As I mentioned on Tuesday, I was very skeptical that President Trump’s stunning performance at Monday’s press conference would lead to any great shift on Capitol Hill or among core Trump voters. I remain skeptical. In fact, we’ve seen evidence from the Hill tending to validate that skepticism. Some Sens and Reps are blaming Trump critics for the last four days. Many more are accepting at face value the President’s would/wouldn’t nonsense or simply saying there’s nothing they can do. Read More
Matt Shuham asked Fox News how Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump ended up talking about the “aggressive” and warlike people of Montenegro. Tucker called him back.
One of the ways the Trump administration has been chipping away at Obamacare is by approving state plans to attach work requirements to Medicaid. Now, one set of work requirement is going into effect: Arkansas is requiring Medicaid recipients to submit proof online that they work or searched for a job at least 80 hours per month. But Arkansas has the second-worst rate of home internet in the country; thousands of people missed the deadline and could lose their health care.
Get the full story, and catch up on other assaults on Obamacare, in Alice Ollstein’s Weekly Primer on health care (Prime access) →
Mariia Butina will be held in jail until her trial, a judge ordered a short time ago. Tierney Sneed reports from the courthouse. Keep checking back as she adds new details that emerged in court.
Prosecutors reveal more about Mariia Butina’s clandestine influence operation targeting the NRA, and yes, sexual favors were allegedly involved.
New goings-on in the Mueller probe at the federal courthouse in DC … Tierney Sneed is there … more soon.
Late update: Here’s what Tierney sleuthed out.
If you’re interested in what it means that the Russians got access to the DNC’s “analytics” you’re definitely going to want to listen to this episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast. There aren’t that many people who have a really high level understanding of how this works, what you could do with this info and has run this for a national presidential campaign. We talked to one of those people. Listen here or download at iTunes.
So reviewing the President’s trip to Europe – he succeeded in “raising vast amounts of money” at the NATO Summit.
While I had a great meeting with NATO, raising vast amounts of money, I had an even better meeting with Vladimir Putin of Russia. Sadly, it is not being reported that way – the Fake News is going Crazy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 17, 2018
The President gave an interview to Sean Hannity, apparently just after he concluded today’s joint press conference. The interview just aired on Hannity’s 9 PM show. Below are three notable clips. A lot of the discussion was a rehash of things we’ve been hearing for weeks or months. But though he didn’t say it directly, the clear import of his account is that a primary or perhaps the primary topic of their conversation was Robert Mueller’s investigation. Trump repeated that President Putin confirmed that there was no collusion. More notably, he said that in their private conversation Putin repeatedly lamented that the Mueller probe had driven the two countries apart and prevented them from doing great things for the world.
Video after the jump. Read More