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Friday's Mini-Report, 7.21.17
Today's edition of quick hits:
* If you fell for the nonsense about the significance of "unmasking," I have bad news for you: "Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) on Friday accused his counterpart in the House, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), of creating a false narrative about Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice."
* Spicer's successor: "Sarah Huckabee Sanders will replace Sean Spicer as White House press secretary. Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, announced Sanders' promotion during Friday's press briefing -- the first on-camera briefing in weeks."
* The latest on Manafort: "Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating possible money laundering by Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's former campaign manager, as part of his criminal investigation into what U.S. intelligence agencies say was a Kremlin-backed campaign to meddle in the 2016 presidential election, according to a person familiar with the matter."
* The obvious thing to do: "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 terrorism suspects should be sent to the naval prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rather than to civilian courtrooms."
* If our goal is to improve relations with an ally, this is probably unwise: "President Trump has offered the post of United States ambassador to Germany to Richard Grenell, a former diplomatic aide to President George W. Bush and a Republican strategist who once worked for Senator John McCain, two people briefed on the conversation said on Thursday."
* Interesting statistic: when the Affordable Care Act was written, Democrats helped approve 188 Republican amendments to the legislation. This year, Republicans have approved zero Democratic amendments.
Former ACA critic: 'I can't even remember why I opposed it'
When the fight over the Affordable Care Act was at its height, both major parties effectively took a political gamble. Democrats believed that once "Obamacare" became law, and families started enjoying the benefits of the vastly improved system, the overheated controversy would fade and the ACA's popularity would grow.
Republicans, meanwhile, bet on the opposite. The right believed, through a combination of lies, demagoguery, and ridiculous predictions, it could convince much of the nation's mainstream that "Obamacare" would shred the fabric of American life. These attitudes, conservatives assumed, would be quickly ingrained, to the point that the reform law would never receive public acceptance.
Several years later, with the Affordable Care Act's popularity reaching new heights, there's every reason to believe Democratic expectations were more correct than their GOP counterparts. The New York Times has an interesting piece on the attitudes of voters in Doylestown, Pa., where locals didn't like "Obamacare" -- until recently.
[S]entiment here reflects the polls -- and how they have shifted. Many people still have little understanding of how the law works. But Democrats and independents have rallied around it, and many of those who opposed it now accept the law, unwilling to see millions of Americans stripped of the coverage that it extended to them.
"I can't even remember why I opposed it," said Patrick Murphy, who owns Bagel Barrel, on a quaint and bustling street near Mr. Brahin's law office here in Doylestown.
He went on to tell the Times, "Everybody needs some sort of health insurance." In apparent reference to Republicans, Murphy added, "They're trying to repeal Obamacare but they don't have anything in place."
After a brief and tumultuous tenure, Sean Spicer resigns
After Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, elevating Gerald Ford, the new Republican president needed a new White House team. Ford tapped Jerald terHorst, a veteran journalist, to be the press secretary, and he seemed like a perfectly sensible choice.
The arrangement, however, did not last. A month into Ford's tenure, the new president issued a controversial pardon to Nixon, and unwilling to defend the decision, terHorst resigned. His tenure -- just 31 days -- was the shortest of any White House press secretary ever.
The second shortest was Sean Spicer, who lasted 182 days.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned on Friday, sources tell NBC News.
The sudden departure comes as Donald Trump transition team official Anthony Scaramucci was slated to be announced as White House communications director.
For more on Scaramucci's apparent appointment, see our piece from this morning.
By any fair estimate, Spicer was never an ideal choice for this position. Trump's principal spokesperson quickly developed a reputation for brazen dishonesty and clumsy evasiveness, both of which made it easy for hilarious impressions, but difficult for competent work from the podium of the White House briefing room.
Some of my personal favorite moments from Spicer's brief-but-tumultuous tenure included the time he was caught hiding in the bushes for several minutes; his spirited argument over the meaning of the word "is"; the terribly unfortunate reference to "Holocaust centers"; his unintentionally hilarious instance that Trump's inaugural crowd "was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration -- period"; the argument that the Republican health care bill must be superior to the Affordable Care Act because it can be printed on fewer pieces of paper; and many, many more moments we can all collectively treasure.
Friday's Campaign Round-Up, 7.21.17
Today's installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* There's a little over three months remaining in Virginia's gubernatorial race, and Republican nominee Ed Gillespie has decided he needs strong turnout from Donald Trump supporters if he's going to prevail. "Virginia needs a governor who is eager to work with President Trump, not be at odds with him," he said this week. Trump lost Virginia last year by five points.
