FYI: We’ll have another edition next week and then I am on vacation for two weeks to a place without internet or TV or phone or even newspapers and it is going to be GLORIOUS.
TRUMP’S FOREIGN TRIP: Trump is in Europe this week for a G-20 summit. His first stop was to Poland on Thursday, where, during a press conference, he once again refused to acknowledge that it was Russia who interfered in the 2016 election -- “I think it could have been other people” -- and then, at the same time, excoriated Obama for not taking action to punish Russia. It was surreal. So, pretty standard Trump. I like the news that Trump’s people failed to get their shit together in time to book a hotel room; as of this writing, it’s still unclear where Trump is staying. Flying a bit under the radar was Trump’s decision to become the first U.S. president to visit Warsaw without visiting the memorial to the Jewish Ghetto Uprising. “But the president’s decision to skip that symbolic visit was seen as handing a victory to Poland’s right-wing nationalist ruling party: The Law and Justice party has been highlighting the role of the Poles who fought against Nazi Germany while downplaying the persecution of 3 million Polish Jews who perished in the Holocaust.”
On Friday, Trump sat down for a much-anticipated meeting with Vladimir Putin, for which he had prepared by reviewing tweet-length briefs. For real. What was supposed to be a 20 minute meeting lasted for an hour and a half, with just four participants in the room: Putin and his foreign minister, Lavrov, and Trump and Secretary of State Tillerson (who, recall, is buddies with Putin from his Exxon days). After the meeting, the White House said that Trump had pressed Putin on Russian election interference. Lavrov disputed this, saying that in fact that Trump had talked about how “certain circles in the U.S. are still exaggerating” Russia’s role in the interference, and that he (Trump) accepted Putin’s assurances that he had nothing to do with it. It seems like Lavrov’s take was closer to the truth, as Tillerson declared on the record that they decided to “move forward” on the US-Russian relationship. “There was not a lot of relitigating the past,” Tillerson said. Today, Putin told reporters that he explained to Trump that there was no evidence to believe Russia was involved in the hacking attempts; “It seemed to me that he took it into account, and agreed.” So it’s pretty obvious, then, that the Trump administration has decided to just forget it ever happened and just move on. Which means that this will happen again, in 2018 and 2020 and into the future, until we get serious about it. Politico’s Molly McKew was pretty appalled by Trump’s performance: “In very concrete terms, through speech and action, the president signaled a willingness to align the United States with Vladimir Putin’s worldview, and took steps to advance this realignment. He endorsed, nearly in its totality, the narrative the Russian leader has worked so meticulously to construct.” All of which is to say, according to New Republic’s Clio Chang, “The Trump-Putin collusion is happening in plain sight.”
TRUMPCARE ON LIFE SUPPORT?: With all my fists knocking on wood, I am pleased to write that, so far, things on Trumpcare are breaking our way -- and that is 100% due to the unity of the Democrats in Congress and the major, unflagging commitment of activists to showing their reps just how strongly they oppose this monstrosity. “[T]he next 14 days probably represent their last chance to salvage their flagging endeavor,” the Washington Post reports. And who, you may ask, is in charge of putting this over the finish line? “McConnell is expected to place greater responsibility on Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to pitch his controversial amendment that would allow insurers to offer plans that don’t meet ACA requirements — provided they also offer some that do. . . . [T]he burden of building support for the bill could be left to the firebrand conservative.” Brian Beutler tweets: “The good news is that the linchpin of this plan to lie Trumpcare into law is the persuasive abilities of Ted Cruz.”
