| | | | Donald Trump's week from hell 😈 | | | This is the week that we learned that there are a group of senior staffers within the White House and administration who are actively working to circumvent President Donald Trump's wishes under the belief that to do what he wants at all times would endanger national security.
Stop. Go back. Read that first sentence again.
That's a remarkable thing. Even in an administration defined by its seeming unending capability to amaze and disrupt standard procedures of governance, the idea that there is an active effort among top aides to marginalize Trump stands out.
But it's where we are after a week in which the first look at Bob Woodward's "Fear: Trump in the White House" painted a picture of a President deeply out of his depth and out of the loop. And a week on which an anonymous Trump administration official penned a New York Times op-ed that detailed an effort "to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office."
Those accounts confirm reports from sources like Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former Trump White House aide, and Michael Wolff in his best-selling "Fire and Fury." While the anecdotes might differ, the thrust of all of this reporting on Trump is the same: He is an isolated figure who frequently lashes out at a staff that views him with some combination of fear, loathing and ridicule.
Trump, as he so often does, compounded an already-difficult situation with his reaction to it. He suggested that the writer of the anonymous op-ed may have committed "TREASON?" He called Woodward an "idiot" and his book a "work of fiction" less than a month after he is heard on a recording made by Woodward praising the reporter as "very fair." He asked much-maligned Attorney General Jeff Sessions to open an investigation into the identity of the op-ed writer, although the legal grounds to do so are, well, nonexistent.
What everyone -- Trump's allies and his adversaries -- agree on is that his isolation, his paranoia and the direness of his current situation all ramped up this week. Trump appears to be absolutely fixated on finding the identity of the op-ed writer, but uninterested in addressing the very real concerns the piece raises. He is leaning in to an all-out assault against Woodward while offering little actual evidence that anything the famed political reporter has in his book is factually inaccurate. And he continues to lash out at the special counsel probe being led by Robert Mueller even as his lawyers continue to negotiate the possibility of a sit-down between the President and the former FBI director.
On top of all of that is the fact that the midterm elections are only 60 days away -- and all signs point to major Democratic gains in the House. And if Democrats take over the House, Trump's life is going to get A LOT more complicated in the second half of his term.
Trump spent the last part of the week doing what he enjoys most about the job of President: Delivering campaign speeches to adoring crowds in Republican-friendly areas. (He was in Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota on Thursday and Friday.) But staying within that adoration bubble won't change what faces him when he returns to Washington at the end of this week. And that is nothing good.
The Point: It's hard to pinpoint a worst week in what has been a presidency full of them. But the events of this week have to put it in the bottom five.
-- Chris
And now, the week that was in 28 headlines:
Monday: Trump blasts Sessions over indictments of two of his earliest congressional supporters
NYT: DOJ's Bruce Ohr, dossier author Christopher Steele involved in efforts to flip Russian oligarch
Tuesday:
Bob Woodward book: Trump called Sessions 'mentally retarded'
Trump amps up attacks on Woodward after explosive book excerpts
Mueller responds to Trump team; discussions focus more on written questions
Bob Woodward: Trump's lawyer warned him of an 'orange jump suit' if he testifies
Bob Woodward's bizarre phone call with Trump
Jury selection begins for second Paul Manafort trial
Bob Woodward: Trump's aides stole his papers 'to protect the country'
Trump irritated he wasn't interviewed by Woodward for upcoming book
Wednesday:
Nielsen calls out Putin for election interference
Kavanaugh says 'No one is above the law' but won't say if Trump can pardon himself
Woodward book prompts West Wing witch hunt, sources say
Anonymous senior administration official admits to working against Trump in New York Times op-ed
Trump warns Assad against assault, denies wanting to assassinate him
Judge denies Manafort's request to move next trial from DC to Virginia
Trump slams damning New York Times op-ed as 'gutless'
Giuliani says Trump's lawyers have already sent back a response to special counsel
Thursday:
Latest Zinke calendars stripped of most details about his meetings
Trump's top officials deny authoring NYT op-ed
Kamala Harris grills Kavanaugh on Mueller investigation
Kavanaugh, Kasowitz law firm deny conversations on Mueller probe
Trump slams 'deep state operatives,' vulnerable Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in Montana
Trump tells supporters it'll be 'your fault' if he gets impeached
Friday: Trump frets over 'perjury trap' if he sits down with Mueller
Trump wants Sessions to investigate New York Times op-ed
Obama slams Republicans: Trump is 'capitalizing on resentment'
NY bike path suspect cites Trump tweets in asking to drop death penalty possibility | | "It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause. He is just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years."
