The Economist: “People who react strongly to bad smells tend to have more authoritarian political leanings than those who are less acutely aware of their olfactory environment, a new study suggests. Factors such as family background or economic circumstances are much better predictors, of course. But the findings add to persistent evidence that prejudices and political views can be influenced by a person’s desire to avoid disease and bad smells.”
Trump Declares a Trade War
President Trump said “that he will impose stiff and sweeping tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum as he moved to fulfill a key campaign promise to get tough on foreign competitors,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump said he would formally sign the trade measures next week and promised they would be in effect ‘for a long period of time.'”
Jonathan Swan: “I can’t overstate the effect of Trump’s new tariffs, 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum…. These tariffs have the potential to roil markets and affect relationships with allies. Trump is also touching the third rail of international trade law — he’s using an arcane trade law known as Section 232 to justify his actions.”
Senators Say House Intelligence Committee Leaked Texts
“The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were behind the leak of private text messages between the Senate panel’s top Democrat and a Russian-connected lawyer,” the New York Times reports.
“Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), the committee’s Republican chairman, and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat, were so perturbed by the leak that they demanded a rare meeting with Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month to inform him of their findings. They used the meeting with Mr. Ryan to raise broader concerns about the direction of the House Intelligence Committee under its chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA).”
“To the senators, who are overseeing what is effectively the last bipartisan investigation on Capitol Hill into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the leak was a serious breach of protocol and a partisan attack by one intelligence committee against the other.”
Democrats Widen Lead In Generic Ballot
A new USA Today/Suffolk poll finds that by a nearly 2-1 margin, 58% to 32%, Americans say they want to elect a Congress that mostly stands up to President Trump, not one that mostly cooperates with him.
If the election were held today, those surveyed say they are more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate for Congress than the Republican one by 47% to 32% — a yawning 15 percentage-point advantage.
Trump Postpones Announcement of Tariffs
“President Trump has decided against announcing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports on Thursday after 18 hours of frenetic pushback from inside the White House and on Capitol Hill,” the Washington Post reports.
“The planned announcement had been kept secret from many senior White House officials in an effort to prevent a huge backlash that could sway Trump at the last second.”
Quote of the Day
“Does the president want to lose everyone because of General Jackass?”
— Anthony Scaramucci, quoted by Bloomberg, about White House chief of staff John Kelly and the “horrible” morale inside the White House.
Planned Parenthood Will Target Eight States
Planned Parenthood’s political arm is targeting eight states — Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that have competitive Senate and governor’s races in its largest-ever midterm election campaign, CNN reports.
“The offensive is set to cost $20 million, an initial mark that the organization’s officials say is all but certain to be exceeded.”
Democrats Field Candidates In Every North Carolina Race
“For the first time in anyone’s memory, nearly all 170 state legislative races in North Carolina will feature both a Republican and Democratic candidate,” the Raleigh News and Observer reports.
“Candidate filing ended at noon Wednesday, leaving just one uncontested race for state House or state Senate after a heavy recruiting push from both the NC Democratic Party and the NC Republican Party.”
How Trump Might Replace Jeff Sessions
Jonathan Chait: “It would presumably be extremely difficult for the president to implant a loyalist into the position. Republicans have only 51 senators. Any two could join with Democrats to block an unacceptable successor, and there are a number of potential Republican senators — John McCain, Jeff Flake, Susan Collins, and Bob Corker, among others — who would be inclined to do so if Trump nominates the kind of AG he obviously craves.”
“But Trump might be able to fire Sessions and appoint a temporary replacement. The Federal Vacancies Reform Act allows the president to install, for 210 days, any official who has been confirmed by the Senate for any position. One name that has been floated for such a maneuver is Environmental Protection Agency director Scott Pruitt, who might have the requisite combination of personal corruption and ideological fanaticism to carry out Trump’s bidding.”
“An appointment of a Pruitt, or some other Senate-confirmed Trump loyalist, would only last for 210 days. But that might be long enough for a sufficiently craven attorney general to fire independent staff at the Department of Justice and the FBI and quash the Mueller probe.”
Democrats Promote ‘Stability’ Candidates
First Read: “Given that chaos, Democrats believe they’ve discovered the kind of candidates that could be appealing to voters, especially those in red and purple areas, one year-plus into Trump’s presidency: candidates who project stability.”
