“Facing harsh criticism, a Harvard dean said early Friday morning that he was revoking his invitation to Chelsea Manning, a former United States soldier convicted of leaking classified information, to be a visiting fellow at the university,” the New York Times reports.
Trump’s New Flow of Information
Jonathan Swan: “The dramatically different information Trump receives daily under the leadership of Chief of Staff John Kelly is an under-looked factor in Trump’s decision to double down on his partnership with the Democratic leaders.”
“Trump gets mostly positive feedback for his turn towards bipartisanship. He watches cable news in the morning, and even ‘Fox and Friends’ finds a way to praise his deal with the Democrats. He reads his morning news clips and briefing materials, which are managed by Staff Secretary Rob Porter, under the guidance of Kelly. And during the day it’s not possible for a staff member to sneak a story onto Trump’s desk that might rile him up and turn him in a wildly different direction in an instant.”
“Staff who oppose the moderate immigration turn no longer have unfettered access to Trump, and nor do allies on the outside who, in the first six months of the administration, used to send text messages to Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller, and often receive a snappy callback from the president. Kelly now has real control over the most important input: the flow of human and paper advice into the Oval Office. For a man as obsessed about his self image as Trump, a new flow of inputs can make the world of difference.”
Democrats Cling to Hope They Can Take Senate
“Senate Democrats are three seats shy of a majority and almost entirely on defense in the 2018 elections, making it all but impossible for them to retake the chamber next year,” Politico reports.
“But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and DSCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen are privately refusing to rule out an improbable midterm victory, even though they must first defend 10 incumbents in states President Donald Trump won. Their insistence is primarily to keep donors invested and excited about next year’s Senate races, said a handful of top party operatives. But Democrats also want to be prepared to ride a massive wave next fall should one develop, potentially taking advantage of bloody Republican primaries to spur a red-state surprise and swing the Senate.”
The Loneliest President
Politico: “His critics might see his growing isolation as a product of his political inexperience—an aversion to the norms of the legislative process, a penchant for topsy-turvy management. But as unprecedented as this might be in the annals of the West Wing, it’s merely a continuation of a lifelong pattern of behavior for Trump. Take away the Pennsylvania Avenue address, the never-ending list of domestic and international crises, and the couldn’t-be-higher geopolitical stakes—and this looks very much like … Trump throughout his entire existence. Isolated is how he’s always operated.”
“The middle son of a stony, workaholic father with whom he had an ‘almost businesslike’ relationship, Trump is a double divorcee, a boss with a professed distaste for having partners or shareholders, a television-tethered, hamburger-eating homebody and a germaphobe who has described shaking hands as ‘terrible,’ ‘barbaric’ and ‘one of the curses of American society.’ He’s been a loner most of his life.”
North Korea Tests Missile In Longest-Ever Flight
“North Korea conducted its longest-ever test flight of a ballistic missile Friday, sending an intermediate-range weapon hurtling over U.S. ally Japan into the northern Pacific Ocean in a launch that signals both defiance to its rivals and a big technological advance,” the AP reports.
“Since President Trump threatened the North with ‘fire and fury’ in August, Pyongyang has conducted its most powerful nuclear test, threatened to send missiles into the waters around the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam and launched two missiles of increasing range over Japan. July saw its first tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could strike deep into the U.S. mainland when perfected.”
“The growing frequency, power and confidence displayed by these tests seem to confirm what governments and outside experts have long feared: North Korea is closer than ever to its goal of building a military arsenal that can viably target both U.S. troops in Asia and the U.S. homeland.”
GOP Feels Betrayed By Trump
Politico: “While GOP leaders were able to brush off the debt pact as no big deal, after Thursday they were reminding the president that they — not the Democrats — run Congress. Though they differed on whether to bill it as a deal, Trump and Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi agreed in some fashion that they want to shield so-called Dreamers from deportation and beef up border security, leaving the fight over the border wall for later.”
“That left Republicans grappling with a frightening new potential reality: that Trump will cut controversial deals with Democrats and leave them to pick up the pieces.”
Trump Just Prefers Talking to Democrats
Politico: “In recent weeks, Trump has complained in private that it’s difficult to have any sort of relationship — or even make small talk — with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He’s told staff that he finds Speaker Paul Ryan, whom he’s dubbed a ‘boy scout,’ dry as well, but the two have some rapport.”
“By contrast, Trump can relate to Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, who talk more in non-Washington terms that he understands, according to people familiar with their meetings. Trump wants to keep meeting with them.”
The Empty Shell of America’s Two Party System
Edward Luce: “There was a time when the US had two functioning parties. That is no longer the case. I can now count four. Since Mr Trump has no fixed membership, the tally has risen temporarily to five. In last year’s primaries, the right populist and left populist candidates, Mr Trump and Mr Sanders, took more than half of the votes between them. If that were translated into seats, America’s traditional two parties would be in a minority. The picture would be closer to Emmanuel Macron’s France, where the Gaullists and Socialists are on the sidelines.”
“But American politics is doomed to limp on with the shell of two parties. Their contempt for each other is exceeded only by their antagonisms within. Neither of each party’s warring factions is strong enough to claim the whole. But they have enough clout to stop their rivals from doing so.”
“If Mr Trump were another person, he could orchestrate this chaos to his ends. No president has inherited better conditions to realign US politics. But Mr Trump has the attention span of a goldfish.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“He is who he has been and I didn’t go in there to change who he was, I wanted to inform and educate a different perspective. I think we accomplished that. To assume that immediately thereafter he’s going to have an epiphany is just unrealistic.”
— Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), quoted by BuzzFeed, when asked if it was frustrating talking to President Trump about his defense of white supremacists who marched on Charlottesville.
