US President Donald Trump's communications director Mike Dubke has quit after just three months on the job. Photo / AP
US President Donald Trump's communications director Mike Dubke has quit after just three months on the job. Photo / AP
Just three months after being hired to revamp Donald Trump's problematic public profile, his public relations director - Mike Dubke - has quit.
Mr Dubke is a high-profile and experienced Republican party strategist. His departure comes amid a "reshuffle" of the White House communications unit - including proposals to conduct fewer open and on-camera press briefings.
It comes as new reports suggest that Russian officials were "bragging" about gaining leverage with Donald Trump's inner circle during his election campaign.
Mike Dubke was supposed to take some of the heat off of the much-maligned Sean Spicer. Photo / Mike Dubke Facebook
Mr Trump, of course, took to Twitter to denounce "fake news" around the subject while also taking a swipe at Germany over the US' trade deficit with the European country.
At the time of Mr Dubke's appointment, US media reported internal discontent among the Trump camp that Mr Dubke had won the top job.
Their argument was that a veteran from the campaign trail would have been better suited to the prestigious, but high-pressure, role of communications director.
It is being reported that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer will keep his job.
The appointment, which was supposed to help take the heat off of the much-maligned Mr Spicer, did little to quell the mounting chaos among Mr Trump's communications team.
Mr Dubke is believed to have tendered his resignation on May 18, offering to remain until Mr Trump returned from his overseas tour, which the US president accepted.
The move comes amid rumours of a deeper White House reshuffle, including the possibility of appointing prominent Republican lobbyist David Urban as chief of staff.
RUSSIANS DISCUSSED 'DEROGATORY' INFO ON TRUMP
Russian government officials reportedly discussed having potentially "derogatory" information about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and some of his top aides in conversations intercepted by US intelligence during the 2016 election, CNN reported.
According to CNN, one source described the information as financial in nature and said the discussion centred on whether the Russians had clout over Trump's inner circle.
The source told the news network that the intercepted communications suggested that Russians believed "they had the ability to influence the administration through the derogatory information."
But the sources, privy to the descriptions of the communications written by US intelligence, cautioned the Russian claims to one another "could have been exaggerated or even made up" as part of a disinformation campaign that the Russians did during the election.
Russian officials must be laughing at the U.S. & how a lame excuse for why the Dems lost the election has taken over the Fake News.
No sources said which of Trump's inner circle was discussed.
"The Russians could be overstating their belief to influence," one of the sources told CNN.
As reported by CNN and the New York Times, the US intercepted discussions of Russian officials bragging about cultivating relationships with Trump campaign aides during the campaign, including Mr Trump's now-disgraced national security adviser, Michael Flynn, to influence Mr Trump. Sources also suggested that Mr Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort was also discussed.
A White House spokesman shut down the reports saying: "This is yet another round of false and unverified claims made by anonymous sources to smear the President. The reality is, a review of the President's income from the last 10 years showed he had virtually no financial ties at all.
There appears to be no limit to which the President's political opponents will go to perpetuate this false narrative, including illegally leaking classified material. All this does is play into the hands of our adversaries and put our country at risk."
TRUMP TWEETS AGAINST GERMANY
Meanwhile, Mr Trump has called Germany's trade and spending policies "very bad", intensifying a row between the allies and immediately earning himself the moniker "destroyer of Western values" from a leading German politician.
Mr Trump took to Twitter overnight in the United States to attack Germany, a day after Chancellor Angela Merkel ramped up her doubts about the reliability of Washington as an ally.
We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change
The tit-for-tat row has escalated rapidly after Trump criticised major NATO allies over their military spending and refused to endorse a global climate change accord at back-to-back summits last week.
"We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for US This will change," Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
On Monday, Merkel showed how seriously concerned she is about Washington's dependability under Trump by repeating the message that the times when Europe could fully rely on others were "over to a certain extent".
Those comments, which sent shock waves through Washington, vented Europe's frustration with Trump on climate policy in particular.
Senior German politicians responded swiftly to his tweet.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Photo / AP
Martin Schulz, leader of the centre-left Social Democrats, told reporters Mr Trump was "the destroyer of all Western values", adding that the US president was undermining the peaceful cooperation of nations based on mutual respect and tolerance.
Thomas Oppermann, head of the Social Democrats' parliamentary group, told reporters: "Donald Trump makes clear with his tweet that he views Germany as a political opponent."
Ms Merkel on Monday repeated almost word for word her message from Sunday, when she told her Bavarian conservative allies in a packed Munich beer tent that "we Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands".
But she also finessed her message slightly on Monday, stressing that she was a "convinced trans-Atlanticist".