* By all accounts, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray is preparing to launch a Democratic gubernatorial campaign in Ohio next year. Cordray, before joining the CFPB, was the Buckeye State's attorney general.
* In Alabama's U.S. Senate special election primary, a super PAC supporting appointed Sen. Luther Strange (R) has launched a new ad, highlighting Rep. Mo Brooks' (R) previous criticism of Trump. Viewers are told the far-right congressman is "Wrong on Trump. Wrong for Alabama." The primary is Aug. 15.
* The Washington Post did an interesting analysis of the interviews Trump's done since taking office, which found the president tends to turn his attention to Hillary Clinton, unprompted, very early on in almost every conversation.
* In Ohio's U.S. Senate race, Republican Josh Mandel this week took the unusual step of condemning the Anti-Defamation League and expressing solidarity with right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich, who's perhaps best known for promoting the bizarre "Pizzagate" theory.
CIA Director Pompeo's views on Wikileaks have apparently evolved
A few months ago, in his first public remarks after becoming the director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo expressed contempt for Wikileaks, calling the website "a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia."
Yesterday, The Hill highlighted some related thoughts from Pompeo.
Pompeo argued during an interview with conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens at the Aspen Institute's Security Forum that Wikileaks is intent on harming America.
"WikiLeaks will take down America any way they can," he said. "I don't love WikiLeaks."
This wasn't an unexpected response. Not only did he criticize Wikileaks earlier this year, but most high-ranking officials in U.S. intelligence agencies have made related comments about the website and the people behind it.
The trouble is what Pompeo used to say about Wikileaks. CNN had an interesting report on this back in April.
Senate GOP confirms controversial Trump nominee to appeals court
Asked this week about his party's difficulties in governing, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters, "We have a new Supreme Court justice,"
The point wasn't subtle: the Republicans may be struggling to advance their legislative agenda, but the party is nevertheless moving the federal judiciary to the right. And while this may seem like an argument intended to rationalize failure, McConnell's argument isn't wrong.
Yesterday, for example, Senate Republicans voted unanimously to confirm John Bush, a Donald Trump nominee to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. And who's John Bush? Let's revisit a recent piece from Slate's Dahlia Lithwick:
Blogging under a pseudonym, the Kentucky lawyer wrote more than 400 posts for the website Elephants in the Bluegrass. His wide-ranging and unfiltered commentary has included, for instance, the claim that abortion and slavery are “[t]he two greatest tragedies in our country.” His blog posts have cited conspiracy theories and false information, including references to the claim that President Obama was not born in the United States.
In his Senate questionnaire, he described the vicious 1991 beating of Rodney King as a “police encounter.” As Eleanor Clift notes in the Daily Beast, he has also gone on record arguing that the Supreme Court made a bad ruling in the landmark freedom of the press case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. In the Trump era, that’s a feature, not a bug.
During Bush's confirmation hearing, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) asked Bush to explain why he relied on radical and fringe websites like World Net Daily as legitimate sources for information. Bush said that "as a blogger I was finding things in the news that were of note."
World Net Daily, for those unfamiliar with it, is known for peddling ridiculous conspiracy theories, including championing the ant-Obama "birther" cause for many years. The fact that Bush saw WND as credible raises serious questions about his judgment.
Trump makes an odd choice for White House communications director
Donald Trump's first choice for White House communications director was Jason Miller, who worked with the Republican during the campaign, but who unexpectedly withdrew before Inauguration Day due to personal troubles.
In February, the president turned to Mike Dubke, the founder of a Republican consulting firm called Crossroads Media, to serve as communications director, but Dubke quit after three months.
The position has been vacant for two months, but Trump World has reportedly settled on Dubke's successor.
The Trump administration is expected to name former Trump transition team official Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director, four sources in and close to the White House told NBC News Thursday.
The news of the expected appointment was first reported by Axios. A White House official said the move is expected to be announced Friday.
If Scaramucci's name sounds familiar, it's probably because you've seen him on television several times, defending Trump in dubious ways. My personal favorite came in December on MSNBC, when Scaramucci, hoping to provide cover for Trump's routine departures from the truth, said in all seriousness, "Don't take him literally, take him symbolically. See, it's different."
