Thursday on MSNBC, while reporting on a phone-in White House background briefing with officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department about President Barack Obama’s newly announced sanctions on Russia for hacking during the 2016 American presidential election, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell said the Obama administration is taking steps to “box in” President-elect Donald Trump so the sanctions are not easily reversible. Mitchell said, “The White House did a background briefing with officials from DHS and the State Department. Basically, they are saying that they know that President-elect Trump has signaled as recently as Wednesday saying that he thinks that we should move on past what has happened. But he said that the president’s approach is that of one president at a time and that President Obama feels that he needs to exercise his duties until January 20. So these actions are pretty stiff. I mean PNGing, declaring persona non grata, 35 Russian embassy employees. Saying that they were basally spies. Kicking them out. Saying that they have to leave by noon on Sunday. That’s leaving them 72 hours to get out of the country. That is clearly and always going to be