President Donald Trump’s right-hand man Steven Bannon can check off letting the public know what he’s really doing in the White House — that ship has sailed, thanks to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. 
 
 “America’s Rabbi,” as Boteach calls himself, exposed what the Trump strategist has apparently been working on when they posed for a photo with Bannon’s whiteboard — containing his hand-written to-do list — in the background. 
 
 With @SteveBannon in the White House on #israelindependenceday. Steve is a great, stalwart friend of the Jewish State pic.twitter.com/PFxSCK7blc — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017 
 
 Then Boteach, who was at the White House for an Israel Independence Day celebration, tweeted the photo on Tuesday for all to see. 
 
 But as soon as it went viral, the public quickly zeroed-in on the scribble in the background, not so much on the smiling fellows in front. 
 
 One of the hand-written goals on the whiteboard is no secret to anybody who has followed the Trump campaign. “Build the border wall and eventually make Mexico pay for it,” it says. 
 
 And there is no check mark beside it to indicate mission accomplished. 
 
 But, for reasons unclear, there are check marks beside two other Trump goals that have been blocked by federal courts, namely “Suspend immigration from terror prone regions” and “Suspend the Syrian refugee Program.” 
 
 Under the heading “Pledges on Immigration,” there’s a line that says “Cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities.” 
 
 Play Facebook 
 
 Twitter 
 
 Embed What's on Steve Bannon's whiteboard? 1:31 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog 
 
 That has a check mark beside it even though a federal judge blocked that executive order too. And it appears to contradict the Trump Administration's official position that they only intend to withhold discretionary funding to sanctuary cities. 
 
 Notably, there is also no check mark beside the top item on the white board, “Repeal and replace Obamacare.” Currently, the White House is desperately trying to get the GOP-controlled Congress to do just that. Their first attempt failed spectacularly. 
 
 There appear to be several dozen more goals scribbled on the board, including other unfulfilled promises like "Eliminate the estate tax" and "Hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents." 
 
 Boteach, 50, is a contributor to Breitbart News, which is Bannon’s former outfit before he joined team Trump. 
 
 Before that, the enterprising and outspoken Orthodox Jewish rabbi carved himself out a career as a TV host, public speaker, and author of several dozen books, including the best-selling “Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy.” 
 
 For a time, the right-wing rabbi was also an unofficial spiritual adviser to the late Michael Jackson and he made a failed bid to win a congressional seat in New Jersey as a Republican. ||||| BTW 
 
 If you’re going to have your picture taken, it’s probably a good idea to check what’s in the background—especially if you’re standing in the White House. 
 
 Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump‘s chief strategist, discovered this little trick about photography this week after Rabbi Shmuley Boteach shared photos of his visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. on Israel Independence Day that showed portions of his giant list of “pledges” written on a whiteboard. 
 
 With @SteveBannon in the White House on #israelindependenceday. Steve is a great, stalwart friend of the Jewish State pic.twitter.com/PFxSCK7blc — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017 
 
 With Steve Bannon and Debbie at the White House on #IsraelIndependenceDay2017. Thank u Steve for your love of Israel pic.twitter.com/xrU4nLUyYU — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017 
 
 The internet, of course, began scouring the list for clues about what the Trump administration plans to do next. Alas, most of the items on the lists are either common knowledge or entirely unsurprising. (For example, supporting the “Davis-Oliver bill,” a piece of immigration enforcement legislation, aligns with the administration’s hard line on illegal immigration.) Others have already been accomplished and, thus, their existence known—but there are a few that are cut off and leave room for interpretation. “Build the border wall and eventually make Mexico…” could end a number of ways, but “pay for it” is the most obvious option. 
 
 There is one item, however, that may prove consequential: The first item on the “Pledges on Immigration” list —“Cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities”—could potentially impact ongoing litigation against a Trump executive order that seeks to deprive cities that refuse to enforce U.S. immigration law of federal funds. 
 
 In a federal lawsuit over the sanctuary cities executive order filed by the city of San Francisco and county of Santa Clara against the Department of Justice, DOJ attorneys argued that the federal government is only attempting to deprive sanctuary cities of only limited funds. Bannon listing the goal to “cancel all federal fund to sanctuary cities,” then, could undermine that argument. ||||| Tweet with a location 
 
 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Washington (CNN) Here it is: our first visual glimpse at the hive mind where Trump's chief strategist, Steven Bannon, is plotting the "deconstruction" of the administrative state . 
 
