The Commentariat -- February 4, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Jonathan Martin & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, abandoned by allies in the Democratic Party and besieged by demands that he resign, met with his cabinet Monday morning as state legislators returned to a Capitol thrown into chaos by the governor's insistence on staying in office despite revelations that a photograph showing people in blackface and Ku Klux Klan robes was displayed on his medical school yearbook page. But even after meeting Sunday night with a group of his African-American aides, most of whom told him the only way he could clear his name would be to quit, Mr. Northam was giving no indication that he intended to step down. As Mr. Northam dug in, his onetime allies in the state and national Democratic Party intensified their pleas that he quit, angry and embarrassed at the prospect of being saddled with a governor suddenly compromised by his past." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Northam also must be "consulting" with Megyn Kelly. ...

... Oh, Great. Jonathan Martin: "Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of Virginia issued a statement Monday morning denying an unsubstantiated allegation of sexual assault that a right-wing media site published amid extraordinary political turmoil in the state that has raised the possibility of Mr. Fairfax becoming the next governor. In a statement issued at 2:55 a.m., aides to Mr. Fairfax -- a Democrat who has drawn national attention as Gov. Ralph Northam considers resigning over past racist behavior -- said the allegation was 'false' and that Mr. Fairfax had 'never assaulted anyone -- ever -- in any way, shape or form.' The aides said that Mr. Fairfax is considering 'appropriate legal action against those attempting to spread this defamatory and false allegation.'" ...

... Theresa Vargas of the Washington Post: "The statement came after the online publication, Big League Politics, ran a story under the headline: 'UPDATE: Stanford Fellow Hints At Possible Justin Fairfax Sex Assault.' The story was based on a private Facebook post from the woman, which the publication said it had obtained from a friend of hers who had permission to share it. In their response, Fairfax's staff members, pointed out that the woman first approached The Washington Post with the allegation shortly before he was inaugurated and The Post 'carefully investigated the claim for several months.' The woman approached The Post after Fairfax won election in November 2017 and before he was inaugurated in January 2018 inauguration, saying she felt like she had an obligation to speak out.... Fairfax and the woman told different versions of what happened in [a] hotel room [in 2004] with no one else present. The Washington Post could not find anyone who could corroborate either version. The Post did not find 'significant red flags and inconsistencies within the allegations,' as the Fairfax statement incorrectly said.... The Washington Post did not run a story." ...

... Alejandro de la Garza of Time: "In the midst of the ongoing controversy over a racist photograph on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook page, a photograph of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) posing in front of a Confederate flag is making the rounds on social media.... The photograph of McConnell, which apparently shows the senator posing in front of a large Confederate flag, had previously surfaced in 2015, according to Snopes. The photo was allegedly taken at a Sons of Confederate Veterans event in the early '90s." Includes photo.

Richard Pérez-Peña of the New York Times: "Seven European Union countries on Monday recognized Juan Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, turning decisively against President Nicolás Maduro after he refused their demand to schedule a new presidential election. The countries -- Austria, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden -- joined the United States, Canada, Australia and much of Latin America in withdrawing recognition of Mr. Maduro's government and acknowledging Mr. Guaidó, the opposition leader, as the interim president pending elections."

Ben White of Politico: "... polling suggests that when it comes to soaking the rich, the American public is increasingly on board. Surveys are showing overwhelming support for raising taxes on top earners, including a new Politico/Morning Consult poll released Monday that found 76 percent of registered voters believe the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes. A recent Fox News survey showed that 70 percent of Americans favor raising taxes on those earning over $10 million -- including 54 percent of Republicans. The numbers suggest the political ground upon which the 2020 presidential campaign will be fought is shifting in dramatic ways, reflecting the rise in inequality in the United States and growing concerns in the electorate about the fairness of the American system."

Ahmed Aboulenein & John Davison of Reuters: "Iraqi President Barham Salih said on Monday that ... Donald Trump did not ask Iraq's permission for U.S. troops stationed there to 'watch Iran.'... U.S. troops in Iraq are there as part of an agreement between the two countries with a specific mission of combating terrorism, Salih said, and that they should stick to that. Trump said it was important to keep a U.S. military presence in Iraq so that Washington can keep a close eye on Iran 'because Iran is a real problem,' according to a CBS interview broadcast on Sunday. 'Don't overburden Iraq with your own issues,' Salih said. 'The U.S. is a major power ... but do not pursue your own policy priorities, we live here.'"

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post runs down a number of the contradictory remarks Trump made in his CBS interview, which aired Sunday. As Daniel Dale wrote (tweet below), interviewers would do well to slow down. Mrs. McC: That might not help. I've heard interviewers ask follow-up questions that highlight some contradiction, & Trump completely changes the subject: "Why didn't you do your homework, Donnie?" "The dog ate it." "You don't have a dog." "I'm an underprivileged kid from Jamaica, Queens who doesn't even have a pet. You should be saying great things about me." An interviewer would have to go back & back to the initial question until Trump finally ripped the mike out of his lapel & trounced out in a huff. ...

... Eric Levitz of New York: "In an interview with CBS News, the president said that he does not want his youngest son Barron to play youth football because 'I just don't like the reports that I see coming out having to do with football ― I mean, it's a dangerous sport....' [BUT]... As evidence of football's devastating effects on the human brain mounted -- and the NFL responded by implementing (demonstrably inadequate) rule changes to modestly reduce the risk of its athletes suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) -- the president argued that the game had grown insufficiently violent. 'Today, if you hit too hard, if they hit too hard, "15 yards, throw him out of the game,"' Trump groused in 2017. 'They had that last week, I watched for a couple of minutes. Two guys, just really, beautiful tackle -- "Boom, 15 yards."... They're ruining the game ... they want to hit.' These remarks heavily implied that Trump sees the lives of (disproportionately African-American) NFL players as fundamentally less valuable than those of wealthy, white people like himself."

*****

The Laziest President* in American History. Alexi McCammond & Jonathan Swan of Axios: "A White House source has leaked nearly every day of President Trump's private schedule for the past three months.... This unusually voluminous leak gives us unprecedented visibility into how this president spends his days. The schedules, which cover nearly every working day since the midterms, show that Trump has spent around 60% of his scheduled time over the past 3 months in unstructured 'Executive Time.' We've published every page of the leaked schedules in a piece that accompanies this item. To protect our source, we retyped the schedules in the same format that West Wing staff receives them.... Trump, an early riser, usually spends the first 5 hours of the day in Executive Time.... He spends his mornings in the residence, watching TV, reading the papers, and responding to what he sees and reads by phoning aides, members of Congress, friends, administration officials and informal advisers.... Some days, Executive Time totally predominates. For instance, he had 1 hour of scheduled meetings on Jan. 18 (with acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin) and 7 hours of Executive Time." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I suspect this is the most Trump can manage. He's a fat old guy, his diet is terrible, (and who knows? he might be taking energy-sapping meds). As a result, he doesn't have much energy. Since Ronny Jackson will once again be performing & reporting on Trump's annual physical exam, we'll never know what's wrong with his health & ability to function. ...

