President Trump asserted his “complete power to pardon” in a tweet after reports emerged this week that he was discussing his ability to pardon people in the ongoing investigation into ties between his campaign and Russia, The Hill reports.
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McConnell’s Last Ditch Strategy on Health Care
Politico: “Senior Senate Republicans believe the high-profile vote expected Tuesday — followed by conservative backlash over the GOP’s failure to fulfill its seven-year campaign pledge — might provoke enough heat from the base to bring senators back to the negotiating table.”
“It seems like a long shot. But McConnell may be playing the long game — making his members walk the plank not as an act of desperation but as part of a strategy that just might work. He’s used it before to get what he wants.”
Inside a White House Shake Up
“Sean Spicer came to the White House on Thursday completely unaware President Donald Trump was planning to meet with Anthony Scaramucci, a longtime Wall Street friend, and offer him the job of communications director. Other top aides, including Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon, also had no clue,” Politico reports.
“The wham-bam events of the past 24 hours were exceptional even by Trump’s standards: the dismissal of his top lawyer and the lawyer’s spokesman, West Wing blowups between the president and his top aides, a press secretary fending off rumors about his possible demise without knowing the entire truth, all while new reports landed about Trump going on the attack against the special counsel investigating his White House.”
“What struck one adviser who speaks to Trump frequently is that the president seemed calm — like he had a plan in mind all along — but just hadn’t shared it with many others.”
Republicans Embrace Tax Hike Targeting Blue States
“Republicans aren’t usually big on raising taxes, but they’re really eager to eliminate the federal deduction for state and local taxes,” the AP reports.
“Why? A look at the states that benefit the most from the tax break helps explain it — they are all Democratic strongholds. New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and California top the list of states where taxpayers get the biggest deductions. Not a single Republican-leaning state ranks in the top 10.”
“Proposals by House Republican leaders and President Donald Trump would repeal the tax break as part of their packages to overhaul the American tax code. But they are getting a lot of pushback from Republican lawmakers in Democratic-controlled states.”
Sessions Discussed Campaign with Russian Ambassador
“Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general,” the Washington Post reports.
“Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia.”
“Sessions initially failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak and then said that the meetings were not about the Trump campaign.”
No Reason to Feel Sorry for Sean Spicer
Jack Shafer: “By the end of his active tenure as press secretary—which we can date to June when the administration started platooning in Sarah Huckabee Sanders for on-camera briefings—Spicer had become the Lord Haw-Haw of the Trump administration. That’s a mighty harsh appraisal. Lord Haw-Haw was, after all, a British citizen who broadcast German propaganda into the UK from Hamburg during World War II. Lord Haw Haw’s willingness to say everything and anything that would serve his masters finds its parallel, albeit cleansed of the unspeakable Nazi taint, in Spicer’s peacetime opportunism. Nobody took Lord Haw-Haw seriously. Like Spicer, he was just noise on the margins of the signal, a continuing joke that wasn’t very funny considering the stakes involved.”
Parts of Health Care Bill Violate Senate Rules
Caitlin Owens: “The Senate parliamentarian ruled Friday that some parts of the Senate health care bill do not comply with budget rules, meaning that if they’re included in the bill, they’ll need 60 votes to pass.”
“The biggest provisions that will have to come out if the Senate follows past precedent: Planned Parenthood defunding, abortion funding restrictions, and funding for insurer cost-sharing payments. However, one of the most controversial amendments of the bill, Sen. Ted Cruz’s Consumer Freedom Act, wasn’t included in her ruling, as it only addressed an earlier version of the bill that didn’t include it.”
Student Discounts
A very generous reader made a donation so that I could offer discounted memberships for college students. I’m matching the donation.
The first 20 students who send an email from their college email address, will get a coupon code for 50% off the annual membership.
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“Here’s what I’ll tell you about the president: He’s the most competitive person I’ve ever met. I’ve seen this guy throw a perfect spiral through a tire. I’ve seen him at Madison Square Garden with a top coat on and he’s hitting foul shots and swishing them. He sinks three foot puts. I don’t see this guy as a guy who’s ever under siege.”