“Think of Ralph Northam (military background, doctor, lieutenant governor) who won Virginia’s gubernatorial contest last November. Or think of Doug Jones (a former prosecutor who promised he could ‘work with Republicans better than Roy Moore can work with anyone’) in December’s Alabama contest. Or think of Conor Lamb (military background, former prosecutor) who’s running in this month’s special congressional election in a Pennsylvania district Trump won by 20 points in 2016.”
“It’s chaos vs. stability. It’s reality-show background vs. military/prosecutor backgrounds. And it’s excitement vs., well, a little boring.”
Are Never Trumpers Still Republicans?
Matt Bai: “A year into Trump’s presidency, Republican activists in the rest of the country seem to have rallied around his politics of grievance, while in Washington, conservative thinkers who once ran the country huddle together in exile. Now it’s Kristol and his contemporaries who find themselves on the frontier side of the border.”
“I asked Kristol if he could still call himself a Republican, and whether he would if Trump was reelected in 2020.”
“The answer to the first question, he said, was yes. The answer to the second was no.”
Shelby Says He Wouldn’t Be Trump’s ‘Whipping Boy’
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said that he would not stick around and be President Trump’s “whipping boy” if he was in the position of his former colleague, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Birmingham News reports.
Said Shelby: “Absolutely not. I wouldn’t stay at all unless the president wanted me to stay… I wouldn’t be anybody’s whipping boy, I wouldn’t be belittled because the president is saying he doesn’t have any confidence in me.”
How Did Melania Trump Score an ‘Einstein Visa’?
The Washington Post reports that in 2001 Melania Trump was granted “a green card in the elite EB-1 program, which was designed for renowned academic researchers, multinational business executives or those in other fields, such as Olympic athletes and Oscar-winning actors, who demonstrated ‘sustained national and international acclaim.'”
Said former Rep. Bruce Morrison (D-CT), who wrote the Immigration Act of 1990 defining EB-1: “We called it the Einstein visa.”
“In all, of the more than one million green cards issued in 2001, just 3,376 — or a fraction of one percent — were issued to immigrants with ‘extraordinary ability,’ according to government statistics.”
Congress Has Stopped Talking About Immigration
“Take away a deadline, and Congress will simply lose its focus on any issue — even the heated debate around immigration,” the Washington Post reports.
“This was supposed to be the week when Congress would force itself to resolve the dispute over the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order, which President Trump announced in September he would revoke on March 5, giving Congress a six-month window to resolve the issue.”
Support for Obamacare Higher Than Ever
A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds 54% of Americans have a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act, as compared to just 42% who have an unfavorable view.
White House Scrambling Ahead of Trade Announcement
“The White House is planning to make a major announcement today about whether it will impose new limits on steel and aluminum imports… following months of speculation about whether President Trump would follow through on trade threats and impose tariffs that could roil global markets,” the Washington Post reports.
Jonathan Swan: “But the news comes as a big surprise to many administration officials, signaling a truly remarkable breakdown in process — and the event may not happen. The confusion last night among senior officials on the trade announcement — a decision of global consequence — is like nothing I’ve seen in the Kelly era.”
Trump Comments Show Disdain for the Rule of Law
James Hohmann: “Whatever your view of Second Amendment jurisprudence, Trump’s flippant comments showed a startling indifference for foundational rights that are enumerated in the Fourth, Fifth and 14th amendments. The legal concept of due process is as old as the Magna Carta.”
“It doesn’t seem like an exaggeration to say that some Republican members of Congress would have called for Barack Obama’s impeachment if he had ever called for taking people’s guns away without due process. It’s certainly a more extreme statement than Obama’s 2008 claim that people in rural areas weren’t voting for him because they ‘cling’ to guns and religion. Even a decade later, Obama hasn’t lived that down. Republicans routinely cite it in their stump speeches.”
“But only one Republican member of Congress appears to have sent out a press release objecting to Trump’s comments.”
Hicks Refused to Answer If Others Asked Her to Lie
In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, outgoing White House communications director Hope Hicks refused to answer whether a “litany of 50” people, including “the entire Trump family,” had ever asked Hicks to lie, CBS News reports.
The list of names included Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Corey Lewandowski, Michael Cohen and others. Hicks was also asked whether she heard President Trump ask others to lie for him.
Hicks gave a “blanket” response by declining to answer in each instance.