... David Boddiger of Splinter: "Scrolling down the retyped presidential schedule published by Axios from Nov. 7, 2018 to Feb. 1, one can count how many times the term 'Executive Time' appears. It's mind-blowing.... And it shows, according to the news site, that Trump is the most unstructured and undisciplined president, probably ever.... Since the midterms, Trump has spent 297 hours in executive time. During the same period, he had 77 hours of scheduled meetings, policy planning, and strategy sessions.... At the end of the day, usually around 6 p.m. or before, Trump reportedly returns to his residence, where he watches more TV and tweets, among other things. His days are longer when he travels, the report said.... This weekend, while Trump continues to claim the country faces a 'crisis' at the southern border over immigration and a lack of a border 'wall,' he visited the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, FL, where he played golf with Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods on Saturday." ...

... Kevin Drum: "The only question is whether Trump's schedule is so empty because he doesn't want to meet anyone or because no one wants to meet him." ...

Yeah But. What a disgraceful breach of trust to leak schedules. What these don't show are the hundreds of calls and meetings @realDonaldTrump takes everyday. This POTUS is working harder for the American people than anyone in recent history. -- Madeleine Westerhout, White House staffer, in a tweet

It's called whistleblowing, dear. You know how to whistle, don't you? -- Mrs Bea McCrabbie

Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump declined to say Sunday whether he wants the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation made public, instead promising to defer to the Justice Department.... Asked about the 34 people Mueller's probe has indicted, the president said none of the charges were related to him or collusion with Russia. In fact, Mueller's team has indicted a number of Trump campaign or administration officials for lying about their interactions with Russia.... The president's comments on the investigation, which the acting attorney general said is wrapping up soon, came in a wide-ranging interview with CBS News. Among the highlights of the interview: The president said he is keeping another government shutdown on the table, outlined disagreements with top intelligence officials, argued that keeping troops in Iraq is vital to watching Iran, contended that having a Cabinet packed with interim secretaries is a plus for his administration and again attacked former defense secretary Jim Mattis by falsely saying he forced him to resign.... He repeatedly cited the costs of having troops all over the world as a reason to bring them home. He struggled to reconcile his criticisms of [President] Obama for telegraphing withdrawals of troops but now doing it himself. 'I'm not telegraphing anything,' he said, minutes after explaining what he wanted to do in Syria.... The president again disagreed with his intelligence chiefs, saying there is a 'very good chance' he can make a deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons at a summit next month, which the president said was already scheduled. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Here's the transcript of the interview. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

I feel like Trump interviews could benefit from literally slowing down. One of his methods is literal fast-talking, speaking over questions and bombarding the audience with rapid incoherence that falls apart upon a moment of silence and a 'hold on, let's focus on this for a sec.' -- Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star, in a tweet ...

... Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "... Donald Trump said on Sunday that he is committed to pulling troops out of Afghanistan and Syria. But in at times rambling remarks to CBS's Face the Nation, Trump also said he wants to keep US troops in Iraq to 'watch Iran.'"

Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post: "Trump portrays [Texas] ... as a crime hub for undocumented immigrants, with rampant cases of voter fraud and thousands of child predators behind bars. Yet his tweets are laden with misleading and inaccurate statistics. The real Texas numbers are far less scary."

Where Are All the Best People? Juliet Eilperin, et al., of the Washington Post: "From the Justice Department to Veterans Affairs, vast swaths of the government have top positions filled by officials serving in an acting capacity -- or no one at all.... To deal with the number of vacancies in the upper ranks of departments, agencies have been relying on novel and legally questionable personnel moves that could leave the administration's policies open to court challenges. The lack of permanent leaders has started to alarm top congressional Republicans who are pressing for key posts to be filled. 'It's a lot, it's way too many," Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said of the acting positions in Cabinet agencies.... By any standard, Trump's administration lags behind its predecessors when it comes to filling top posts throughout the government -- even though the president's party has controlled the Senate for his entire time in office. The Partnership for Public Service, which has tracked nominations as far back as 30 years, estimates that only 54 percent of Trump's civilian executive branch nominations have been confirmed, compared to 77 percent under President Barack Obama."

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times on "the duality of American politics in the Trump era. The largest class of women were just sworn into Congress last month. The congressional black and Hispanic caucuses are as big as they have ever been. Several Democratic candidates for president -- female, black, Hispanic, Asian-American, gay -- reflect the diversity of the country. And on Tuesday night, a leading African-American politician, Stacey Abrams of Georgia, will appear before millions to give the Democratic response to the State of the Union. If President Trump's election amounted to an angry rejoinder to America's first black president, as many on the left believe, Mr. Trump has created a backlash of his own, energizing women and people of color who represent an unmistakable rebuke to his demagogy on race and ethnicity and his misogynistic attacks. But the president is also reshaping Democratic politics in far-reaching ways: His divisive behavior, and the Republican silence that often meets it, has pushed Democrats to try to set an example by aggressively confronting current and past misconduct in their own ranks, as they did with [Virginia Gov. Ralph] Northam...."

Gregory Schneider, et al., of the Washington Post: "Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) called an unscheduled senior staff meeting Sunday night just before the start of the Super Bowl, as the governor considered resigning after two days of defiance amid a controversy over racist photos in his medical school yearbook. People familiar with the meeting said the governor had not reached a final decision about his fate. It was unclear who was there, besides that it involved senior staffers of color. But Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who would become governor if Northam resigned, was not there, the people said. Calling the Sunday night meeting was a clear signal of Northam's effort to weigh support within the administration as he evaluates his options. Though he pledged on Saturday to stand his ground, he also said he would reconsider if he felt he could no longer be effective. Just a day later, resignation is an active consideration, the people said." ...

... Alan Blinder & Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "The refusal by Ralph Northam, the Democratic governor of Virginia, to resign after the revelation of a racist photograph is threatening his party's political fortunes in Virginia, where Democrats are on the brink of consolidating power after a decade-long rise in the once-conservative state.... This week is arguably among the most crucial of the year's 46-day legislative session, with an important deadline for bills to advance. The speaker of the House of Delegates, Kirk Cox, and other Republican legislators warned that Mr. Northam's 'ability to lead and govern is permanently impaired.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: One thing you can count on is that the inclination to racism & misogyny tracks nearly perfectly with egocentrism. One can hardly expect a racist to fall on his sword for the greater good. Northam may be forced out, but it won't be for want of trying to cling to power. ...