— Anthony Scaramucci, at a press briefing on his first day as White House communications director.
How Does Trump Spend His Day?
David Remnick has a great interview with Maggie Haberman of the New York Times about her reporting on President Trump.
REMNICK: How does Donald Trump spend his day when not in routine meetings that are on his schedule?
HABERMAN: This is really like the holy grail of reporting that has been sought and not completely answered for some time, including by me. He gets very irritated when we all report that he watches a lot of TV. He does watch a lot of TV—it doesn’t seem like that’s a massively controversial statement. But he doesn’t like when that is said because he thinks it’s shorthand for saying he doesn’t work that hard. He holds a lot of meetings. But his Oval Office is an incredibly open-door room, unlike most Oval Offices, where, really, it is, as you know, David, it’s the palace, and the chief of staff is the gatekeeper. I mean, Trump’s Oval Office is like Grand Central Station. People try briefing him and someone comes in and interrupts him. People just sort of walk in without being previously announced in any meaningful way. He spends his day interacting, is how I would describe it. He gets the daily brief in the mornings. He has had that condensed down to a more visual-cued form than it was previously.
REMNICK: It sounds like you’re being a little bit polite. What previous Presidents did, in one way or another, was read a tremendous amount the night before and then get a brief from the director of National Intelligence. And he has no patience for that, from what I understand. He has no patience for reading briefing books, and he has to see a lot of pictures, a lot of video, a lot of charts.
HABERMAN: He likes a lot of charts. He likes looking at things.
If Trump Pardons, It Could Be a Crime
Daniel Hemel and Eric Posner: “Consistent with the framers’ design, the Supreme Court has interpreted the president’s pardon power broadly. The president can pardon anyone for any crime at any time — even before a suspect has been charged. Congress cannot withdraw presidential pardons, and prosecutors and courts cannot ignore them.”
“But could a pardon be a criminal abuse of power? Some would argue that would contradict the founders’ vision of unlimited pardon authority. If a president sold pardons for cash, though, that would violate the federal bribery statute. And if a president can be prosecuted for exchanging pardons for bribes, then it follows that the broad and unreviewable nature of the pardon power does not shield the president from criminal liability for abusing it.”
“If it could be shown that President Trump pardoned his family members and close aides to cover up possible crimes, then that could be seen as acting “corruptly” and he could be charged with obstruction of justice.”
Trump Brings Terrorism Suspect to U.S. for Trial
“The Trump administration has brought a Qaeda suspect to the United States to face trial in federal court, backing off its hard-line position that terrorist suspects should be sent to the naval prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, rather than to civilian courtrooms,” the New York Times reports.
How Trump Might Use Russia to His Advantage
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Former CBO Directors Confront Assaults on Agency
Roll Call: “All eight former directors of the Congressional Budget Office — Democrats and Republicans alike — sent a letter to Congress Friday protesting the ongoing attacks on the agency’s integrity and urging that Congress continue to rely on CBO estimates.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Every now and then I’m wistful about it, but most of the time I would say, maybe I’ve avoided an ulcer, you know?”
— Former Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), quoted by the Omaha World-Herald, when asked if he regrets not running for reelection in 2012.
Putin Suggests He Might Not Leave Office
“Asked what he plans to do when he leaves the presidency, Vladimir Putin paused and smiled. ‘But I haven’t decided yet if I will leave the presidency,’ the Russian leader replied, to laughter and applause from an audience made up almost entirely of Russians who were born after he first became president in 2000,” the Guardian reports.
“Presidential elections will take place next March and Putin is widely expected to stand and win another six-year term.”
Pence Makes Push to Get Health Bill to the Floor
Vice President Mike Pence is making an all out push for the Senate to get the health care bill onto the floor next week, Jonathan Swan reports.
“The White House needs to convince two conservative senators, Mike Lee and Rand Paul, to vote to allow the Senate to debate the health care bill. We expect Pence to leverage his deep connections in the conservative movement to build pressure on these senators over these crucial few days.”
