National Housing Trust paid a visit to OMB’s civil service wing.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch post about how more than 125 Trump staffers have come from think tanks.

New Study: At least 125 Trump Staffers Came from Think Tanks

A new study by ProPublica found that at least 125 Trump Administration cabinet members, staffers, and political appointees have come from think tanks and other policy-focused nonprofits.  Here is a breakdown of the more well-known think tanks and number of staffers who now work for Trump:

• Heritage Foundation: 25
• American Enterprise Institute (AEI): 11
• Hudson Institute: 4
• Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI): 3
• Hoover Institution: 3
• Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): 3
• Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC): 3
• Brookings Institution: 2
• Manhattan Institute: 2
• Cato Institute: 1
• R Street Institute: 1
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: 1
• Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA): 1

Think Tank Watch keeps its own internal list which shows that there are even more think tankers than the ones listed who have helped the Trump team.  ["Only" around 60 people total have come from more well-known, "traditional" think tanks, based on our analysis of ProPublica's count.]

In January, the Heritage Foundation said that approximately 70 of its former employees have worked for the Trump transition team or as part of the administration.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece about the influence of the Heritage Foundation on President Trump, whose administration has adopted 64 percent of the think tank's recommended agenda.

Climate-Change-Skeptical Think Tank Stacking Deck at EPA?

A handful of small but influential think tanks continue to play a major role in the Trump Administration as it continues to staff up and fill various government boards and commissions.

Here is more from The Washington Post:

People who have questioned aspects of mainstream climate research appear on a list of 132 possible candidates for positions on EPA’s influential Science Advisory Board, which the agency has opened for public comment until September 28. The board currently has 47 members, but 15 have terms ending in September and could be replaced by some of the candidates.

Several of the candidates are affiliated with the Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based conservative think tank with a long history of questioning various aspects of climate change science. E&E News reported that it had suggested a number of the names.

“We applaud any effort by Administrator Pruitt to bring qualified non-alarmist scientists onto the EPA’s advisory boards,” Heartland spokesman Jim Lakely told the publication.

One Heartland-affiliated scientist who is now a candidate for the EPA board is meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo, a co-founder of the Weather Channel and currently chief forecaster with WeatherBELL Analytics LLC. D’Aleo was one of 13 scientists who submitted an amicus brief in litigation over the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, challenging the agency’s science, including its key finding that atmospheric carbon dioxide, by driving climate change, endangers human health and welfare.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post about the Heartland Institute.

Update: Here is a new E&E News post which says that the EPA asked the Heartland Institute for experts who question climate science.

Conservatives Attack McMaster for Work at Think Tank

Here is more from the conservative news site Breitbart:

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster served at a UK-based think tank financed by a controversial, George Soros-funded group identified by the Obama White House as central in helping to sell the Iran nuclear deal to the public and news media.

From September 2006 to February 2017, McMaster is listed as a member of International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), where he served as consulting senior fellow.  The IISS describes itself as a “world-leading authority on global security, political risk and military conflict.”

The IISS has been supportive of the Obama administration-brokered 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, and the group has repeatedly hit back against charges that Tehran has violated the agreement.

McMaster himself has been accused of purging the National Security Council of hardliners on Iran, and he is seen as a leading proponent of the Iran nuclear accord within the Trump administration. He has reportedly urged the White House to recertify Iran’s compliance with the Iran nuclear deal.

IISS’s website contains a list of groups, corporations and government entities that provide funding to the think tank, including during the period of McMaster’s work there. Curiously missing from the page of donors, however, is the controversial Ploughshares Fund, a grantmaking group identified last year by the Obama White House as central in helping to market the Iran nuclear deal to the news media.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece on McMasters' various connections to think tanks.

Comey Shared Secrets with Brookings Institution Scholar

A variety of think tank scholars are friends with people in high places, allowing them to gain access to secrets about the internal workings of the White House and broader US government.  Here is an example from The New York Times:

Mr. Comey has spoken privately of his concerns that the contacts from Mr. Trump and his aides were inappropriate, and how he felt compelled to resist them.

“He had to throw some brushback pitches to the administration,” Benjamin Wittes, a friend of Mr. Comey’s, said in interviews.

Mr. Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, the editor in chief of the Lawfare blog and a frequent critic of Mr. Trump, recalls a lunch he had with Mr. Comey in March at which Mr. Comey told him he had spent the first two months of Mr. Trump’s administration trying to preserve distance between the F.B.I. and the White House and educating it on the proper way to interact with the bureau.

