Flake Says He’ll Hold Up Nominations Over Tariffs

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Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) warned that he and a “number of senators,” are prepared to block President Trump’s judicial nominees if there is no action in the Senate on tariffs and other key issues, CNN reports.

Said Flake: “I do think that unless we can actually exercise something other than just approving the President’s executive calendar, his nominees, judges, that we have no reason to be there. So I think myself and a number of Senators, at least a few of us, will stand up and say let’s not move any more judges until we get a vote, for example, on tariffs.”

Trump Aides Seen as Toxic After They Leave

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Washington Post: “Serving a president used to grant a level of prestige, and administration officials looked forward to a lucrative move through Washington’s revolving door toward book deals, television contracts, corporate boards or even a possible university presidency.”

“But like many other norms in Washington, Donald Trump may have broken that prestige payoff system.”

Pruitt Discussed Hiring Friend of Lobbyist Landlord

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EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt “discussed hiring a friend of a lobbyist family that owned a condominium he was renting for $50 a night, newly released emails suggest,” the New York Times reports.

“The files also show communications involving the lobbyist’s client interests that have not previously been disclosed, suggesting a closer relationship between the lobbyist, J. Steven Hart, and the agency than previously known.”

Obama Memoirs Flood Bookstores

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New York Times: “Nearly a year and a half after Mr. Obama left office, his team is back in the arena, or at least in the bookstores, with a blitz of roughly two dozen memoirs of their time in the White House, telling tales, settling scores, justifying mistakes, selling nostalgia, setting the record straight, attacking successors and spinning history.”

“Everyone who ever spent even a few minutes with Mr. Obama, it seems, has penned a volume of reminiscences, postcards from a less head-spinning era. The authors include his top foreign policy advisers, his communications gurus, his intelligence chief, his photographer and even the stenographer who recorded his every public utterance. All of that before the former president and first lady weigh in with their own well-compensated autobiographies.”

Trump Wants to Deprive Migrants of Due-Process Rights

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President Trump “explicitly advocated depriving undocumented immigrants of their due-process rights, arguing that people who cross the border into the United States illegally must immediately be deported without trial — and sowing more confusion among Republicans ahead of a planned immigration vote this week,” the Washington Post reports.

“In a pair of tweets sent during his drive to his Virginia golf course, Trump described immigrants as invaders and wrote that U.S. immigration laws are ‘a mockery’ and must be changed to take away trial rights from undocumented migrants.”

A Better Way to Fight Trump’s Tariffs?

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Business Insider: “Op-eds in The Houston Chronicle and the Canadian news magazine Maclean’s suggested the only way to quell the rising trade tensions is to strike at Trump’s businesses. While some countries, such as China, have appeared to try and sway the president through treating his family’s businesses more favorably, countries have not made moves to curtail the businesses’ activity within their borders.”

Quote of the Day

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“Unfortunately, yes … you can’t, as a Republican these days, stand in opposition to some of the president’s policies or not condone his behavior and expect to win a Republican primary.”

— Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), in an interview with ABC News, on whether President Trump has “redefined” the Republican party.