... Christian Vasquez of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday weighed in on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's racial controversy -- by taking a shot at his 2017 Republican gubernatorial challenger, Ed Gillespie. 'Ed Gillespie, who ran for Governor of the Great State of Virginia against Ralph Northam, must now be thinking Malpractice and Dereliction of Duty with regard to his Opposition Research Staff. If they find that terrible picture before the election, he wins by 20 points!' Trump tweeted. Gillespie appears to remain a sore spot for Trump.... Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and counselor to George W. Bush, never invited Trump to campaign. After Northam won, Trump tweeted that Gillespie 'did not embrace me or what I stand for.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Tom Nichols, in a Washington Post opinion piece: "... while Democrats, and decent people everywhere, have a right to demand that [Virginia Gov. Ralph] Northam step down, Republicans who continue to support a party dominated by Trump can't be taken seriously on this point. Trump's record on race-related issues is abysmal.... For the most part, the party has indulged his race-baiting comments and his crude handling of racial issues. But somehow party leaders, who stand firmly behind him, and a national party that just passed a resolution expressing 'undivided support' for him, seems to have no qualms about calling out Northam.... There are plenty of good arguments for kicking Northam out of his job. The newfound racial piety of a party that sold its soul to Trump isn't one of them." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Amy Gardner, et al., of the Washington Post: A "sweep [of arrests] across eastern North Carolina was one of the most aggressive voting-fraud crackdowns by a Trump-appointed prosecutor -- and also a deliberate choice that demonstrates where the administration's priorities stand. At the time of the arrests [which numbered 20], an organized ballot-tampering effort that state officials had repeatedly warned about was allegedly gearing up in the same part of North Carolina. The operation burst into public view after Election Day in November when the state elections board, citing irregularities in the mail-in vote, refused to certify the results of the 9th Congressional District race. That seat remains unfilled while state officials investigate. The decision by U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon Jr. to focus his office's resources on the prosecution of noncitizens rather than the ballot-tampering allegations in Bladen County comes amid a broad push by President Trump and other Republicans to portray illegal voting as a widespread phenomenon that threatens the integrity of American elections. After the August arrests, Higdon issued subpoenas for millions of records of foreign-born voters from state and local agencies -- a request North Carolina officials have said will consume an enormous amount of time and costs millions of dollars."

** David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "More often than not over the past 40 years, our government has helped the rich at the expense of everyone else. As a result, economic inequality has reached Gilded Age levels. In the face of these trends, the radical response is to do nothing -- or to make inequality even worse, as President Trump's policies have. It's radical because soaring inequality is starting to threaten the basic fabric of American life. Many people have grown frustrated and cynical. Average life expectancy, amazingly, has fallen over the past few years. Over the sweep of history, the main reason that societies have declined, as the scholars Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have written, is domination 'by a narrow elite that have organized society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: See also Alex Shephard's opinion, linked yesterday, on what Democrats should do about Howard Schultz & his regressive, self-serving fake "middle road." ...

... Washington Post Editors: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) ... [has a plan better than Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax]: substantially hiking the estate tax on huge inheritances, an alternative to taxing someone's fortune during his or her lifetime.... Mr. Sanders estimates that his plan would raise $315 billion over a decade. That revenue is badly needed. Federal debt as a share of the economy has spiked. Rising generations face huge challenges paying for the health care and pensions of their retiring parents. Meanwhile, the very wealthiest Americans have done extremely well in recent decades, with a drift toward an ever-higher concentration of national wealth at the top." ...

... Chuck Schumer & Bernie Sanders in a New York Times op-ed: "From the mid-20th century until the 1970s, American corporations shared a belief that they had a duty not only to their shareholders but to their workers, their communities and the country.... It created an extremely prosperous America for working people and the broad middle of the country. But over the past several decades, corporate boardrooms have become obsessed with maximizing only shareholder earnings..., helping to create the worst level of income inequality in decades. One way in which this pervasive corporate ethos manifests itself is the explosion of stock buybacks. So focused on shareholder value, companies ... have been dedicating ever larger shares of their profits to dividends and corporate share repurchases.... Fueled by the Trump tax cut, in 2018, United States corporations repurchased more than $1 trillion of their own stock, a staggering figure and the highest amount ever authorized in a single year. This has become an enormous problem for workers and for the long-term strength of the economy.... We are planning to introduce bold legislation to address this crisis. Our bill will prohibit a corporation from buying back its own stock unless it invests in workers and communities first, including things like paying all workers at least $15 an hour, providing seven days of paid sick leave, and offering decent pensions and more reliable health benefits."

Medlar's Sports Report. Ken Belson of the New York Times: "Putting up with pain -- a lot of it -- has for decades been central to the bargain of playing for glory and money in the N.F.L.... To do that, countless players have long ingested far more pills than they should. In recent years though, N.F.L. players, especially linemen, have gotten significantly larger, and pain medication has become far more potent and addictive, with devastating consequences. A study published last year in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine found that 26.2 percent of retired players said they had used prescription opioids within the past 30 days. Nearly half of those players said they did not use them as prescribed. Seven percent of retired players -- equal to about 1,500 men -- said they had misused painkillers in the past month, according to a study conducted in 2011 by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis."

Mrs. McCrabbie: In response to unwashed's comment below, here's a shot of Trump's NYC penthouse I had not seen before. Trump calls the design style "comfortable modernism":

Way Beyond the Beltway

God Save the Queen. David Herszenhorn of Politico: "If Britain crashes out of the EU, and things go bad in London, Queen Elizabeth II will be ready to make her own exit -- to an undisclosed location. The U.K. government has repurposed Cold War emergency evacuation planning to prepare for the chance of violence and mayhem following a no-deal Brexit, and the need to protect the royal family, the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday reported." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Commentariat -- February 3, 2019

Afternoon Update:

The Laziest President* in American History. Alexi McCammond & Jonathan Swan of Axios: "A White House source has leaked nearly every day of President Trump's private schedule for the past three months.... This unusually voluminous leak gives us unprecedented visibility into how this president spends his days. The schedules, which cover nearly every working day since the midterms, show that Trump has spent around 60% of his scheduled time over the past 3 months in unstructured 'Executive Time.' We've published every page of the leaked schedules in a piece that accompanies this item. To protect our source, we retyped the schedules in the same format that West Wing staff receives them.... Trump ... usually spends the first 5 hours of the day in Executive Time.... He spends his mornings in the residence, watching TV, reading the papers, and responding to what he sees and reads by phoning aides, members of Congress, friends, administration officials and informal advisers.... Some days, Executive Time totally predominates. For instance, he had 1 hour of scheduled meetings on Jan. 18 (with acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin) and 7 hours of Executive Time." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I suspect this is the most Trump can manage. He's a fat old guy, his diet is terrible, (and who knows? he might be taking energy-sapping meds). As a result, he doesn't have much energy. Since Ronny Jackson will once again be performing & reporting on Trump's annual physical exam, we'll never know what's wrong with his health & ability to function.

Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump declined to say Sunday whether he wants the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation made public, instead promising to defer to the Justice Department.... Asked about the 34 people Mueller's probe has indicted, the president said none of the charges were related to him or collusion with Russia. In fact, Mueller's team has indicted a number of Trump campaign or administration officials for lying about their interactions with Russia.... The president's comments on the investigation, which the acting attorney general said is wrapping up soon, came in a wide-ranging interview with CBS News. Among the highlights of the interview: The president said he is keeping another government shutdown on the table, outlined disagreements with top intelligence officials, argued that keeping troops in Iraq is vital to watching Iran, contended that having a Cabinet packed with interim secretaries is a plus for his administration and again attacked former defense secretary Jim Mattis by falsely saying he forced him to resign.... He repeatedly cited the costs of having troops all over the world as a reason to bring them home. He struggled to reconcile his criticisms of [President] Obama for telegraphing withdrawals of troops but now doing it himself. 'I'm not telegraphing anything,' he said, minutes after explaining what he wanted to do in Syria.... The president again disagreed with his intelligence chiefs, saying there is a 'very good chance' he can make a deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons at a summit next month, which the president said was already scheduled. ...

... Here's the transcript of the interview.

Christian Vasquez of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday weighed in on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's racial controversy -- by taking a shot at his 2017 Republican gubernatorial challenger, Ed Gillespie. 'Ed Gillespie, who ran for Governor of the Great State of Virginia against Ralph Northam, must now be thinking Malpractice and Dereliction of Duty with regard to his Opposition Research Staff. If they find that terrible picture before the election, he wins by 20 points!' Trump tweeted. Gillespie appears to remain a sore spot for Trump.... Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and counselor to George W. Bush, never invited Trump to campaign. After Northam won, Trump tweeted that Gillespie 'did not embrace me or what I stand for.'"

Tom Nichols, in a Washington Post opinion piece: "... while Democrats, and decent people everywhere, have a right to demand that [Virginia Gov. Ralph] Northam step down, Republicans who continue to support a party dominated by Trump can't be taken seriously on this point. Trump's record on race-related issues is abysmal.... For the most part, the party has indulged his race-baiting comments and his crude handling of racial issues. But somehow party leaders, who stand firmly behind him, and a national party that just passed a resolution expressing 'undivided support' for him, seems to have no qualms about calling out Northam.... There are plenty of good arguments for kicking Northam out of his job. The newfound racial piety of a party that sold its soul to Trump isn't one of them."

God Save the Queen. David Herszenhorn of Politico: "If Britain crashes out of the EU, and things go bad in London, Queen Elizabeth II will be ready to make her own exit -- to an undisclosed location. The U.K. government has repurposed Cold War emergency evacuation planning to prepare for the chance of violence and mayhem following a no-deal Brexit, and the need to protect the royal family, the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday reported."

*****

** John Walcott of Time: "In the wake of ... Donald Trump's renewed attacks on the U.S. intelligence community this week, senior intelligence briefers are breaking two years of silence to warn that the President is endangering American security with what they say is a stubborn disregard for their assessments. Citing multiple in-person episodes, these intelligence officials say Trump displays what one called 'willful ignorance' when presented with analyses generated by America's $81 billion-a-year intelligence services. The officials, who include analysts who prepare Trump's briefs and the briefers themselves, describe futile attempts to keep his attention by using visual aids, confining some briefing points to two or three sentences, and repeating his name and title as frequently as possible. What is most troubling, say these officials and others in government and on Capitol Hill who have been briefed on the episodes, are Trump's angry reactions when he is given information that contradicts positions he has taken or beliefs he holds. Two intelligence officers even reported that they have been warned to avoid giving the President intelligence assessments that contradict stances he has taken in public." Emphasis added. ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: mike pence knows this. Mike Pompeo knows this. John Bolton knows this. So do other senior officials & some members of the Cabinet. Why haven't they invoked the 25th Amendment? The House should speed up impeachment proceedings. Waiting for Mueller is no longer a reasonable option.

David Enrich, et al., of the New York Times: "To finance his business's growth [in early 2016], [Donald] Trump turned to a longtime ally, Deutsche Bank, one of the few banks still willing to lend money to the man who has called himself 'The King of Debt.' Mr. Trump's loan request, which has not been previously reported, set off a fight that reached the top of the German bank, according to three people familiar with the request. In the end, Deutsche Bank did something unexpected. It said no. Senior officials at the bank, including its future chief executive, believed that Mr. Trump's divisive candidacy made such a loan too risky, the people said. Among their concerns was that if Mr. Trump won the election and then defaulted, Deutsche Bank would have to choose between not collecting on the debt or seizing the assets of the president of the United States.... The failed loan request ... shows that [Trump] was actively engaged in running his business in the midst of the presidential campaign, and it is likely to attract scrutiny from Democrats on two House committees that are investigating his two-decade relationship with Deutsche Bank." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The Times reporters have it all wrong. As I wrote earlier, based on Trumpenlogic, "It's not business if you try & fail to complete a deal." See also Akhilleus's comment, yesterday, on Trumpenlogic. Akhilleus does kinda rip it to shreds.

** Dana Milbank: "Sarah Sanders, asked by the Christian Broadcasting Network this week about Trump being the right man for the moment, replied: 'I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times, and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president, and that's why he's there.' This makes sense, because Trump has of late been acting as if he draws his authority from the divine right of kings. He's asserting his absolute power to act without -- and often in contravention of -- the Democratic House, the Republican Senate, his own intelligence agencies, law enforcement authorities and diplomats, and the will of the American public." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... AND Arwa Mahdawi in the Guardian points to another bit of Sanders "logic": "... it was God that put Trump in power rather than, you know, any of that Russian collusion malarkey." Mrs. McC: All kidding aside, it seems plausible that Sarah's faith in the divine right of King Donald is what allows her to go out every day & defend the indefensible. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

All the Best People, Ctd. Dan Lamothe & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump has tapped a senior Navy officer that he considered last year to be his Veterans Affairs secretary for promotion to two-star admiral and to be his chief medical adviser, even though there is still an open Pentagon investigation against him into allegations that derailed his VA secretary nomination. The White House sent Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson's name for promotion consideration to the Senate on Jan. 15. He was serving as the president's doctor last April when Trump nominated him for the VA post, and withdrew from consideration after accusations of mismanagement and misconduct as White House physician emerged. A spokesman for the Defense Department Inspector General's Office ... said his office's investigation into Jackson is still ongoing." This is an update of a story linked yesterday.

Trump Administration Too Busy to Find the Children It Lost. Jacob Soboroff & Dennis Romero of NBC News: "The Trump administration said in a court filing that reuniting thousands of migrant children separated from their parents or guardians at the U.S.-Mexico border may not be 'within the realm of the possible.' The filing late Friday from Jallyn Sualog, deputy director of the department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement, was an ordered response in an ACLU lawsuit challenging the government's separation of at least 2,737 children of migrants detained at the border since summer 2017. Sualog said her office doesn't have the resources to track down the children, whose numbers could be thousands more than the official estimate."

