Breaking: Trump Signs Budget Deal And Declares Emergency

Ken AshfordCongress, Immigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Trump is live now. Trying to spin this as a win. Trump: “I didn’t need to do this. but I’d rather do it much faster”. That doesn’t sound like an emergency. Trump just said “I didn’t need to do this.” Some emergency! — Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) February 15, 2019 The optional, just-to-speed-things-up kind of emergency https://t.co/OFgU8FNrbI — Julie Davis (@juliehdavis) … Read More

Breaking: Nope, He’s Declaring A “National Emergency”

Ken AshfordBreaking News, Immigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Rule of thumb: Never underestimate the stupidity of this President and his unique ability to do the worst thing. Know what's a national emergency? Having a president so stupid he can be goaded into a series of constitutional crises by the voices he hears on his tv set. — Hunter (@HunterDK) February 14, 2019 Bloomberg: President Donald Trump will sign … Read More

Dealmaker, My Ass

Ken AshfordPolls, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

To all the people out there who voted for Trump because he is a great dealmaker, let’s review how well he did on his first big dealmaking with a non-compliant Congress: March 2018: Democrats offer $25B in border all funding for a pathway to citizenship for the dreamers. Trump kills the deal by tacking on draconian cuts to LEGAL immigration. … Read More

Trump Lies About Whether He Was Cleared Of Collusion

Ken AshfordL'Affaire Russe, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

On Sunday, President Trump began boasting that he’d been cleared by the Senate Intelligence Committee of any wrongdoing in the 2016 election. “Senator Richard Burr, The Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, just announced that after almost two years, more than two hundred interviews, and thousands of documents, they have found NO COLLUSION BETWEEN TRUMP AND RUSSIA!” Trump tweeted Sunday. “Is anybody … Read More

Democrats and Republicans Agree To A Border Deal, Averting Shutdown

Ken AshfordImmigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

The Washington Post has the details: The framework would provide $1.375 billion for barriers along the border, including 55 miles of new fencing,with certain restrictions on the location, according to a congressional official familiar with the agreement….Democrats backed down from their demand on tight limits on detention beds that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement could use to detain undocumented immigrants, pulling away from a push … Read More

Trump Incites Violence

Ken AshfordImmigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Trump’s rally in El Paso last night — to shill for his border wall — was notable for many reasons. For one thing, the counter-rally (with El Paso native Beto O’Rourke) had more attendees… Numbers don’t lie.El Paso Fire Department crowd estimates::Trump: 6,500 Beto O’Rourke: 10,000 – 15,000 — Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) February 12, 2019 … although that number does … Read More

Trump’s Electoral Problem

Ken AshfordElection 2020, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Trump may have gotten a slight bounce from his SOTU speech (although the only post-SOTU poll is the unreliable Rasmussen), but from a 2020 re-election perspective, he should not be popping any champagne bottles. According to Morning Consult: Trump’s base remained fairly solid, with 83 percent of Republicans approving of the president. But that share of support among Republicans was … Read More

Trump’s Baffling SOTU

Ken AshfordTrump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

On the whole, it was Trump’s best performance, but that is a VERY VERY low bar. The speech was fine — a lot of babble about his successes (although many of them misleading). He didn’t stray from the teleprompter too much. It was delivered like all his teleprompter speeches — slowly (he’s not a good reader) and as if he … Read More

SDNY Subpoenas The Trump Inauguration Committee

Ken AshfordPolitical Scandals, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

It looks like the Trump Administration, as we suspected, wasted no time in being corrupted, working from Day One on a clear pay-for-play scheme. That is now being investigated by the SDNY: Prosecutors in New York’s Southern District have reached out to President Donald Trump’s inauguration committee and plan to subpoena the organization for documents, sources with direct knowledge tell ABC … Read More

SOTU STFU

Ken AshfordTrump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Tonight Trump gives his second State Of The Union speech, coming just after three weeks of government shutdown, and the threat of another shutdown over his stupid and unpopular border wall. Trump claims to be looking forward to this, but behind-the-scenes, chaos is roiling the White House once again after a prolific leak to Axios on Sunday of Trump’s private schedule for the … Read More

President Executive Time

Ken AshfordTrump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Axios got a scoop. A White House source has leaked nearly every day of President Trump’s private schedule for the past three months. This unusually voluminous leak gives us unprecedented visibility into how this president spends his days. The schedules, which cover nearly every working day since the midterms, show that Trump has spent around 60% of his scheduled time … Read More