Mr. Wittes said he never intended to publicly discuss his conversations with Mr. Comey. But after The New York Times reported earlier this month that shortly after his inauguration Mr. Trump asked Mr. Comey for a loyalty pledge, Mr. Wittes said he saw Mr. Trump’s behavior in a “more menacing light” and decided to speak out.

Here is Benjamin Wittes post in Lawfare entitled "What James Comey Told Me About Donald Trump."  Here is a link to PBS Newshour's interview with Wittes, in which he notes that he is a longtime friend of Comey but not among his closest friends or one of his intimate advisors.  He also said that they "periodically" have lunch.

Besides being editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings, Mr. Wittes is also co-chair of the Hoover Institution's Working Group on National Security, Technology, and Law.

And for longtime readers of Think Tank Watch, you may remember that Mr. Wittes was a part of the highly esteemed Brookings Fight Club.

Feds Turning to Heritage Report to See if Job Will Survive Cuts

Just as Greeks used to go to the Oracle of Delphi to have their questions answered, federal employees are turning to a modern-day Pythia in a think tank report to have their most pressing question answered: "Will I have a job tomorrow?"

Due to promised cuts in the federal government by the Trump Administration, many people who work in the executive branch are nervously wondering whether or not they will have a job when they wake up.  To divine insights, they are reading a wonky report from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with close ties to the Trump Administration, that may provide some answers.

Here is more from The Washington Post:

Some people are tweaking their résumés or thinking about retirement. But most are waiting to see whether the news from the White House really is as bad as they fear and if so, whether Congress will come to the rescue. For now, they are reading the tea leaves on cable television. And they are poring over the recommendations of the conservative Heritage Foundation, which the administration is leaning on for guidance.

Heritage’s list contains several agencies targeted not just for downsizing but elimination, including one that provides financial assistance to rural businesses, the International Trade Administration, and the Legal Services Corporation.

To the president and his supporters who see a bloated bureaucracy with lots of duplication and rules that choke jobs, the budget cuts are a necessary first step to make government run more efficiently.

The above-mentioned Heritage report that everyone is poring over, "Blueprint for Reform: A Comprehensive Policy Agenda for a New Administration in 2017," can be found here.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece on that report, which may be 2017's most influential think tank document, along with this one, also from Heritage.

Politico: Heritage's Cozy Relationship With Trump Put to Test

Is the Heritage Foundation, a think tank which helped transition Donald Trump into the White House, turning into Donald Trump's worst nightmare?

Here  is more from Politico:

The Heritage Foundation has been cozying up to top White House aides and congressional leaders for months, hoping to put its conservative imprint on President Donald Trump’s policy agenda. But the first major bill that Republicans proposed — to repeal and replace Obamacare — runs completely afoul of Heritage’s priorities and threatens to upend a critical relationship between conservative activists and the Trump administration.

Now the 44-year-old think tank must decide whether to stay in the administration’s good graces by compromising some of its core values to get things done or embrace its long-standing reputation as a political bomb-thrower.

What’s happening at The Heritage Foundation is a revealing example of the path the group has taken from conservative rabble-rouser to insider. And it’s a test of how conservatives in the Trump era cope with being part of the establishment.

Heritage Action, the 501(c)(4) associated with the foundation, quickly bashed the bill on Tuesday, calling it “bad politics and, more importantly, bad policy.” Former Sen. Jim DeMint, Heritage Foundation president, is slated to go to the White House later Wednesday to discuss the bill with Trump, according to a Heritage source, part of Trump’s broader push to win over conservative groups.

And health care will not be the last fissure between Heritage and the administration. DeMint has been quietly working behind the scenes for months to kill policy proposals that depart from Heritage’s conservative values.

Even with all the disagreements and likely future disagreements, Politico notes that the Heritage Foundation is "closer to Trump world than any other administration since that of Ronald Reagan."

The article also notes that Heritage President Jim DeMint "strongly encouraged" the think tank's staff to work for Trump's transition, without taking leave from the think tank.  That has led to a number of Heritage staffers being hired by the Trump Administration.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch piece on how the think tank's fingerprints are all over the White House budget.

Trump Chooses Another Think Tanker for Top Security Post

President Donald Trump continues to rely on think tankers for his top ranks in the Administration, and his newest pick for the National Security Adviser post, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, is a longtime think tanker.

McMaster was a National Security Affairs Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2002-2003, and is a Visiting Fellow at the think tank, which is housed within Stanford University.  His think tank writings can be found here.

