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Monday, 08/21/17Watch the full episode of Monday night's The Rachel Maddow Show.
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Monday's Mini-Report, 8.21.17
Today's edition of quick hits:
* "The latest from Spain: "Spanish authorities said Monday that Catalan police fatally shot the man suspected of killing 13 people in a van attack on Barcelona's La Rambla."
* Ohio shooting: "An Ohio judge was shot in an apparent ambush-style attack on his way into a local courthouse on Monday morning, according to Jefferson County Sheriff's Department and NBC News affiliate WTOV."
* The USS McCain: "A widespread search operation was underway Monday for 10 American sailors missing after their guided-missile destroyer collided with a larger oil tanker off Singapore. The USS John S. McCain is the second Navy ship in three months involved in a collision with a merchant ship from another country."
* On a related note: "The Navy's top admiral ordered the entire fleet Monday to take a one-day 'operational pause' to make sure they are running their ships safely a day after the USS John S. McCain collided with an oil tanker off Singapore."
* The 15-member Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment is no more: "The Trump administration has decided to disband the federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment, a group aimed at helping policymakers and private-sector officials incorporate the government's climate analysis into long-term planning."
* This guy's ties to the Russian government are deeper than had been previously known: "Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian immigrant who met last summer with senior Trump campaign officials, has often struck colleagues as a classic Washington mercenary -- loyal to his wife, his daughter and his bank account. He avoided work that would antagonize Moscow, they suggested, only because he profited from his reputation as a man with valuable connections there."
* On a related note: "President Vladimir Putin has appointed a former deputy defense minister as Russia's new ambassador to the United States. The Kremlin said on Monday Putin has replaced Sergei Kislyak, whose tenure ended in July, with Anatoly Antonov, a deputy foreign minister and former deputy defense minister seen as a hardliner regarding the U.S."
On Afghanistan, Trump poised to abandon pre-election positions
For quite a while, Donald Trump was consistent about his views on U.S. policy in Syria. He insisted, over and over again, that he saw military intervention in Syria as a terrible mistake. "We should stay the hell out of Syria," he declared at one point. "I would not go into Syria," Trump later added.
A few months after taking office, however, the Republican president did pretty much the opposite, launching a missile strike against a Syrian airbase controlled by the Assad regime.
Similarly, Trump has been consistent in criticizing U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, which sets the stage for the president's speech tonight in Virginia, where he'll "provide an update on the path forward for America's engagement in Afghanistan and South Asia," which seems likely to include increased deployments -- the result of a months-long White House review.
The review, which was led by National Security Adviser Lt. Gen H.R. McMaster, looked at whether several thousand more troops should be deployed to the country, U.S. defense officials told NBC News last month.
The troops would be assigned to counter-terrorism and NATO training missions, the officials said, and would expand the American military's current footprint of roughly 8,400 troops.
We'll have to wait for additional details before assessing the White House's new "path forward" in Afghanistan, but if the reporting today is accurate, and the president intends to increase troop levels, it will be pretty much the opposite of what voters were led to believe was Trump's position.
Monday's Campaign Round-Up, 8.21.17
Today's installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* A new NBC News/Marist poll gauged public attitudes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin -- three traditionally "blue" states that narrowly backed Donald Trump in 2016. The poll found the president's approval rating in these three states varied between 34% and 36%.
* On a related note, the same poll found approval of the Republican Party between 30% and 33% in these states, with Democrats enjoying an advantage on the generic congressional ballot of eight points in Wisconsin, 10 points in Pennsylvania, and 13 points in Michigan. (Note: there are also gubernatorial races in each of these states in 2018.)
* Also in the NBC News/Marist poll, former President Barack Obama's favorability rating tops 60% in each of the three states. Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) favorability rating tops 50% in each.
* In fundraising news, despite the Republicans' troubles, the RNC crushed the DNC in July, $10.6 million to $3.8 million. For the year thus far, the RNC has taken in $75 million to the DNC's $42 million.
* And while those tallies look good for Republicans, the numbers look better for Democrats in campaign committee fundraising. The DCCC easily outraised its Republican counterpart in July, $6.2 million to $3.8 million. Despite the GOP majority in the House, the DCCC's year-to-date tally tops the NRCC's total, $66 million to $64 million.
* Though there's plenty of speculation about whether Trump will be his party's nominee in 2020, Politico reports that he's already building his re-election "machine," which includes "mapping out a fall fundraising tour" and tracking "dozens of potential Democratic rivals."
The Secret Service confronts unique challenges in the Trump era
A couple of years ago, the U.S. Secret Service struggled with a series of damaging controversies, including some important security breakdowns, prompting a congressional investigation and a bipartisan report about an "agency in crisis." Among other things, lawmakers identified budget cuts one of the "primary causes" of the agency's difficulties.
And while the Secret Service has tried to turn things around since the release of that report, the agency is now facing another daunting challenge: Donald Trump's presidency.
The relationship between the Secret Service and the Republican president's team has already faced some difficulties. A leading Trump attorney, for example, tried to blame the agency for last year's infamous meeting in Trump Tower with a Kremlin-linked attorney, prompting the Secret Service to make a rare entry into a political debate in order to defend the agents' actions. That was soon followed by a leasing dispute between the agency and the New York building the president still owns.
But USA Today goes a step further this morning, highlighting a different kind of problem.
The Secret Service can no longer pay hundreds of agents it needs to carry out an expanded protective mission -- in large part due to the sheer size of President Trump's family and efforts necessary to secure their multiple residences up and down the East Coast.
Secret Service Director Randolph "Tex'' Alles, in an interview with USA TODAY, said more than 1,000 agents have already hit the federally mandated caps for salary and overtime allowances that were meant to last the entire year.
The agency has faced a crushing workload since the height of the contentious election season, and it has not relented in the first seven months of the administration. Agents must protect Trump -- who has traveled almost every weekend to his properties in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia -- and his adult children whose business trips and vacations have taken them across the country and overseas.
There are currently 42 protectees -- up from 31 in the Obama era -- including 18 members of the Trump family.
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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.