Also Too Busy to Provide Heat & Light in Freezing Prison. Annie Correal of the New York Times: "The inmates were held in cramped cells that had no electricity and were frigid cold. Vents in the ceiling were stuffed with clothing or cardboard to keep out icy air. At 2 p.m., the jail population had not yet been fed. Those were the conditions described on Saturday by elected officials in New York City who had visited a federal jail on the Brooklyn waterfront, Metropolitan Detention Center, where more than 1,600 inmates have been largely confined to their freezing, dark cells for nearly a week, since an electrical fire partially cut off power to the jail, prompting management to cancel visits and place inmates on lockdown.... Elected officials said jail officials rejected an offer by the city to supply emergency generators and emergency blankets. On Saturday evening Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter that the city was sending trucks with hundreds of blankets and hand warmers to the jail and that generators were on the way 'whether they like it or not.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is the same administration that was horrified that armed federal agents, with warrants, entered the homes of poor Roger Stone & frightened his dogs. In a tweet, President* Trump wrote, "Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better" (than Stone was). Trump should be handing out blankets to freezing federal prisoners instead of golfing at Mar-a-Lago.

Yashar Ali of the Huffington Post: "When Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's longtime communications director Matt House announced he was leaving just after November's midterm elections, the news was met with widespread bipartisan praise for House and his reputation for fairness.... House's departure, however, was not voluntary. HuffPost has learned, through two source with knowledge of the situation, that House was pushed out for allegedly having inappropriate sexual encounters with junior staffers, ending what was a nearly six-year tenure as communications director for the New York Democrat. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity.... In a text-message statement late Friday, a spokesman for Schumer confirmed that House was forced out after the encounters were alleged[.]" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Presidential Race 2020. Alex Shephard of the New Republic: The "kind of mass hysteria has gripped the left [over Howard Schultz's candidacy] ... "bears an unflattering resemblance to the lane-clearing that party officials employed ahead of the 2016 election, coronating Hillary Clinton as the presumptive Democratic nominee well before the Iowa caucuses.... [But] Schultz ... [is] an out-of-touch billionaire with unpopular ideas straight out of the Democratic Party of the 1990s. He presents a stark opportunity for Democrats to show where they stand-by rejecting Clintonism once and for all.... Schultz won't compete in the Democratic primary because, he says, he doesn't believe in universal health care or free college, but it's also because he knows can't win the party's nomination. The question is whether his positions -- few though they may be at this stage -- are broadly popular. The evidence is that they're not.... Rather than treating him as a potential spoiler, Democrats should portray Schultz as emblematic of everything wrong with Trump's America. His opposition to taxing the wealth, support for cutting entitlements, and belief that plutocrats can solve the country's pressing problems make him the perfect villain.... Democrats can use Schultz's political flirtation as a dry-run for the policy arguments they will make over the next two years."

Capitalism Can Kill You. Katie Zezima & Lenny Bernstein of the Washington Post: "Members of the family that owns Purdue Pharma, the company that created the powerful opioid painkiller OxyContin, directed sales representatives to push extremely high doses of the drug and later tried to get involved in opioid addiction treatment as a way to boost profits, according to a lawsuit. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey alleges the Sackler family, which controls Purdue, engaged in frequent acts of deception and misconduct to make as much money as possible, even as OxyContin sparked the nation's opioid crisis and its staggering toll of addiction and death. In parts of the lawsuit, Healey paints a portrait of insatiable greed and disregard for the suffering that the company's main product had caused. 'Eight people in a single family made the choices that caused much of the opioid epidemic,' the lawsuit contends."

Beyond the Beltway

Say What? Jonathan Martin, et al., of the New York Times: "Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, facing pressure from his own party to resign, said Saturday he would not quit and denied that he had appeared in Ku Klux Klan robes or in blackface in images from his medical school yearbook that have upended his governorship. 'It was definitely not me,' Mr. Northam, a Democrat, told reporters at a news conference in the governor's mansion.... Pressed on why he initially apologized, Mr. Northam said he had wanted to 'take credit for recognizing that this was a horrific photo that was on my page with my name on it.'... But he may have made his effort to remain in office more difficult by revealing that he had darkened his face with shoe polish for a Michael Jackson costume in a dance contest in Texas in 1984, when he was a young Army officer." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah, he might have. "That isn't me in blackface here even though yesterday I said it was but that was me in blackface over there so I won't resign." Could be a problem. ...

... Marc Caputo of Politico: "... on Saturday, Ralph Northam staked a claim in the annals of most surreal political press conferences, presiding over a 40-minute extravaganza.... Here are six of the strangest moments of the presser." ...

... Laura Vozzella, et al., of the Washington Post: "... [Virginia] State Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) said that [Gov. Ralph] Northam called her Saturday morning and told her he did not think [a racist] picture [on his 1984 medical school yearbook page] was of him and he did not plan to resign. 'He should have said that yesterday then,' she said. 'He just told me he didn't think it's him. And I said, "Ralph, this is a day late and a dollar short. It's too late."' Around 10:30 a.m., the state Democratic party tweeted, 'We made the decision to let Governor Northam do the correct thing and resign this morning - we have gotten word he will not do so this morning.' Northam was defying an avalanche of calls to step down from the office he'd assumed not 13 months ago. He spent Friday night huddled with advisers. A meeting with the state's legislative black caucus went poorly. National Democrats, including a host of a 2020 contenders and former vice president Joe Biden, said he must resign. And even home-state allies who regarded him as a dear friend -- including immediate predecessor and patron Terry McAuliffe (D), himself a potential presidential candidate -- said he had to go." See related stories below for context. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Reminds me of Donald Trump, who -- after apologizing for his "locker-room talk" -- reportedly told people that he did not make the recorded "pussy-grabbing" remarks (which Billy Bush verified).

The Commentariat -- February 2, 2019

Afternoon Update:<

Say What? Jonathan Martin, et al., of the New York Times: "Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, facing pressure from his own party to resign, said Saturday he would not quit and denied that he had appeared in Ku Klux Klan robes or in blackface in images from his medical school yearbook that have upended his governorship. 'It was definitely not me,' Mr. Northam, a Democrat, told reporters at a news conference in the governor's mansion.... Pressed on why he initially apologized, Mr. Northam said he had wanted to 'take credit for recognizing that this was a horrific photo that was on my page with my name on it.'... But he may have made his effort to remain in office more difficult by revealing that he had darkened his face with shoe polish for a Michael Jackson costume in a dance contest in Texas in 1984, when he was a young Army officer." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah, he might have. "That isn't me in blackface here even though yesterday I said it was but that was me in blackface over there so I won't resign." Could be a problem. ...

