If the facts of the situation are as they appear this morning, in his first days on the job, Anthony Scaramucci has managed to become a compressed, crystallized version of all the ridiculousness of Trumpism. He has gone to the unprecedented and almost unimaginable extremity of publicly accusing the White House Chief of Staff of a felony and demanding the FBI investigate him for that crime. While Scaramucci does not report to Reince Priebus (itself highly unusual), Priebus still at least nominally outranks him in the White House’s organizational hierarchy. Read More

We’ve discussed at some length how President Trump destroys everything he touches. Trump’s own damaged, malignant personality is no great mystery. The world has no shortage of malicious predators or others who are so damaged that they sow chaos and hurt wherever they go. It’s our national misfortune that Trump has attained such power. But the existence of such a person is no mystery. There’s no shortage of them. What is difficult to understand, what requires some explanation is the way Trump is able to destroy those around him. Not once or twice but again and again, repeatedly, in a pattern so consistent that it becomes more inexplicable over time as new victims appear insensible to the unmistakeable pattern they have seen unfold along with us. Read More

At one level this is obvious. But the bizarre behavior and sheer awkwardness of the situation can obscure a simple fact: the entirety of President Trump’s battle with Jeff Sessions is about obstructing the Russia probe. The anger began over his recusal (and grew as the consequences of that recusal became more apparent) and continues with the President’s desire to replace him with another Attorney General who will help him end the investigation or at least remove Robert Mueller from leading it. That is the only thing this is about. Read More

We’ve got a swarm of news today. But I need to remind you that we are trying to sign up 304 new subscribers by the end of July. To do that, we need a couple big days before the end of the month. I’m trying to focus on reporting rather than pushes for more subscribers. Help me do more of the former than the latter. If you’re thinking about joining up, if you’ve been putting it off, please take a moment to do it today.

Aside from the policy decision itself, appearing to expel transgender service members from the US military, how it happened is also quite disturbing. Despite Trump’s claim about consulting with “my Generals and military experts” the Pentagon didn’t seem to have any idea what he was talking about. And as yet, nothing has officially happened since all the Pentagon has seen is a tweet.

But also look at this. Read More

I am pleasantly surprised to see that President Trump’s unexpected and cruel order to ban transgender people from the military is being denounced even by many in his own party. Meanwhile Trump’s war against one of his worst cabinet appointments, Jeff Sessions, is finally galvanizing opposition among conservatives – elected Republicans, activists, conservative media. It’s ironic. Sessions is pushing the worst policies at DOJ. But it’s the attacks on him which may be too much. Allegra Kirkland explains how Trump’s war – itself an effort to stymie the Russia probe – against one of his most loyal supporters is testing the support of his core allies. Finally, Tierney Sneed has this update on the next Trumpcare vote in the Senate, now scheduled for 3:30 Eastern.

Over the past weeks and months we’ve learned numerous new details about Russian operations in the 2016 election and a long list of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian nationals or Russian government or intelligence officials. After the revelations of Donald Trump Jr’s meetings in June 2016, we may not yet have evidence of collusion per se. But we have clear evidence of the desire to work directly with the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton. With the intent, we know there was no shortage of opportunity. This is the critical, central issue, what did Trump, his family and campaign do with the Russians during their 2016 subversion campaign? But it’s far from the only question. And to make sense of that central question we have to go back further, to the money channel between Trump and the countries of the former Soviet Union which stretches back at least a decade earlier and quite possibly to the 1990s.

Here’s why this is important. Read More

In the first major vote since moving to debate Trumpcare, the Senate has voted down the original Senate Trumpcare bill (BCRA) by a 57-43 vote margin.

We are chockfull of breaking news today. But I need to flag for you that we have another month end goal we need to hit by next Monday. Sounds a bit telethony but it’s critical. Thinking about joining Prime? Did your membership lapse? Please take a moment today to sign up. It is super important and helping us do things we’ve never done before.

It turns out that two of the men we’ve been most focused on in the Trump/Russia story – Michael Cohen and Felix Sater – actually grew up together. In other words, they knew each other decades before they both came into Donald Trump’s orbit. Sam Thielman has the story.