Politico reports that “before he left the White House, former National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn would withhold jobs report data from President Trump until shortly before their release because he was worried the president couldn’t help but say something about them.”
Trump Says He Can Pardon Himself
President Trump tweeted that he has the “absolute right to pardon myself,” but says he has “done nothing wrong” in Russia investigation.
His assessment echoed that of his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who offered an expansive view of the president’s executive powers during a series of interviews over the weekend.
Author Claims CIA Has Plan to Kill the President
Jerome Corsi, author of Killing the Deep State, told C-SPAN that the CIA is planning to kill President Trump.
Said Corsi: “The central premise of this book is that President Trump is the target of a coup d’état being undertaken by the Deep State, including the CIA, NSA, and other intelligence agencies that maintain a commitment to a globalist New World Order.”
Daily Beast: “This Corsi book does not have a mainstream publisher, as one of his earlier ones did. Instead, it has been published by a book division of the far right-wing Newsmax, run by Trump’s friend Christopher Ruddy.”
Melania Trump Expected to Attend Reception
“First lady Melania Trump will attend a reception for Gold Star families Monday, her first public appearance since being hospitalized for several days last month,” USA Today reports.
Trump’s Phone Call with Macron Was ‘Terrible’
A call about trade and migration between President Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron soured last week after Macron candidly criticized Trump’s policies, CNN reports.
Said one source: “Just bad. It was terrible. Macron thought he would be able to speak his mind, based on the relationship. But Trump can’t handle being criticized like that.”
Exchange of the Day
Bill Clinton was interviewed by Craig Melvin on NBC’s Today Show about whether he ever apologized to Monica Lewinsky:
MELVIN: “I asked if you’d ever apologized. And you said you had.”
CLINTON: “I have.”
MELVIN: “You’ve apologized to her?”
CLINTON: “I apologized to everybody in the world.”
MELVIN: “But you didn’t apologize to her?”
CLINTON: “I have not talked to her. I– I thought it—”
MELVIN: “Do you feel like you owe her an apology—”
CLINTON: “No, I do—I do not. I’ve never talked to her. But I did say, publicly, on more than one occasion, that I was sorry. That’s very different. The apology was public.”
Clinton is on a book tour promoting his new novel with James Patterson, The President Is Missing.
Trump’s Mind-Control Superpowers
Jim VandeHei: “In our lifetime, no president has matched Donald Trump’s ability to summon the power of the pulpit, friendly media, and the tweet-by-tweet power of repetition and persuasion to move minds en masse.”
“You see this in the silence of Republican critics; the instant shifts in GOP views of the FBI, Putin and deficits; and the quick, widespread adoption of his branding efforts around ‘deep state,’ ‘Spygate’ and ‘no collusion.’ We hear so much, so often that we become numb to what Trump is doing. This allows big things (such as fundamental shifts in governing norms) to seem like small things or nothing at all.”
“Trump and allies are floating untested legal arguments: The president can’t obstruct justice, or can unilaterally shut down probes of himself, or can even pardon himself. If you think he won’t try something unprecedented — and maybe get away with it, at least with Republicans — you aren’t paying attention.”
How to Negotiate with North Korea
Politico: “Expect lies. Do your homework — because they will have. Choose your words very carefully. And have Job-like patience. Oh, and remember that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un considers himself a supreme being.”
“These are some of the tips offered by half a dozen of the select American diplomats who have actually sat face-to-face with North Korea’s mercurial and often maddening regime. They provide some guidance to President Donald Trump and his advisers as they prepare for a June 12 summit with Kim in Singapore aimed at convincing him to surrender his nuclear arsenal.”
House Republicans Careen Toward Immigration Showdown
Playbook: “A petition to force a wide-ranging immigration debate on the House floor stands at 213 — five short of the requisite 218. House Republican leaders have been working feverishly behind the scenes to strike a compromise that would avoid the free-flowing debate, and instead give Republicans a series of circumscribed votes this month. The GOP has scheduled a two-hour policy meeting Thursday to discuss immigration.”
“No matter what happens, these next four weeks will be dominated, in part, by the immigration debate that Congress has been yearning for for the last six years. This could be a defining moment for the GOP, and there is lots of skepticism that this will go smoothly.”
Economists Worry About Possible Recession In 2020
“A group of top business economists believes the major tax cuts President Donald Trump pushed through Congress will give a significant boost to economic growth this year and next year. But they worry that by 2020, the country could be entering a new recession,” the AP reports.
“Part of the drop-off in optimism reflects growing worries about what Trump’s get-tough approach on trade might do to U.S. growth prospects.”
Giuliani Says Trump’s Recollection ‘Keeps Changing’
Rudy Giuliani told ABC News that President Trump’s explanation for helping draft a statement on a controversial 2016 Trump Tower meeting has repeatedly changed because “our recollection keeps changing.”
Said Giuliani: “This is the reason you don’t let the president testify. Our recollection keeps changing, or we’re not even asked a question and somebody makes an assumption.”
GOP Candidates Echo Trump on Immigration
“Leading Republican candidates are depicting many undocumented immigrants as criminals and endorsing a proposed wall on the Mexican border, adopting President Trump’s hard-line stance and alarming some who fear the GOP is out of step with a rapidly diversifying nation,” the Washington Post reports.
“The party’s increasingly aggressive tone on the issue represents a shift from just two years ago, when many Republican leaders criticized then-candidate Trump’s rhetoric as racially charged and predicted he would alienate Hispanic voters.”
Making More Sense of the Generic Ballot
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First Lady Will Not Join Trump on Upcoming Trips
First lady Melania Trump will not be joining President Trump on his upcoming trips to the G7 summit in Quebec and the highly anticipated summit between the United States and North Korea in Singapore, ABC News reports.
The first lady has not been seen in public since May 10.
Quote of the Day
“In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted. I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is.”
— Rudy Giuliani, quoted by the HuffPost, suggesting President Trump couldn’t be indicted even “if he shot James Comey.”
New Poll Averaging Method Would Have Predicted Trump
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Michael Cohen Wanted to Run for Mayor
Jonathan Swan: “On election night 2016, shortly after Donald Trump’s team realized he would win the presidency, Michael Cohen told a handful of people on the 14th floor of Trump Tower about his own dreams for the future — to be mayor of New York.”
Said Cohen: “This is the beginning of a dynasty.”
He added: “I’ve already got the bug. Nobody’s going to be able to fuck with us. I think I’m going to run for mayor.”
Tax Cuts Unlikely to Save GOP House Majority
Political analyst Charlie Cook confirmed to Axios that when he addressed senior House Republicans a few weeks ago, he told the group “that the tax cut did help among Republican voters, but helped only a little and temporarily among independents and did nothing with Democratic voters.”
Said Cook: “The essence of what I said was that if they were going to rely primarily on the tax cuts to hang onto their majority, they were unlikely to succeed.”
He added: “Even with the uptick in President Trump’s numbers and in the generic ballot test, I still think it is pretty uphill for them to hang onto their House majority. I use the metaphor of a Democratic tidal wave up against a Republican sea wall. In the House, the wave looks taller and stronger than the wall, in the Senate, the wall looks taller than the wave.”