... Laura Vozzella, et al., of the Washington Post: "... [Virginia] State Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) said that [Gov. Ralph] Northam called her Saturday morning and told her he did not think [a racist] picture [on his 1984 medical school yearbook page] was of him and he did not plan to resign. 'He should have said that yesterday then,' she said. 'He just told me he didn't think it's him. And I said, "Ralph, this is a day late and a dollar short. It's too late."' Around 10:30 a.m., the state Democratic party tweeted, 'We made the decision to let Governor Northam do the correct thing and resign this morning - we have gotten word he will not do so this morning.' Northam was defying an avalanche of calls to step down from the office he'd assumed not 13 months ago. He spent Friday night huddled with advisers. A meeting with the state's legislative black caucus went poorly. National Democrats, including a host of a 2020 contenders and former vice president Joe Biden, said he must resign. And even home-state allies who regarded him as a dear friend -- including immediate predecessor and patron Terry McAuliffe (D), himself a potential presidential candidate -- said he had to go." See related stories below for context. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Reminds me of Donald Trump, who -- after apologizing for his "locker-room talk" -- reportedly told people that he did not make the recorded "pussy-grabbing" remarks (which Billy Bush verified).

David Enrich, et al., of the New York Times: "To finance his business's growth [in early 2016], [Donald] Trump turned to a longtime ally, Deutsche Bank, one of the few banks still willing to lend money to the man who has called himself 'The King of Debt.' Mr. Trump's loan request, which has not been previously reported, set off a fight that reached the top of the German bank, according to three people familiar with the request. In the end, Deutsche Bank ... said no. Senior officials at the bank, including its future chief executive, believed that Mr. Trump's divisive candidacy made such a loan too risky, the people said. Among their concerns was that if Mr. Trump won the election and then defaulted, Deutsche Bank would have to choose between not collecting on the debt or seizing the assets of the president of the United States.... The failed loan request ... shows that [Trump] was actively engaged in running his business in the midst of the presidential campaign, and it is likely to attract scrutiny from Democrats on two House committees that are investigating his two-decade relationship with Deutsche Bank." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The Times reporters have it all wrong. As I wrote earlier, based on Trumpenlogic, "It's not business if you try & fail to complete a deal." See also Akhilleus's comment, below, on Trumpenlogic. Akhilleus does kinda rip it to shreds.

** Dana Milbank: "Sarah Sanders, asked by the Christian Broadcasting Network this week about Trump being the right man for the moment, replied: 'I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times, and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president, and that's why he's there.' This makes sense, because Trump has of late been acting as if he draws his authority from the divine right of kings. He's asserting his absolute power to act without -- and often in contravention of -- the Democratic House, the Republican Senate, his own intelligence agencies, law enforcement authorities and diplomats, and the will of the American public." ...

... AND Arwa Mahdawi in the Guardian points to another bit of Sanders "logic": "... it was God that put Trump in power rather than, you know, any of that Russian collusion malarkey." Mrs. McC: All kidding aside, it seems plausible that Sarah's faith in the divine right of King Donald is what allows her to go out every day & defend the indefensible.

Yashar Ali of the Huffington Post: "When Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's longtime communications director Matt House announced he was leaving just after November's midterm elections, the news was met with widespread bipartisan praise for House and his reputation for fairness.... House's departure, however, was not voluntary. HuffPost has learned, through two sources with knowledge of the situation, that House was pushed out for allegedly having inappropriate sexual encounters with junior staffers, ending what was a nearly six-year tenure as communications director for the New York Democrat. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity.... In a text-message statement late Friday, a spokesman for Schumer confirmed that House was forced out after the encounters were alleged[.]"

*****

** How Not to Celebrate the First Day of Black History Month. Marie Albiges & Gordon Rago of the Virginian-Pilot: "A photo from Gov. Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook shows two men, one in blackface and one in a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood, on the same page as the future governor. The photo, which The Virginian-Pilot obtained a copy of Friday from the Eastern Virginia Medical School library, comes from the 1984 yearbook, the year Northam graduated. On the half-page set aside for Northam, there is a headshot of him in a jacket and tie, a photo of him in a cowboy hat and boots and a third of him sitting casually on the ground, leaning against a convertible. The fourth photo on the half-page has two people, one wearing white Ku Klux Klan robes and a hood, the other with his face painted black. The person with the black face is also wearing a white hat, black jacket, white shirt with a bow tie and plaid pants. Both are holding canned drinks. It's unclear who the people in costume are." Mrs. McC: Northam is a Democrat. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Update. According to MSNMC, Northam has issued a statement admitting he is one of the men in the offensive photo, but he didn't say which (as if it matters). Mrs. McC: Virginia is about to get a new governor, and he is black. ...

... Old White Guy very sorry he got caught in blackface but won't resign:

... Dareh Gregorian & Hallie Jackson of NBC News: "Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam apologized Friday for appearing in a racially offensive photo on his medical school yearbook page that featured men in blackface and Ku Klux Klan robes. But a growing number of fellow Democrats and Republicans called on him to resign.... Five Democrats who have announced 2020 presidential runs or said they would form exploratory committees -- Julián Castro, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand -- said Northam should resign.... The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus issued a blistering statement that stopped short of calling for Northam's resignation."

... Richmond Times-Dispatch Editors: "Gov. Ralph Northam has served his nation and commonwealth with admirable distinction and dedication. So it gives us no pleasure to see his rapid fall from grace. He is by all accounts a decent and considerate man. And yet, his poor judgment has undermined his standing with Virginians in ways that we believe will permanently impair his ability to act as an effective governor. He should resign and return to his profession as a physician, with the thanks of those he has served as a state senator, lieutenant governor, and for the past year, governor.... A a college graduate, studying to be a physician, in a state with Virginia's troubled racial history, should know better than to reduce that history to a callous joke. The photograph reveals a lack of adult judgment that is disturbing."

Sean Sullivan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cautioned President Trump privately this week about the consequences of declaring a national emergency to build his border wall, telling him the move could trigger political blowback and divide the GOP, according to two Republicans with knowledge of the exchange. McConnell (R-Ky.) told Trump that Congress might end up passing a resolution disapproving the emergency declaration, the people said -- which would force the president to contemplate issuing his first veto ever, in the face of opposition from his own party. McConnell delivered the message during a face-to-face meeting with the president Tuesday at the White House, according to the Republicans, who requested anonymity to describe the encounter. The two men met alone and conversed with no aides present. Their meeting was not publicly announced."

Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "In an unusual arrangement, the publisher of The Times, A. G. Sulzberger, joined two of the paper's White House correspondents in conducting Thursday's interview [with Donald Trump], and he took the lead in questioning the president about his attacks on the press.... Mr. Sulzberger..., along with the Times journalists Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, repeatedly asked Mr. Trump whether he understood the global effects of his words.... In lengthy and at times contradictory remarks on Thursday about the news media -- which he deemed 'important' and 'beautiful,' but also 'so bad' and 'unfair' -- Mr. Trump called himself 'a victim' of unfair coverage and declined to accept responsibility for a rise in threats against journalists since he took office.... What Mr. Trump considers fair ... is almost always in line with what he considers flattering. When Mr. Sulzberger noted that all presidents had complained about how they were depicted by the news media..., Mr. Trump replied, 'But I think I get it really bad. I mean, let's face it, this is at a level that nobody's ever had before.... I ran, I won, and I'm really doing a good job,' Mr. Trump said, lamenting that his surprise victory did not receive the praise he thought it deserved -- particularly from The Times, a publication that has loomed throughout his life as representing the establishment whose respect he has long sought. 'I came from Jamaica, Queens, Jamaica Estates, and I became president of the United States,' Mr. Trump said. 'I'm sort of entitled to a great story -- just one -- from my newspaper.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Miriam Jordan & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "President Trump's family business has employed undocumented workers more broadly than it was previously believed, with multiple workers losing their jobs last month at a Trump golf club in southern New Jersey. The club in Pine Hill, N.J., known as the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia, was the third Trump property where undocumented workers have been fired since The New York Times reported in December that the Trump club in Bedminster, N.J., for years employed immigrants who were in the country unlawfully.... People familiar with the terminations at Pine Hill said that about five workers at that property were fired or told not to report to work again, including two seasonal employees who were not scheduled to work until the spring. One of the people ... said that many other seasonal workers expected to be told not to return in the coming weeks."

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

Cristina Maza of Newsweek: "... Donald Trump claims that he didn't lie to the American people about not having any business deals with Russia, because his plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow don't count as business. In an interview with The New York Times, Trump insisted that pursuing a development project in Russia while running for president was acceptable because 'that wasn't business.' 'I had no money invested. It was a letter of intent, or option. It was a free option. It was a nothing. And I wasn't doing anything. I don't consider that even business,' Trump said in the interview. 'And frankly, that wasn't even on my radar. If you take a look at that, take a look at the deal. There was no money put up. There was no transfer. I don't think they had a location. I'm not even sure if they had a location.'... The president's decision to pursue a lucrative business deal in Russia while running for president has come under increased scrutiny ever since his former longtime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the timeline for the real estate project." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie Translation: It's not business if you try & fail to complete a deal. ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: When CNN reported Thursday that the phone calls Junior made around the Trump Tower-Russia meeting to blocked phone numbers were not to his father but to "family friends,' pundits & Democratic members of Congress wondered aloud why Rep. Devin Nunes's gang refused to obtain phone records which would ID the calls' recipients and clear Dear Old Dad. Now we know. You might want to spell "family" "la famiglia": ...

... About Junior's Mystery Phone Calls. Jonathan Chait: "One of the most intriguing unsolved mysteries of the Russia investigation has been a series of phone calls Donald Trump Jr. made to a blocked phone number while he was setting up a meeting during the campaign with Russian agents who were promising to help his father. Many people, including me, speculated that the call might have been to his father to inform him of the meeting. [Thursday], CNN reported the calls were actually 'between Trump Jr. and two of his business associates.' Trump and his supporters ... immediately began gloating[.]... The recipient of one of the phone calls was Howard Lorber who is, yes, a 'family friend.' But he is also a longtime point of contact in Trump's ambitions to build a tower in Moscow, which date back to the 1980s. Lorber accompanied Trump on a 1996 visit to Moscow to explore building there. 'Howard has major investments in Russia,' Trump boasted to a Russian politician at the time. As Craig Unger notes, Lorber's dealings in Russia put him in contact with Russian mobsters." ...

    ... Here's the underlying story, detailing the phone calls to the blocked numbers, by John Santucci & Matthew Mosk of ABC News. The other recipient of Junior's calls was NASCAR CEO Brian France.

Kevin Johnson of USA Today: "A federal judge told Roger Stone on Friday that she did not want him to treat the criminal case against him like 'a book tour,' and said she was considering issuing a gag order to quiet the prolific political operative and longtime confidant of ... Donald Trump. Stone has conducted a carousel of television interviews since FBI agents arrested him last week on charges that he lied to Congress and tried to obstruct the investigation of Russian interference into the 2016 election. He has suggested the case against him is a plot to install Hillary Clinton in the White House, criticized the early morning raid on his house and even offered tips on what to wear to court when being arraigned. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she was concerned that the continued publicity surrounding the case against the 66-year-old political operative could 'taint' the jury pool. She gave Stone's lawyers and federal prosecutors until next Friday to tell her whether she should issue an order preventing them all from talking publicly about the case." ...

... Tom McCarthy of the Guardian: "Special counsel Robert Mueller has signaled to defense lawyers for Roger Stone ... that prosecutors might brandish Stone's bank records and personal communications going back several years as evidence in the case against him. Legal analysts said the move could be significant because the sizable amount of potential evidence listed by Mueller -- and its nature, in the case of the bank records -- seemed to go well beyond the current known charges against Stone."

Nataliya Vasilyeva of the AP: "A Belarusian model who claims to have information on ties between Russia and Donald Trump's election campaign told The Associated Press on Friday that she has turned that material over to Russian billionaire businessman Oleg Deripaska. Anastasia Vashukevich fueled speculation around possible ties between Trump and the Kremlin last year when she posted a video from a police van, saying she had 16 hours of audio and video proving ties between Russian officials and the Trump campaign that influenced the 2016 U.S. elections. Deripaska denied the allegations and even went to court to seek to remove the video Vashukevich posted in which he discusses U.S.-Russia ties with a senior Russian government official. Vashukevich, who is also known as Nastya Rybka, returned to Russia last month almost a year after she was detained in Thailand on charges of soliciting sex, in what some believe was an attempt to silence her. Vashukevich, 28, told the AP in an interview Friday that, contrary to earlier reports that she had destroyed the recordings, she had given them to Deripaska because it 'relates to him' and that she 'did not want any more trouble.'"

David Sanger of the New York Times: "The United States is suspending one of the last major nuclear arms control treaties with Russia after heated conversations between the two powers recently failed to resolve a long-running accusation that Moscow is violating the Reagan-era treaty. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the decision on Friday as the Trump administration maintained that the Russian government has been unwilling to admit that a missile it has deployed near European borders violates the terms of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.... But while the United States has insisted Russia's actions sank the treaty, the Trump administration's real aim is to broaden its prohibitions to include China." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Mrs. McC: You can be sure Putin is delighted. ...

... Vladimir Soldatkin of Reuters: "Russia has suspended the Cold War-era Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday, after the United States said it would withdraw from the arms control pact, accusing Moscow of violations.... Putin said Russia will start work on creating new missiles, including hypersonic ones, and told ministers not to initiate disarmament talks with Washington, accusing the United States of being slow to respond to such moves.... European nations fear the treaty's collapse could lead to a new arms race with possibly a new generation of U.S. nuclear missiles stationed on the continent. China urged the United States on Saturday to resolve its differences with Russia through dialogue."

