Trump's EPA pick effective – 'That's why left wants to bring him down'

EPA Director Scott Pruitt

Various assessments indicate American establishment media members are politically opposed to President Trump. Some estimates range as high as 98 percent.

The opposition extends to his Cabinet nominees as well.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, according to Trump critics, is having a "bumpy tenure" because she's doing what the president has asked.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is in a bull's-eye for his "pricey" trips to Montana.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson's department left reporters aghast when it ordered a $31,000 dining set for its headquarters.

A common phrase on newscasts has become, "Democrats are calling on him (or her) to resign."

But a series of developments for Environment Protection Agency Secretary Scott Pruitt – his rent for a room in Washington, his jet flights and now-revoked raises for employees – have combined to prompt the Washington Post to claim his "defenses are crumbling." The New York Times says pressure is mounting on him, and the Miami Herald had to write in an opinion column of his alleged "ethical lapses."

Enough already, writes Dick Morris, former adviser to President Bill Clinton and now an author, pollster and consultant.

In the Western Journal, he writes that Pruitt is the "single most effective member of President Donald Trump's cabinet."

"He has set out to dismember, systematically, the edifice of new rules and regulations adopted under the Obama administration. By freeing business of these regulations – and relieving fears of future new regs – Pruitt has helped to create tens of thousands of new jobs, with the promise of even more," says Morris.

"Nowhere has Trump's promise to free business from constraints on its growth been more consistently kept than at the EPA."

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That means the left, egged on by "militant and ruthless environmentalists," wants him taken down.

"Pruitt’s choice of an apartment in D.C. to sublet (in which he lives with three other lawmakers), his use of first class airfare to travel around the country (on business), and his decision to raise the pay of his staff without White House approval have provided the nails with which to crucify him," Morris explains.

Talk radio star Rush Limbaugh said Pruitt has been "taking flak" because he's "unraveling a whole lot of regulations that Obama's EPA implemented."

"The EPA is one of these federal bureaucracies that the left claims permanent ownership of. And these bureaucracies – they happen to be where the deep state – I love that term primary because the left hates it – but the bureaucracies are where the deep state lives. And these people have been writing punitive anti-capital, anti-liberty regulations for who knows how long, all predicated on a bunch of faulty premises, such as the United States is destroying the planet, such as the United States is destroying the world, such as the United States is the leading polluter of the world."

He continued, "None of these things are true, of course, but that's their worldview. And one thing that Pruitt's doing that's got them just hog-tied, he's relaxing all of these mileage restrictions that the left has placed on automobiles and engines and so forth. And he's basically just taking a knife and whacking things from the EPA that were implemented during the eight years of Obama."

Limbaugh said Pruitt has become, outside of Trump, the "single biggest target of the American left."

Morris said his opponents want him removed because his "achievements are far reaching and very important."

"He led the fight to persuade Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate accords, in part because they did nothing to rein in the largest emitter of carbons – China – while imposing drastic restrictions on its competitors in the U.S. and Europe. He is letting the market lead to better mileage standards rather than imposing them by fiat," Morris writes.

And he's "embraced the reality – rather than merely pay lip service – of an 'all sources' approach to energy regulation, ending Obama’s war on coal and expanding America's energy might."

Morris says, "Don't let the greens crucify Scott Pruitt!"

In a commentary on CNN.com, Scott Jennings, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, said "much of the Trump-Hating Industrial Complex has already tried and convicted Pruitt on cable TV panels, appointing themselves experts in someone else's living arrangements to demand Pruitt's sacking."

"What lurks beneath, though, is not a concern for ethics or thrifty travel budgets (they might want to check EPA directors under Obama before they tee off on travel), but rather adherence to liberal environmental policy that borders on religious conviction. Many on the left love government regulations and hate anyone who tears them down, as Pruitt has successfully done at EPA."

Jennings said, however, that Pruitt is "an effective operator who has done more than most to make good on the president's campaign promises."

He said Pruitt has been effective.

"Unlike David Shulkin, who was recently jettisoned from the Department of Veterans Affairs, Pruitt has actually enacted President Trump's agenda. He's a recognized conservative warrior, with the Washington Post reporting that 'allies praise Pruitt for returning more power to individual states while scaling back what they see as the previous administration's regulatory excesses.' Pruitt might be the most successful Trump cabinet member, delivering win after win to President Trump."

Jennings said the people "at the controls of the liberal outrage machine don't care about rent; they are just hopping mad that he's dismantling Obama's anti-business regulatory regime."

"As my friend Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, tweeted: 'Ironically, the media blood-lusting for Scott Pruitt is insulating him a bit by gradually turning him into a conservative cause. Going to be tougher than they think to run him out over cheap rent.' The louder the extreme left screams, the more Trump will consider it music to his ears."

The Hill reported Pruitt now has gone on the offense.

In an interview, he said he believes his critics "will resort to anything" to prevent him from implementing the president's agenda.

The Democratic National Committee is using the EPA secretary's name in an email blast asking people to "tell Scott Pruitt to resign."

The president told reporters Thursday he has confidence in Pruitt.