 We've heard descriptions of Bannon's office before. 
 
 Here's how CNN's Maeve Reston, pulling reporting from the network's White House reporters like Jeff Zeleny, described the room in a recent piece for CNN's new online magazine, "State." 
 
 When he moved into the White House, Trump's chief strategist removed the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and sofa from his office and positioned his desk in the corner to make room for giant whiteboards that are lined up in four columns beneath the campaign theme: Make. America. Great. Again. In the final hours of the first 100 days, the promises kept were marked with a red X, including abandoning a massive Pacific trade deal. The column without a single red X: Legislative accomplishments. 
 
 Now, thanks to some innocently tweeted photographs from Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the Orthodox rabbi, author and TV personality, we can see the priorities that form Bannon's to-do list. 
 
 With Steve Bannon and Debbie at the White House on #IsraelIndependenceDay2017. Thank u Steve for your love of Israel pic.twitter.com/xrU4nLUyYU — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017 
 
 Shmuley was making the rounds in Washington for Israel Independence Day this week and innocently posted photos of himself with notable Republicans. 
 
 Here's another look: 
 
 With @SteveBannon in the White House on #israelindependenceday. Steve is a great, stalwart friend of the Jewish State pic.twitter.com/PFxSCK7blc — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017 
 
 And a close-up: 
 
 There's been an effort on social media to decipher the visible portions of the whiteboards (there are others in the office not visible in Shmuley's photos). 
 
 The ones we can see list columns for "Pledges on Obamacare," Pledges on Tax Reform," "Pledges on Infrastructure" and "Pledges on Immigration." 
 
 A check mark is thought to mean pledge fulfilled. 
 
 The most-noticed pledge is the one that reads: 
 
 Build the border wall and eventually make Mexico... 
 
 So obviously, the administration still has designs on somehow making Mexico pay for the border wall it wants to build even as it sets about trying ( in vain so far ) to get Congress to pay for it first. 
 
 There are check marks next to these items: 
 
 Suspend the Syrian refugee program 
 
 (That suspension, issued as part of an executive action, has been stymied by the courts , however) 
 
 End "catch-and-release" 
 
 (Yep, the Department of Justice is hard at work stepping up deportations and prosecutions 
 
 Hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents and 
 
 Triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents 
 
 (That's in the works, but has encountered some hurdles , as CNNMoney has reported) 
 
 Restore the Secure Communities program 
 
 Achieved as part of an initial raft of executive orders, this is aimed at making local law enforcement share biometric data with the feds. 
 
 Other bullets under immigration may have check marks too, but they're not visible. 
 
 Some of the bullets are targeted at legislation, like the tax reform and Obamacare sections, neither of which has any check marks. 
 
 Others are targeted at specific bills, like the Davis-Oliver bill, which would give local law enforcement more responsibility to detain the undocumented. There's mention of "Kate's Law," which would send foreigners who re-enter the country illegally after being deported, to jail for at least five years. 
 
 There's also mention, mostly obscured, of the Iran nuclear deal and moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. Under what must be "Pledges on Trade," it mentions withdrawing from something, negotiating something else and renegotiating a third thing. 
 
 In short, Bannon's whiteboard doesn't include anything the President and the White House haven't talked about publicly. But it is fascinating to see it scrawled out so carefully in his West Wing office.
– When Steve Bannon moved into his office in the White House, he moved out bookshelves and a couch to make room for a bunch of big whiteboards, CNN reports. Thanks to "America's rabbi," we now know what's on at least one of those whiteboards. According to the Daily Dot, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach visited the White House for Israel Independence Day and posed for photos with Bannon, which he shared on Twitter. A whiteboard full of "pledges" is visible in the background. NBC News describes the whiteboard as Bannon's "hand-written to-do list." Topics on the whiteboard include "Pledges on Obamacare," "Pledges on Tax Reform," and "Pledges on Infrastructure." Despite the internet scouring Bannon's whiteboard for secret plans, there isn't anything on there the Trump administration hasn't talked about publicly. Items include "Eliminate the estate tax," "Hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents," and "Suspend the Syrian refugee program." There is one interesting item, however: "Cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities." President Trump's executive order to withhold funding from sanctuary cities is currently being argued in federal court, with Justice Department lawyers arguing the order would only really keep a small amount of funding from sanctuary cities. But Bannon's use of "all federal funds" on his whiteboard may hurt that argument.