Michael Morell in a Washington Post op-ed: "... the number of the disagreements between Trump and his intelligence agencies is much greater than in the past, and many are displayed for the public to see. And where most differences between presidents and their intelligence communities are over interpretation, causes and implications, they are typically not about facts. It is one thing to question whether Kim Jong Un will ever give up his strategic weapons; it is quite another to say that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat. Moreover, Trump does not seem to be engaging with the intelligence community on a substantive basis, as other presidents have.... And, finally, no other president with whom I have worked has personally attacked the men of the women of the intelligence community the way Trump has.... When the president says he believes Putin more than his own intelligence officers, it not only emboldens Putin and our other adversaries, it also likely undermines the morale of the intelligence workforce.... Perhaps the biggest danger: There is a risk that Trump's rhetoric about the intelligence community will actually begin to affect the way its leaders -- and the people who work for them -- talk publicly and perhaps privately about issues."

All the Best People, Ctd.

Jeremy Diamond & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "A congressional aide who was key in crafting the controversial Republican House Intelligence Committee memo that accused FBI and Justice Department officials of abusing their surveillance authority is set to join the National Security Council, two sources familiar with the matter said. Kashyap Patel, a senior staffer for Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, has been hired to join the NSC's International Organizations and Alliances directorate.... In his new position, the hard-charging aide will help craft policy involving the United States' relationship with the United Nations and other international organizations, of which national security adviser John Bolton -- the former US ambassador to the United Nations -- has long been critical. He will be reporting to another controversial aide, Erin Walsh, who joined the NSC as a senior director in December just months after she was reportedly escorted out from the Commerce Department, where she held a high-ranking post."

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "President Trump has tapped a senior Navy officer that he considered last year to be his Veterans Affairs secretary for promotion to two-star admiral, even though there is still an open Pentagon investigation against him into allegations that derailed his VA secretary nomination. The White House sent Rea Adm. Ronny L. Jackson's name for promotion consideration to the Senate on Jan. 15. He was serving as the president's doctor last April when Trump nominated him for the VA post, and withdrew from consideration after accusations of mismanagement and misconduct as White House physician emerged. A spokesman for the Defense Department Inspector General's Office, Bruce Anderson, said that his office's investigation into Jackson is still ongoing. The office, considered the Pentagon's top watchdog, said in June that it had opened a case against Jackson, though it would not comment on the scope of it."

Christopher Mathias of the Huffington Post: "Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) alerted the House Ethics Committee this week that racist Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) continues to use his official government website to promote a white nationalist blog -- potentially reviving Ryan's effort to censure King or even expel him from Congress. Ryan sent a letter to the Ethics Committee on Tuesday stating he wanted to 'make the Committee aware of the continued use of government resources on the part of Rep. King to promote and advance white nationalism.' 'A HuffPost report published today, January 29, details how King is continuing to use his government website to promote the white nationalist website VDare.com,' the letter reads, referring to this HuffPost report. VDare is an anti-immigrant hate site named after Virginia Dare, said to be the first white baby born in the New World. The site regularly publishes the writing of prominent white supremacists and fascists...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Alice Ollstein, now of Politico: "The Supreme Court put on hold Friday night a Louisiana law that would have shut down any abortion provider in the state that does not have admitting privileges at a hospital less than 30 miles away. Abortion providers, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, had petitioned the court for an emergency stay, saying the law, due to take effect Monday, would leave just one qualified abortion provider to practice in the state. The state contended there was no need for an emergency stay since the law would be implemented over time and not shut down facilities overnight. The court's stay, ordered by Justice Samuel Alito, noted that it was not a sign of any of the justices' views on the merits of the law, and merely a means of giving them more time to consider it. The law was passed in 2014 but never took effect after lower courts issued injunctions. But the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law in September, ruling it did not create a burden for women and was not likely to result in clinics closing."

Presidential Race 2020

Chelsea Janes & Dave Wiegel of the Washington Post: "Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said Friday that he will seek the Democratic nomination for president, adding his name to a growing and increasingly diversified field of 2020 candidates intent on taking on President Trump. Booker made his announcement via an email and video to supporters." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... What America Needs are More "Hopeful Aphorisms." David Gutman of the Seattle Times: "With protesters outside, Howard Schultz pitched a hometown Seattle audience on his proposed 'centrist independent' bid for the presidency, calling for the country to 'come together' and move beyond partisan politics. The ex-Starbucks CEO's appearance, technically part of a nationwide book tour to promote [a book he wrote] is one of about a dozen planned as he crisscrosses the nation over the next six weeks, gauging support for a potential presidential run. And Thursday's event ... felt more like a tense book promotion than a campaign event. Schultz made no policy proposals, instead discussing his background and his Starbucks career, offering hopeful aphorisms about the country's ability to come together." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... The Spoiler. Change Research: "Change Research conducted a poll from January 31-February 1 of 1,338 likely 2020 general election voters to assess former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's potential independent candidacy for President in 2020.... Among those who have an opinion, just 4% view him favorably compared to 40% unfavorably  -- 10:1 unfavorable to favorable ratio, far higher than any other candidate tested (for comparison, 52% of respondents rate President Trump unfavorably vs. 42% favorably). Schultz is viewed unfavorably by Democrats (50% unfavorable  -- 4% favorable), Republicans (43% unfavorable  --  4% favorable), and Independents (31% unfavorable  --  4% favorable).... Schultz takes an average of four points away from what the Democratic candidate receives in a two-way race, while taking just 1% away from Donald Trump. That means Schultz&'s presence in the race makes Trump's margins between 2 and 4 points better than they would be without him in the race. In every three-way matchup [tested] except against Biden (who leads both candidates), President Trump has plurality support." ...

... "A Total Idiot." DJ Judd of CNN: "Sen. Sherrod Brown on Friday dismissed a possible independent presidential campaign from Howard Schultz.... While talking with voters in Iowa's Dallas County after a farmers' roundtable, the Ohio Democrat, who's also considering a presidential bid, introduced himself to a voter who expressed concern about dark money in politics. 'Yeah, I mean you got this idiot Schultz running, maybe,' Brown replied. 'He's an idiot. I mean, he's a total idiot.'"

Astead Herndon of the New York Times: "Senator Elizabeth Warren has tried to put a nagging controversy behind her by apologizing privately to a leader of the Cherokee Nation for her decision to take a DNA test to prove her Native American ancestry last year, a move that had angered some tribal leaders and ignited a significant political backlash. But mixed reactions among prominent Native American critics Friday suggested that Ms. Warren might still have further to go. Some Native American leaders gave her credit for the apology and political figures, for the most part, played down the issue. But others remain unsatisfied."