Chait explains how support started eroding this week: “The most damaging development is a new statement by Mike Lee,” whose spokesman declared that the entire bill is “unacceptable” without what he calls the “Consumer Freedom Option,” meaning the freedom to be charged exorbitant rates for shitty coverage. “Lee’s position makes it almost impossible for McConnell to find his 50 votes.” Then you have Kansas Senator Jerry Moran, who held a town hall Thursday and said that the bill should be bipartisan and something that could get 60 votes. And then McConnell agreed that if “his side” couldn’t get it done on its own, then there’s going to have to be bipartisan action to fix the individual markets. “This is, of course, a comical admission that the entire premise of the Republican onslaught has always been a lie. Republicans have insisted for seven years the law was totally beyond repair, and that the entire thing must be repealed, including its Medicaid expansion. The truth is that the marketplaces have largely stabilized, and they face long-standing challenges providing competition in rural areas, but nothing like the death spiral Republicans have claimed.” Even Chuck Grassley this week spoke out pretty strongly against Cruz’s proposed amendment: “If it is subterfuge and it has the effect of annihilating the preexisting-condition requirement that we have in the existing bill, then obviously I would object to that.” (OH, and it’s not even clear whether Cruz’s amendment is allowed under the reconciliation rules.)
In a very good column, Ezra Klein discusses how passing a bill is hard because the GOP has no coherent idea of what the purpose of their repeal efforts are:
We have learned, through trial and error, that most Republicans — though not all! — think a CBO report showing an increase of at least 22 million in the uninsured population is bad. But what would a good CBO report look like? Would a 15 million increase in the uninsured population count? Ten million? Five million? Does the number of Americans with insurance matter at all? Is the real measure of success premiums — and if so, premiums for whom? Or is it really deficit reduction? Or tax cuts? Or regulatory burden? Or is it just getting to 51 votes for something that can be called repeal and replace?
[...]
Bills are unveiled and amendments offered wherein the only evident goal is getting something passed. At times, Republicans have been shockingly honest about this. Asked what problems the bill was meant to solve, Sen. John McCain replied, “They’re trying to get to 51 votes.”
TRUMP TEAM STARTS THEIR VOTER SUPPRESSION EFFORTS: I am a couple of weeks late to this story, but the Times has a helpful explanation that I plan to crib. About two weeks ago, Trump’s “voter integrity” panel -- led by notorious vote suppressor Kris Kobach (a truly despicable human) -- asked all 50 states’ secretaries of state to provide a slate of information about every voter registered in the state, including the voter’s full name, address, social security number, and party affiliation. As of Thursday, 20 states had outright refused to submit the information, with some even deeply Republican states being especially vocal in their opposition (Mississippi’s Republican secretary of state said the panel could “go jump in the Gulf of Mexico”). Then this week Kobach issued a press release on White House stationery calling the backlash “fake news.” The Times piece does a good job explaining that much of the information requested is already publicly available in many states -- and also why having it all centralized in the White House poses major security risks. But there is widespread opposition because many believe (correctly) that this is the first step toward pushing for a crackdown on registration and voting, making what is already a far too difficult process that much harder. Kobach has experience with this: “He already oversees the Interstate Crosscheck program that compares voter rolls from some 30 states in an effort to turn up people who vote in two states. Crosscheck has been widely criticized as inaccurate; one analysis found that of the 7.2 million potential double voters the program had identified, no more than four were actually accused of deliberately registering or voting in two states.”
Endorsements:
- This entirely non-political video about backstage at the Met is so charming, and provides further evidence of the New York Times’ all-around amazingness. (If you’re not already, you really should be a paid subscriber!)
- Linda Greenhouse reviews Justice Gorsuch’s first few months: “He’s the new kid in class with his hand always up, the boy on the playground who snatches the ball out of turn.”
- Happy 25th Birthday to one of my all-time favorite movies, and perhaps the best sports movie ever, A League of Their Own. The Ringer has a great essay on what is so great about it; Cosmo proves definitively that Dottie did not intentionally drop the ball at the end; and here’s the best Madonna/Rosie O scene from the movie. If you haven’t seen it, I’m not sure we can be friends much longer (for real) -- so GET THEE TO AMAZON (it’s not streaming on Netflix).
- Want to take a break from politics and fall into an internet hole? Check out the #Ham4All videos on Twitter, of people (and celebrities) singing their favorite bits of Hamilton after donating to Lin Manuel Miranda’s Immigrants: We Get the Job Done Coalition. A few of my favorites:
- Steph Curry and his wife (who started the whole thing off)
- This girl’s gorgeous voice
- Josh Groban (Does he not have the voice of an angel or what??)
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