McMaster is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and was formerly a Senior Consulting Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.

He has also given speeches at a number of other think tanks, including this 2013 event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), this 2014 event there, and another one at that think tank in 2016.

Here is a statement from Hoover Director Tom Gilligan on the appointment of McMaster to the Trump Administration.

McMaster is not the only one from Hoover who now has a top post in the Trump Administration.  For example, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was also affiliated with the think tank.

Democratic Powerhouse Think Tank Faces Uncertain Future

The liberal think tank Center for American Progress (CAP) has some soul-searching to do.

Here is more from National Journal:

As CAP and its sister advocacy group, the CAP Action Fund, dig in for battle, their role and stature on the Left are less certain after the embarrassing failure of a presidential campaign so closely associated with the group’s past and current leadership. The organization is deeply tied to the Clinton orbit and the Democratic establishment more broadly, and was widely thought to be a staging ground for a future Hillary Clinton White House. CAP founder and former president John Podesta was the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, served as chief of staff in her husband’s White House, and was an adviser to President Obama.

CAP's current position in think tank land is very different from that of its arch nemesis, the Heritage Foundation.  Here is a recent Wall Street Journal piece on Heritage's new clout, and a Politico piece on how Heritage is a "driving force" as Trump staffs up.

Here is a Politico piece on how CAP is focusing on its anti-Trump efforts.  Here is a CNN piece on CAP's "reorganization" efforts in the new Trump era.

Here is CAP Action Fund's "Trump Transition Tracker" - a digital guide to resisting Trump.

Think Tank Revolving Door Spinning Fast in New Trump Era

Top officials from the Obama Administration are being scooped up by powerhouse Washington think tanks, while the Trump Administration continues to bring in (and consider) a number of think tank scholars.  Some recent examples include:

• Jason Furman, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) in the Obama Administration, who has just joined the Peterson Institute of International Economics (PIIE) as a Senior Fellow.

• Michael Froman, the US Trade Representative (USTR) under President Obama, has joined the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) as a Distinguished Fellow. 

• Penny Pritzker, the former US Secretary of Commerce under President Obama, is joining the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

• Mark Calabria, Director of Financial Regulation Studies at the Cato Institute, has been hired as Vice President Mike Pence's chief economist.

• Kevin Hassett, Director of Research for Domestic Policy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is reportedly on the short list to chair the CEA, a position that now has diminished stature.

• Paula Dobriansky, who sits on the Board of Directors at Atlantic Council, is being considered for the position of Deputy Secretary of State.  [Elliott Abrams, a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at CFR, and John Bolton, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), had been in the running for the No. 2 slot at State but that idea was nixed a few days ago.] 

As CNBC has noted, economists are visibly missing in Trump's Cabinet.  Are Trump supporters killing off Trump's connection to think tanks?  Does the White House even need think tanks if they are starting their own internal think tank?

Trump Supporters to Kill Off Traditional Think Tanks?

The Trump White House is forming a new internal think tank, but there is also a movement by Trump supporters and "alt-right" types to completely change Washington's think tank landscape.  Here is more from Politico:

The "new-right" (known until recently as the "alt-right") is now enjoying something of a moment...disdaining the traditional Washington think tanks as passe, they're taking aim straight at America's sense of its own identity, with plans for "culture tanks" to produce movies that make anti-immigrant conservatism look cool, and advocacy arms that resemble BuzzFeed more than the Heritage Foundation.  They talk elliptically about internet memes replacing white papers as currency of the policy realm, pushed out by "social media strike forces" trained in the ways of fourth-generation, insurgency-style warfare.

For a movement that feeds on outsider energy, its members already enjoy surprising access to the inside of the incoming White House.  [Milo] Yiannopoulos' official title is technology editor of Breitbart, the website formerly run by top Trump adviser Steve Bannon, with whom both Yiannopoulos and internet troll Charles Johnson say they keep in touch.  Yiannopoulos and Johnson also both say they know Trump's most influential megadonor, Rebekah Mercer.

The article goes on to quote Richard Spencer, the president of the "think tank" National Policy Institute, who said that his policy shop, currently based in Arlington, Virginia, could eventually take over the Cato Institute's space in downtown Washington, DC.  "Maybe Cato will go under.  Maybe we'll take over that facility."

The issue of the death of think tanks is getting so much attention that the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, which has extremely close ties to the Trump Administration, will be hosting an event on that very subject next month.