| | | | A week like a month |  | | HOLY CRAP WHAT A WEEK.
And no, my "caps lock" key wasn't accidentally on. (OR WAS IT?)
We had a national midterm election in which Democrats retook control of the House for the first time in almost a decade. (And Republicans padded their Senate majority.) And yet, within hours, that story -- which is a MASSIVE story -- was pushed out of the headlines by two more:
1) President Donald Trump held an almost 90-minute post-election press conference in which he feuded with reporters, ran down members of his own party who didn't embrace him fully and lost and opened the door for the possibility of working across the aisle with House Democrats.
2) Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replaced him with Sessions' chief of staff, Matt Whitaker. Whitaker, who is now the acting attorney general, is now ostensibly in charge of the Russia interference probe being run by special counsel Robert Mueller.
So. In the space of 36 hours, we had a national election with HUGE political and policy consequences, an absolutely bananas press conference by the President and the removal of the nation's top cop. Even by Trumpian standards, that's one hell of a day and a half.
As often happens with Trump, the media -- not to mention the political world -- struggled to decide what mattered most. Was it the President's party losing one chamber of Congress -- and all that means (increased oversight, investigations and the like)? Or was it Trump seizing control of the Mueller investigation by putting a loyalist who has expressed skepticism about the Mueller probe in charge of said probe? What about Trump accusing a black reporter of asking a "racist" question? Or taking away a CNN reporter's media pass to cover the White House? Or how about the likelihood of recounts in Florida's Senate and governor's races even as Trump tweeted suggesting that Democrats were meddling in the vote?
The Point: Trump does this. He puts 20 pounds of news in a 5-pound bag and sees how things shake out.
-- Chris
The week in 23 headlines:
Monday: Tuesday: Wednesday: Thursday: Friday: | | "Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family's safety at risk. And for this I'd never forgive him."
-- First Lady Michelle Obama in her new memoir, talking about the aftermath of Trump's claims that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Trump fired back today saying he'll never forgive Obama "for what he did to our US military." | | |  | Why Trump dumping Sessions is a major Russia move | | In the course of one afternoon, President Donald Trump essentially took control of the Russia investigation. What does that mean going forward? Chris wraps up a week on YouTube with a deep dive into Sessions and his replacement.
| | An issue with ballot design could be part of the reason why there's such a big discrepancy between votes cast for governor and Senate in Florida's Broward County.
As CNN's Jennifer Agiesta and Aaron Kessler report: "Thousands of voters there may have missed their chance to weigh in on the still-undecided Senate race. The placement of the Senate race on the ballot could have made it easy to overlook. ...
Overall, as of Friday, nearly 26,000 voters in the county had cast ballots for governor but skipped voting in the Senate race, according to a CNN analysis of precinct-level results." | | Rapper and cannabis enthusiast Snoop Dog stopped by the White House this week and sent a smoke-filled message to President Donald Trump.
"I'm at the White House smoking," he said in a video uploaded to Instagram from Lafayette Park across from the White House. "F*** the president."
Recreational marijuana is legal in Washington, though it's still banned in 21.6% of the city, such as the pockets of land owned by the federal government -- including Lafayette Park. | |
WHEN THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH | |  | The youngest congresswoman in Washington is facing the same issue others do when they get a new job in a new town.
Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she can't afford an apartment in Washington until her House salary kicks in in January.
Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: "There are many little ways in which our electoral system isn't even designed (nor prepared) for working-class people to lead. This is one of them (don't worry btw - we're working it out!)." | | | | | | |
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