President Trump reportedly took badgering to a new — and very literal — level when working with Reince Priebus.Before his brief tenure as Trump’s chief of staff, Priebus grew up in Wisconsin, went to college there, and eventually became the chair of its Republican party. Trump apparently found Priebus’ badger background especially interesting, and he often spent meetings questioning Priebus about Wisconsin’s official animal, The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng report in their forthcoming book Sinking in the Swamp.Trump was apparently reminded early in Priebus’ tenure that “the short-legged omnivore was practically synonymous with the Badger State,” and then would “make a point of bringing it up at seemingly random occasions,” Markay and Suebsaeng write in an excerpt of the book published by Business Insider. Trump also reportedly asked Priebus “Are they mean to people? Or are they friendly creatures?” on at least two occasions, inquired if Priebus had any pictures of badgers, and then asked if Priebus could explain just how badgers “work.”This apparently happened during several policy meetings, and all the while Priebus could be seen “trying to gently veer the conversation back to whether we were going to do a troop surge in Afghanistan or strip millions of Americans of health-care coverage,” Sinking in the Swamp continues. Read the whole excerpt at Business Insider.More stories from theweek.com How the Army could end Vindman’s career without an investigation 8 Republicans join Democrats in vote to limit Trump’s military powers in Iran Brokered convention gets close 2nd place in FiveThirtyEight’s Democratic nomination forecast
