| | | | | Welcome to The Point with Chris Cillizza -- CNN's new nightly politics newsletter! This new addition to your evenings will cut through the day's news and get right to The Point with analysis from Chris Cillizza and co-author Saba Hamedy. See something you like -- or don't? Or something that we can do better? Let us know. Send your thoughts to cillizza@cnn.com or saba.hamedy@cnn.com. | | | No, Donald, Vladimir didn't want Hillary to win | | For the first time in two months, President Donald Trump granted an interview on Wednesday to a media outlet not named Fox News Channel.
It was a sitdown with Christian Broadcasting Network's Pat Robertson and, in it, Trump offered a very strange theory about why Russian President Vladimir Putin actually didn't want him to win the 2016 election.
Here's Trump' explanation (in part):
"We are the most powerful country in the world and we are getting more and more powerful because I'm a big military person. As an example, if Hillary had won, our military would be decimated. Our energy would be much more expensive. That's what Putin doesn't like about me. And that's why I say, why would he want me? Because from Day One I wanted a strong military, he doesn't want to see that."
So Putin knew that if Clinton won, the US military would collapse, which would be good for Russia, while, if Trump won, the military would be made bigger and better because "I'm a big military person."
Trump went on.
"So what I keep hearing about that, he would have rather had Trump, I think 'probably not,' because when I want a strong military, you know she wouldn't have spent the money on military. When I want tremendous energy, we're opening up coal, we're opening up natural gas, we're opening up fracking, all the things that he would hate, but nobody ever mentions that."
Again, because Trump wants "tremendous energy" and because Putin would "hate" that, it's impossible that Putin would have wanted Trump to win. No one tells people that, because the media, in Trump's world, is deeply biased against him.
The problem with Trump's explanation is that, well, we know it's simply not true.
The FBI, CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence have all agreed not only that Russia was aggressively meddling in our election, but that they were doing so to help Trump and hurt Clinton. There is no debate within the intelligence community about those points. There is little debate in the political world about those points either -- except among Trump and his inner circle.
If you needed even more evidence -- beyond the unanimous conclusion of the relevant intelligence agencies -- that Russia wanted Trump to win, go to the email exchanges between Donald Trump Jr. and music publicist Rob Goldstone, revealed earlier this week.
Of the "incriminating" information Goldstone wants to pass along to Trump Jr., he writes: "This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."
"Part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." Pretty clear-cut, no?
The honest truth is that there are no good answers for Trump (or Trump Jr.) on Russia at the moment. But attempting to argue that Russia actually wanted Clinton to win runs counter to lots (and lots) of established facts. | | On Wednesday, California Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman, joined by Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green, introduced an article of impeachment (H. Res 438) against President Trump for High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
This shouldn't come as a surprise: Sherman previously announced publicly that he was drafting the article of impeachment. And Green has also publicly pushed for impeachment (and received racist threats after calling for it).
However, a Democrat-backed article of impeachment is dead on arrival in a GOP-controlled House. Don't believe us? CNN's Z. Byron Wolf explained why we are "a long, long, long way from a real impeachment effort."
"Impeachment would take most or all of the following elements: - A recommendation by Mueller that the President be impeached
- A unified Democratic Party
- A large amount of support from Republicans"
As Zach puts it: "Not even a Republican Senate could find a way to remove (former President Bill) Clinton. There's no reason to think, barring some cataclysmic development, that a Republican Senate would remove Trump." | | OKLAHOMA! (NOT THE MUSICAL) | | Surprise! Two Democrats -- immigration attorney Michael Brooks-Jimenez and retired school teacher Karen Gaddis -- won statehouse seats in ... Oklahoma.
But before Dems get too excited, it's important to note a few things. First, as Tulsa World columnist Randy Krehbiel pointed out: "Tuesday was a nice day for Oklahoma Democrats, but it doesn't necessarily signal a major shift in Oklahoma politics."
National Journal reporter Zach Cohen echoed: "Democrats should take note that their special election victories in Oklahoma are not entirely attributable to Trump."
The Republican party in Oklahoma has had its fair share of scandals recently, causing dissatisfaction with leadership in the state.
"The Senate seat won by Brooks-Jimenez had been held by Ralph Shortey who resigned this year due to child prostitution allegations," The Daily Beast's Gideon Resnick reported. "Similarly, representative Dan Kirby, who held the Tulsa House seat, resigned following an investigation into sexual harassment claims made by a previous assistant."
Still, it's safe to say a double flip in a red state is definitely notable. | | | Haim's new album "Something to Tell You" is amazing and worth a listen in its entirety. But if you are an "I only listen to singles" type of person, then 1) you are bad and 2) check out "Want You Back," the first single from the group's sophomore album. | | President Donald Trump insisted on Twitter Wednesday that he is too busy with policy issues to watch television (TBH -- in an era of peak TV, we all have very little time for watching TV).
But according to Politico's Emily Yoffe, who wrote a story last week -- called "Is Donald Trump a TV Addict?" -- "Trump's obsession with television is so consuming that the former reality-TV show star experiences the reality of his presidency through flat-screens in the West Wing."
As I wrote last year, Trump watches more cable TV than you do. | | THAT AWKWARD MOMENT WHEN... | | House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi referred to President Donald Trump as President Bush (again) in a recent TV interview. This is not the first time the California Dem has made that mistake. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Another recent awkward moment: "Fox & Friends" mistakenly spelled Jared Kushner as "Jared Kosher" in its chyron. | | | Los Angeles Times reporters Joe Fox, Priya Krishnakumar and Jon Schleuss figured out how to avoid the lines at Disneyland ... using data analysis! They analyzed 4 million wait times at Disneyland to figure out the best time to visit the park. The verdict? The best days to visit: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The best months: September and January. | | | Roman Espinoza, a Watertown, New York resident, created a "Blessing Box" on his lawn to encourage residents in his neighborhood to donate and take food as needed. It's now filled with food, and other essential supplies like soap, available to anyone. | | | That head tilt, though. Thanks for reading, and as always, remember to tell your friends -- and your enemies -- to subscribe. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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