Trump Says He Was Right About ‘Both Sides’
“President Trump thrust himself back into the racial storms of Charlottesville, repeating his charge that those resisting the neo-Nazis and white supremacists were as much to blame as the alt-right crowds who marched on the Virginia college town last month,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “You have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also, and essentially that’s what I said. Now because of what’s happened since then with Antifa, when you look at really what’s happened since Charlottesville, a lot of people are saying, and people have actually written, ‘Gee, Trump may have a point.’ I said there’s some very bad people on the other side also.”
The Washington Post reports that Trump also “alluded to the Obama administration allegedly spying on his campaign, and — after repeatedly pointing to the unprecedented nature of the latest hurricanes in recent weeks — downplayed their size when asked whether climate change was to blame.”
Facebook Enabled Ads Targeted to ‘Jew Haters’
“Want to market Nazi memorabilia, or recruit marchers for a far-right rally? Facebook’s self-service ad-buying platform had the right audience for you,” ProPublica reports.
“Until this week, when we asked Facebook about it, the world’s largest social network enabled advertisers to direct their pitches to the news feeds of almost 2,300 people who expressed interest in the topics of ‘Jew hater,’ ‘How to burn jews,’ or, ‘History of why jews ruin the world.’”
Trump Humiliated Sessions After Mueller Appointment
“Shortly after learning in May that a special counsel had been appointed to investigate links between his campaign associates and Russia, President Trump berated Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an Oval Office meeting and said the attorney general should resign,” the New York Times reports.
“Accusing Mr. Sessions of ‘disloyalty,’ Mr. Trump unleashed a string of insults on his attorney general. Ashen and emotional, Mr. Sessions told the president he would quit and sent a resignation letter to the White House… Mr. Sessions would later tell associates that the demeaning way the president addressed him was the most humiliating experience in decades of public life.”
“The Oval Office meeting, details of which have not previously been reported, shows the intensity of Mr. Trump’s emotions as the Russia investigation gained steam and how he appeared to immediately see Mr. Mueller’s appointment as a looming problem for his administration. It also illustrates the depth of antipathy Mr. Trump has had for Mr. Sessions — one of his earliest campaign supporters — and how the president interprets ‘disloyalty’ within his circle of advisers.”
“Mr. Trump ended up rejecting Mr. Sessions’s May resignation letter after senior members of his administration argued that dismissing the attorney general would only create more problems for a president who had already fired an F.B.I. director and a national security adviser.”
Facebook Doesn’t Know Extent of Russian Ad Buys
CNN: “One week after it told the country that it had sold $100,000 worth of ads to a Russian troll farm during the 2016 election, Facebook is still not sure whether pro-Kremlin groups may have made other ad buys intended to influence American politics that it simply hasn’t discovered yet.”
“These sources said it is entirely possible that unidentified ad buys may still exist on the social media network today. One issue preventing Facebook from making a full accounting of the problem is that ads are purchased through the company’s self-service tool, which allows buyers to independently purchase and target ads, often without human interaction on Facebook’s side of the transaction.”
Partisans Stay Locked In
CBS News Nation Tracker: “This study shows party attachments have remained very stable in 2017, with neither Republicans nor Democrats able to draw many independents over to their side so far. Democrats aren’t becoming Republicans en masse, nor are Republicans becoming Democrats, and the few who have vacillated between parties aren’t as likely to vote in the first place — which sheds light on why today’s politics often seems dominated by partisans.”
“Overall, 91% of respondents identified with the same party in their most recent interview as they did the first time we talked to them this winter.”
Taking Another Look at the Electoral Math
John Judis: “On one level, there’s no arguing with the math. If you take the percentage of Americans that the U.S. census defines as ‘minorities’ and project their past voting habits into the next decade and beyond, you’ll come up with a very sunny version of the Democrats’ prospects.”
“There are only two problems with this line of thinking, but they’re pretty big ones. For starters, the census prediction of a ‘majority-minority’ America — slated to arrive in 2044 — is deeply flawed. And so is the notion that ethnic minorities will always and forever continue to back Democrats in Obama-like numbers.”
Trump In Talks for Interview on 60 Minutes
“CBS is in talks with the Trump administration for an interview with the president on 60 Minutes,” BuzzFeed reports.
“The network is hoping to land Trump for the Sept. 24 premiere of its flagship Sunday night news program, but that timing is unlikely… Trump is more likely to sit down with 60 Minutes later this fall, in the hope that he can get into more detail about tax overhaul.”
Vice Pitches a Political Reality Show
Hollywood Reporter: “Politics can be boring. Vice, which has some experience in making boring topics fun, is in the very early stages of developing a reality show that will have people of all political stripes living in a group house in Washington, D.C.”
“The show, if made, will be set in Washington, D.C., and will be shot next spring.”
Is Sexism What Happened to Hillary?
Matt Bai: “Clinton can — and does — point to plenty of evidence to suggest that attitudes toward women skewed the election against her… According to data from Pew Research, Trump bested Clinton by 12 points among men, which was among the largest margins in the last 50 years. Among white voters without a college degree, Clinton lost by an astounding 39 points… And as Clinton herself notes, she also lost among white women, which at least complicates the gender argument.”
“The relevant issue isn’t really whether gender matters in politics or in the society generally (it clearly does), but rather whether it’s the thing that matters most… Gender, while always an added challenge, never defined Clinton’s candidacy. And on the list of challenges that made Clinton a less than ideal candidate — her age, her perceived entitlement, her family history of scandal, her limited skill as a persuader — the fact that she was a woman probably hovered somewhere near the bottom.”