Picking up on my earlier post about why Trump’s lawyer appears to be signaling that he fears materials seized from Paul Manafort’s home may incriminate the President, let me say this. It’s quite possible that John Dowd is just being stupid. Or, more specifically, it’s possible Dowd is just sounding up for the benefit of Trump’s political supporters and doesn’t care if his comments make sense in other contexts or might even appear incriminating. Unlike the now semi-canned Marc Kasowitz, he’s a real DC lawyer. He’s also got a reputation as a hothead. But I want to zoom in on the issue of Paul Manafort. Read More
President Trump’s lawyer John Dowd allegedly sent an email to The Wall Street Journal in which he said, among other things, that the raid on Paul Manafort’s home was a gross abuse of power. The FBI definitely used aggressive tactics. I said as much yesterday. But the part that jumps out to me is that Dowd is threatening to make a motion to have the fruits of the search suppressed. Read More
The deliberate wrecking of Obamacare, which President Trump has declared as his political strategy, is going to come in many forms. Both acts of commission and omission. As Alice Ollstein reports today, Trump’s HHS, under the guiding hand of anti-Obamacare jihadist Tom Price, has abandoned the outreach programs that did so much to boost the ranks of covered Latinos.
It’s an important story, but it’s just one window into Trump’s planned demolishing of Obamacare. We need your help in tracking the myriad ways the administration is tearing down Obamacare so that it can declare it broken and revive repeal efforts. (That’s been the GOP MO on Obamacare for years, but Trump strips the pretense away and just says as much.)
If you’re in HHS, used to be in HHS, work with HHS or have in the past, or otherwise have information about the undoing of Obamacare by executive fiat, email us. That includes you, insurance industry folks, state regulators, and trade groups. As always, talk at talking points memo dot com is the best way to reach us. Put “Attn: Alice Ollstein” in the subject line and she’ll be sure to see it.
In almost every discussion of the North Korea situation, I try to remind everyone that North Korea made its nuclear break out under George W. Bush – not under Bill Clinton and not under Barack Obama. A key part of that backstory is that over the course of the late 90s the US negotiated a series of agreements called the Agreed Framework which shuttered the North Koreans nuclear weapons program in exchange for a combination of commitments and aid. The Bush team argued that the agreement was ‘appeasement’ and that the US had caught the North Koreans cheating on the agreement during Bush’s first term. The cheating argument has always struck me as questionable – quite possibly true but questionable. But the bigger issue is this: Does any of this really matter today as more than affixing blame for a situation we have to grapple with today whoever is at fault? I would argue that it very much does. Here’s why. Read More
FBI raids Paul Manafort’s manse in northern Virginia burbs of DC, and it goes unreported for two WEEKS.
TPM Reader ML thinks I’m mistaken to believe Trump’s bellicosity has played a role in the recent escalation between the US and North Korea …
I am a big fan of your work. TPM is absolute “must-read” for me every morning (right after the Red Sox box score). But, I have a bit of of a dissent to offer related to something you said in your Korea piece. It will seem like a minor point on the surface, but there is a larger issue at stake that troubles me.
In response to a new round of threats from North Korea, themselves spurred by new US sanctions led by the US, President Trump has now, rather casually, threatened North Korea with a nuclear holocaust. At a meeting on the opioid crisis a short time ago Trump just said: “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” Trump said. “He has been very threatening, beyond a normal state, and as I said they will be met with fire and fury and, frankly, power the likes of which this world has never seen before.” Read More
I mentioned earlier that a number of publications, including TPM, have now spoken to the young New Jersey woman who is somehow involved in the “ProTrump45” Trump merchandise scam and was the basis of the “Nicole Mincey” persona. Her story keeps changing, with references to other fictive personalities, contradictory claims about money that was involved, how she became involved and so forth. She has insisted through multiple interviews that she only got involved because of her support for Trump and never received any money. In the latest interview, which I discuss below, she claims she left the scam group in June because, “the store was getting disorganized. They weren’t keeping up with the orders. I wasn’t getting paid.” The evolving story has all the hallmarks of a band of grifters, of uncertain size and collective intelligence, scrambling for cover stories. Read More
Several publications, including TPM, have now spoken to the woman who sort of claims that the “Nicole Mincey” persona is based on her. But her story changes by the minute.