Here’s one to put on your reading list: One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported by E.J. Dionne, Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“You say you pay for me to do this? That’s bullcrap. I pay for myself. I paid enough taxes before I got here and continue to through my company to pay my own salary.”
— Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), quoted by The Hill, telling constituents at a town hall meeting that they don’t pay his salary.
The First 100 Days Really Don’t Matter
Matt Bai: “Even in normal cases, the whole 100-day construct is pretty silly. Anyone who’s ever started a new job — even one that doesn’t involve overseeing the world’s most formidable bureaucracy and its most powerful arsenal — knows that three months is barely enough time to figure out where the good vending machines are.”
“Trump’s case, though, isn’t close to normal, seeing as he was the least prepared president to assume office in any of our lifetimes. I say this not because he didn’t have the skill set needed to govern (that’s debatable), but because he literally wasn’t prepared to win. He’d given about as much thought to governing before November as I have to piloting a hot-air balloon.”
“The reality, to paraphrase Lincoln, is that history will little note nor long remember anything about these blurry 100 days, and when we look back even a year from now, trying to remember exactly who did what in Trump’s first months will be like trying to name the Marlins’ opening day lineup from, well, ever.”
American Led Airstrike Kills 18 Rebels Allied with U.S.
“An airstrike by the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State killed 18 Syrian fighters allied with the United States,” the New York Times reports.
“The strike, on Tuesday in Tabqah, Syria, was the third time in a month that American-led airstrikes may have killed civilians or allies, and it comes even as the Pentagon is investigating two previous airstrikes that killed or wounded scores of civilians in a mosque complex in Syria and in a building in the west of Mosul, Iraq.”
British Spies Were First to Notice Trump Ties to Russia
“Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives,” the Guardian reports
“GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious ‘interactions’ between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information… Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians.”
Ossoff Still Below 50% Threshold
A new RRH poll in Georgia’s 6th congressional district finds Jon Ossoff (D) in the lead in the special election with 39%, followed by Karen Handel (R) at 15%, Bob Gray (R) at 12%, Dan Moody (R) at 11%, and Judson Hill (R) at 10%.
If no candidate gets 50%, there will be a runoff between the top two finishers.
Trump Adviser May Have Discussed Lifting Sanctions
Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, told ABC News that when he was in Moscow last summer, “something may have come up in a conversation” with Russians about lifting U.S. sanctions.
Said Page: “I don’t recall every single word I ever said. Something may have come up in a conversation. I have no recollection, and there’s nothing specifically that I would have done that would have given people that impression.”
He added: “We’ll see what comes out in this FISA transcript.”
Trump’s New Health Care Strategy Is ‘Destroy and Replace’
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GOP Lawmaker Compares Lincoln to Hitler
North Carolina state Rep. Larry Pittman (R) said in a Facebook post that President Abraham Lincoln was a “tyrant” similar to Germany’s Adolf Hitler, the Raleigh News & Observer reports.
A commenter reminded Pittman that the Supreme Court ruling settled the law on gay marriage and that the lawmaker should “get over it.”
Pittman’s response: “And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it? Lincoln was the same sort of tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional.”
One Chart That Explains American Politics Today
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More Than $14 Million Spent on Georgia Ad Blitz
Atlanta Journal Constitution: “Candidates and outside groups have spent nearly $14 million on an unending ad blitz in the race to replace Rep. Tom Price’s suburban Atlanta seat, and that tally that will surely grow in the final days before Tuesday’s nationally-watched vote.”
“An analysis of the advertising obtained by the AJC shows the biggest spender by far is Democrat Jon Ossoff, a former Congressional aide who is eyeing a historic upset in next week’s vote.”
Huma Abedin Mulls Book Offers
“Huma Abedin, the longtime aide to Hillary Clinton, is considering offers to write a book,” Playbook reports.
“She has been approached by people interested, but has not made a decision. “
What’s Next If Bannon Is Pushed Out?
New York Times: “Mr. Bannon’s allies have already begun discussing a post-White House future for him. On Friday, his main political patron, Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of Robert Mercer, a major Trump donor, holed up in her office at Cambridge Analytica in New York, discussing possibilities for Mr. Bannon should he leave… Mr. Bannon served on the data-mining firm’s board until last summer.”
“Steve Deace, a conservative commentator from Iowa who has always been skeptical about Mr. Trump’s conservative core, said that cutting Mr. Bannon loose would send the wrong signal to conservatives — and could be dangerous given the delight Mr. Bannon takes in disruption.”
Said Deace: “I think firing Bannon would be a huge mistake for Trump. Hell hath no fury like a Bannon scorned.”
Suburban GOP Voters Sour on Party
New York Times: “Early missteps by President Trump and congressional leaders have weighed heavily on voters from the party’s more affluent wing, anchored in right-of-center suburbs around major cities in the South and Midwest. Never beloved in these precincts, Mr. Trump appears to be struggling to maintain support from certain voters who backed him last year mainly as a way of defeating Hillary Clinton.”
“Interviews with Republican-leaning voters in four suburban districts — in Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota and New Jersey — revealed a sour outlook on the party. These voters, mainly white professionals, say they expected far more in the way of results by now… Should Republican voters remain so demoralized — and Democrats so fired up — it could imperil dozens of congressional seats that are usually safe.”
Don’t Bet on Trump Embracing Globalism for Long
Mike Allen: “Trump has been all over the policy map when it comes to issues he hasn’t given much thought to (social issues, healthcare, Ex-Im Bank). But nationalism has been consistent in his speeches since the late 1980s. He’s talked about foreign countries ripping America off, and even in his NATO appearance he gently ribbed the Secretary General about getting the other nations to pay up. Nationalism is one of the few things Trump’s been consistent about for 30 years, those instincts are as hard-wired as anything in his make up; let’s see how long this version of Trump lasts.”
Playbook: “This is governing on the fly. Gone is the ardent post-election populism — for now. After weeks of bruising headlines and backlash over some of his administration’s more conservative positions, Trump is embracing policy and people that are much more mainstream.”
Quote of the Day
“Bannon is a brilliant pirate who has had a huge impact. But White Houses, in the end, are like the U.S. Navy — corporate structures and very hard on pirates.”
— Newt Gingrich, quoted by the Washington Post, on White House strategist Stephen Bannon.
Trump Shifts Gears on Economic Policy
President Trump “is abandoning a number of his key campaign promises on economic policy, adopting instead many of the centrist positions he railed against while campaigning as a populist,” the Washington Post reports.
“The statements represent a move toward the economic policies of more centrist Republicans and even at times align with the approach of former president Barack Obama. Should he follow through on the newly articulated positions, it would suggest that the candidate who ran as the ultimate outsider is increasingly adopting a more moderate economic agenda.”
Politico: “From health care and the Export-Import Bank to NATO and to China’s alleged currency manipulation, Trump has made moves that would leave a more traditional politician labeled a flip-flopper. But for Trump, who sold himself in part on a businessman’s flexibility, the moves fit his reputation for unpredictability.”
The Hill: Trump flips on four policies in one day.
When Jared Wins
“When Stephen K. Bannon reported for work Wednesday, he did not act like a man who had just been publicly humiliated by his boss,” the Washington Post reports.
“The White House chief strategist cycled in and out of the Oval Office for meetings with President Trump… But for Bannon, the day’s routine obscured the reality that he is a marked man — diminished by weeks of battles with the bloc of centrists led by Trump’s daughter and son-in-law and cut down by the president himself, who belittled Bannon in an interview with the New York Post.”
Rich Lowry: “For Bannon, the internal fight with the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is going about as well as could be expected, which is to say it couldn’t be going much worse.”
