Full findings here: Key conclusions:
Trump Doesn’t Like Plans
From Axios’ Jonathan Swan: When a frustrated adviser once tried to convince President Trump to consider a strategic plan, the president launched into a story about his friend Mike Tyson, the former world heavyweight boxing champion. What he’s saying: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” Trump said, echoing a famous Tyson quote. I had asked the adviser whether … Read More
Update On Nastya Rybka
About a year ago, I pointed to a curious story about Nastya Rybka, a Russian escort and sex trainer being held in Thailand and being charged with prostitution and related offenses. She had made curious claims about Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska (having spent time on his yacht) and the whole Trump-Russia connection. Deripaska is an ex-business associate of former Trump … Read More
ISIS Not Defeated
NBC News reports: U.S. service members were among those killed by an explosion in Syria on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the coalition fighting the Islamic State group said. Earlier, a senior Kurdish security official told NBC News that members of the U.S.-led coalition were caught up in a blast at a market in the northern city of Manbij. The official could … Read More
Country REALLY Divided on Day 26 of Shutdown
From Gallup today, the country is more divided on Trump than with any other president in polling history. The average 79-percentage-point difference between Republicans’ and Democrats’ job approval ratings of President Donald Trump during his second year in office is the largest Gallup has measured in any presidential year to date. But Trump still polls at historical lows. Overall, an … Read More
Pelosi Rescinds “Invite” For Trump’s State Of The Union
What Pelosi does in this letter is rescind Trump’s invitation to speak in the House chamber during the shutdown and then suggest some alternatives he could pursue. The press is saying that she is “asking” to postpone the SOTU, but framing it as “asking” for a postponement is misleading because it wrongly implies Trump has power to say yes or … Read More
Socialized Medicine For Me But Not For Thee
Rand Paul, one and a half years ago: He adds: We know the current system isn’t working for families or health-care providers, so perhaps it’s time to try something new. I say we try freedom. More freedom to choose and innovate, leading to more access and affordability, which will help ensure our health-care system remains the best in the world. … Read More
Exhausting Futility Continues
Shutdown Day Number 23 and there is no sign of movement. Trump apparently has little to do but tweet all day — childish attacks on Elizabeth Warren (racist attacks there) and on Jeff Bezo’s personal life. But that is kind of the point that Trump wants to make — he’s ready to work on a deal and Dems are off … Read More
Weekly List 113
This week Trump struggled to create stagecraft and find narratives to justify funding for his border wall, while keeping the government shuttered. Trump delivered a prime-time Oval Office address, visited the U.S.-Mexico border, and held an immigration round-table to make his case, while the reality of the shutdown hurt federal workers and contractors, and agencies started to cut back or … Read More
The Buck Stops With Everybody
Impasse. Government is shut down. Nobody is budging. At a meeting yesterday with Pelosi and Schumer, Trump asked if they would fund his wall. He specifically said “wall” and NOT “border security” (he lied in a later tweet about this). Pelosi said no, and Trump said (verbatim) “Bye bye” and left. At present, he seems to have rallied the Republicans … Read More
Breaking: Mystery Foreign Company Gets No Help From SCOTUS
A few weeks ago, there was a super-secret hearing in DC Court regarding a subpeona issued to an unknown foreign company from the Mueller investigation. The company was fighting the subpoena. This just happened: "(Bloomberg)—The U.S. Supreme Court refused to shield a mystery company from having to provide information in what’s believed to be the criminal investigation being conducted by … Read More
This Sounds Like Collusion
Ooops! Due to a redaction error by Manafort’s attorneys, we just learned that: 1) Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, who has been tied to Russian intelligence, met in Madrid during the campaign; 2) Manafort shared 2016 polling data with Kilimnik; and 3) They discussed a “Ukrainian peace plan.” Here is the filing in question. You can copy (Ctrl-C) the redacted … Read More
The Non-Crisis Ploy
Flop sweat for Donald Trump. As the government shutdown enters its third week, and there is no movement on funding Trump’s wall, Trump is looking and acting desperate. Tonight, he will go on primetime television and, everyone expects, he will declare some sort of emergency and then try to get his wall funded by the military. Basically, the administration is trying … Read More
Weekly List 112
This week, for the first time since he took office, Trump faced a check on his power as the 116th Congress was sworn in. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took back the gavel, she made clear she will take Trump on, telling the Times she considers herself Trump’s equal, and the “TODAY” show that Trump can be indicted while in office. The … Read More
Trump’s Ignorance Of Afghanistan Is Scary And Curious
At a press briefing at the end of a cabinet meeting Wednesday, Trump took questions from the press, and went on for 90 minutes in a rambling monologue festooned from end to end with falsehoods on a variety of subjects. But one particular statement he made has stood out: But then Trump went right off the deep end with a disquisition on … Read More