Scaramucci, one of six Goldman Sachs veterans with prominent positions in the administration despite Trump using the finance giant as a campaign punching bag, was initially supposed to serve in the White House Office of Public Liaison -- the president wanted him to be Team Trump's "liaison" to the business community -- but Chief of Staff Reince Priebus reportedly scuttled the move.
An unpersuasive defense of Trump's health care ignorance
Donald Trump's ignorance about health care is obvious. Just this week, the president, while bragging about his expertise on the subject, made plain that he simply doesn't have any idea what he's talking about.
The question, however, is whether Trump's illiteracy is consequential. MSNBC's Hallie Jackson asked Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) about this yesterday, and the Republican senator did his best to defend his party's president.
"In your conversations with him, do you think the President understands the political, the policy intricacies of this bill?" Jackson asked.
"I don't think it's important for him to understand the policy intricacies of this bill," Cassidy replied. "What's important for him is to understand the principle -- his principle is that there should be a replace associated with repeal. And during the campaign he consistently said he wanted to continue coverage for those who had, cover preexisting conditions, eliminate mandates and lower premiums, those are very good principles by which to go."
For now, let's put aside the fact that Trump's purported "principles" on health care have been easily discarded, and practically every promise he made to American voters -- including his vow not to cut Medicaid -- has already been broken.
Let's instead focus on Cassidy's broader point: that the president doesn't really have to understand the substantive details. I can appreciate the motivations behind the argument, but it's still unpersuasive.
Republicans' health care process is 'starting to feel incoherent'
To appreciate the scope of the Republicans' mess on health care, consider this quote from a high-profile GOP senator -- who happens to support his party's regressive plans.
"Things are starting to feel incoherent," said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, reflecting on the health care efforts, which have turned many Republican senators against one another as efforts to negotiate the future of the Medicaid program have caused large rifts.
With no small measure of understatement, Mr. Corker conceded, "There's just not a lot of progress happening."
"Things are starting to feel incoherent" is a fair and accurate summary, though I'm inclined to take issue with the "starting to" qualifier. The Republicans' health care gambit has felt incoherent for quite a while.
I've heard from more than a few readers with questions about where things stand, so let's dive in with a Q&A.
Everyone said the Republican effort was dead. Then everyone said it's alive. I no longer know what to think.
And neither does anyone else. The original Senate Republican plan, unveiled last month, failed. Mitch McConnell then tweaked his proposal last week, only to discover this week that it didn't have the votes, either. The Majority Leader then said he'd bring an even-more-radical "repeal and delay" plan to the floor, and more than enough GOP senators almost immediately balked.
So health care advocates can breathe easy.
Not exactly. On Wednesday night, some Republican critics of their party's plans renewed their negotiations, hoping to work something out.
Did they reach some kind of agreement? Did any "no" votes flip to "yes"?
Trump-Russia scandal developments raise the prospect of a crisis
There was no shortage of striking developments overnight in the Trump-Russia scandal, but perhaps the most important was the Washington Post's reporting that Donald Trump and his lawyers have had conversations about "the president's authority to grant pardons."
Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trump's lawyers have been discussing the president's pardoning powers among themselves.
Trump's legal team declined to comment on the issue. But one adviser said the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of his pardoning authority....
Ah, yes, our "curious" president. Trump hasn't decided to start handing out pardons like candy on Halloween; he's just interested in learning more about whether he could -- you know, in case the circumstances should arise.
The same article added that the president was "especially disturbed" after learning that Special Counsel Bob Mueller "would be able to access several years of his tax returns."
It's almost as if Trump has something to hide.
Also overnight, the New York Times reported that the president's team has begun "scouring the professional and political backgrounds" of members of Mueller's team, "looking for conflicts of interest they could use to discredit the investigation -- or even build a case to fire Mr. Mueller or get some members of his team recused."
With both of these articles in mind, the prospect of a genuine political crisis is becoming increasingly real. Congressional Republicans, who've largely been willing to look the other way in response to the scandal, need to start preparing themselves for the possibility of a president not only waging a political war against the special counsel and his investigation, but also issuing highly provocative pardons to derail an ongoing federal investigation.
If GOP officials were to respond to such developments with a collective shrug, the impact on our system of government would be incalculable.
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About The Rachel Maddow Show
Launched in 2008, “The Rachel Maddow Show” follows the machinations of policy making in America, from local political activism to international diplomacy. Rachel Maddow looks past the distractions of political theater and stunts and focuses on the legislative proposals and policies that shape American life - as well as the people making and influencing those policies and their ultimate outcome, intended or otherwise.