-- Former President Barack Obama takes on Trump (by name) and the Republicans in a speech in Illinois. | | | OBAMA UNLOADS ON TRUMP AND HIS GOP ALLIES | | Former President Barack Obama came storming off the bench -- like George Brett in 1983 but a bit less animated -- to criticize Trump, the Republicans who support him and even some Democrats who, as Obama put it, want to adopt GOP tactics.
CNN's Dan Merica was in Illinois for the speech and has the background on how it came together.
And CNN's Veronica Stracqualursi pulled together 10 memorable lines from a speech full of them. Here's a taste: - "What happened to the Republican Party?" (More on that point here, from Chris)
- "Republicans who know better in Congress, and they're there -- they're quoted saying, 'Yeah, we know this is kind of crazy' -- are still bending over backwards to shield this behavior from scrutiny or accountability or consequence, seem utterly unwilling to find the backbone to safeguard the institutions that make our democracy work."
- "I know there are Republicans who believe government should only perform a few minimal functions but that one of those functions should be making sure nearly 3,000 Americans don't die in a hurricane and its aftermath (in Puerto Rico)."
- "How hard can that be, saying that Nazis are bad?"
- "(The Republicans are) supposed to be the party, supposedly, of fiscal conservatism. Suddenly deficits do not matter."
| | YOUR RESPONSE, MR. PRESIDENT? | | | One of Chris' favorite albums of 2018 (so far) is "Dying Star" by Ruston Kelly. Go listen to it. | | | Today's topic: Donald Trump says he doesn't talk like Bob Woodward's book quotes him as talking. Um.... | | KAVANAUGH HEARINGS, MEET THE #2020 WATCH | | "Eleven years after Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton used Senate hearings as an anti-Iraq war launchpad for their presidential ambitions, two Democratic senators are similarly seizing on the Supreme Court battle to play to the gallery of 2020 primary voters."
CNN's Eric Bradner and Stephen Collinson discuss what else is at stake at the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.
Their aggressive tactics seem to be playing well with Democrats, especially progressives who have long argued that elected officials in Washington are too keen to play nice with Republicans.
Bradner and Collinson continue:
On Booker: "Progressives demanded a fight against Kavanaugh, and Booker arrived Thursday morning ready to deliver.
Booker released 12 pages of Kavanaugh emails on the topic of racial inequality after complaining that too many documents had been deemed "committee confidential" and shielded from the public eye as the Senate. What he didn't say at the time was that the committee had cleared those documents in the wee hours that morning."
On Harris: "She also grilled Kavanaugh on a series of issues important to progressives. Kavanaugh declined to directly answer whether the Supreme Court case legalizing same-sex marriage was correctly decided by the court, or whether major obstacles to abortion are unconstitutional.
He also wouldn't say whether there are fundamental familial rights for immigrant families -- a question related to the Trump administration's policy of separating undocumented immigrant families at the border -- and whether the President can use race as a basis to ban entry into the United States.
On Wednesday night, Harris also made headlines for her question on abortion rights and the future of Roe v. Wade -- a topic other Democrats angling to run for president who aren't on the committee, including New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, have highlighted.
'Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?' Harris asked." | | NORTH CAROLINA WANTS TO PUT ICE REQUEST ON ICE | | The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, better known as ICE, wants voting records from the state of North Carolina.
But, as CNN's Tal Kopan reports, that's not going to happen without a fight:
"The North Carolina state elections board on Friday unanimously voted to ask the state's attorney general to quash a subpoena from the US attorney and Immigration and Customs Enforcement for eight years of voting records.
The board unanimously voted not only to fight the subpoena on the state level, but also on behalf of 44 counties who were similarly subpoenaed.
The decision was made during a public meeting, although the board met in closed executive session for roughly 40 minutes before returning to the public session and voting on their motion."
The argument:
Board Vice Chairman Joshua Malcolm called the subpoena "overly broad, unreasonable, vague, and clearly impacts significant interests of our voters" and said the board would "not stand idly by and consent to any agency attempting to obtain records and documents that violate the principles of overreach by the federal government, as in this circumstance."
The response:
None for now, as Kopan reported: ICE and the US attorney's office declined to comment. | | | From Brenna: "Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is making the same face I made when someone told me this was only a four-day week. So much has happened! And if you missed any of it (and also happen to love GIFs), catch up here." | | | | | | |
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