With the news that Robert Mueller has a copy of the original letter on James Comey’s firing written by Trump aide Stephen Miller and Trump himself, we need to return to the great mystery of that lost hour on the tarmac on Air Force One.

What am I talking about? Well, with a touch of dramatic flair I’m talking about this odd and increasingly odd over time mystery about what was happening the night President Trump came back from his Bedminster villa after a weekend of stewing about James Comey and then fired Comey 36 hours later. Read More

People with certain autism spectrum disorders have difficulty reading social cues which most people understand intuitively. Therapists have developed techniques which can help them learn through training what comes effortlessly to others. I can’t help thinking of this when I see President Trump touring Texas with his litany of jarring, tone-deaf or just plain weird comments. But the deficit in this case isn’t social cue cognition. It’s empathy. Read More

Over the time I’ve been telling you about the different aspects of our Prime membership program, many of you have written in to ask if you can contribute more to our efforts in addition to subscribing to Prime. Yes, there is a way and we’ve set up a program to allow you to do just that. I actually first announced this program in February. But it’s taken us since then to get all the different parts of it in place to do it right and do it at scale. After the jump I’ll explain the whole thing. Even if you don’t want to contribute – which is fine and which you should feel no obligation to do – you may still be interested to read because as part of this program we will be giving free TPM Prime memberships to all currently enrolled students – high school, college, community college, graduate school. All enrolled students. Read More

Andrew Sabl teaches in the Ethics, Politics and Economics program at Yale. His research covers, among other things, theories of democracy and constitutionalism, toleration, and the work of David Hume. He has a particular interest in the relationship between political ethics and the health of a democratic polity.

Andrew will be joining us in The Hive to chat about ethics and politics. Post your questions and join us this Thursday! If you’d like to participate but don’t have TPM Prime, sign up here.

Let me share a few thoughts about President Trump’s decision to end DACA. If reports are to be believed – and I suspect they generally are – the President was conflicted on this decision. He wanted to satisfy his promise to his core voters but he also did not want to get the blame for the impact of the decision. This is an important distinction between not wanting to inflict human suffering and not wanting to get blamed for it. In any case, as he put it in his tweet this morning, he’s leaving it up to Congress to prevent the carnage.  Read More

I want to add a few thoughts about what’s unfolding with DACA. But before I do I want to be clear that it is largely or at least for now seemingly disconnected from the fate of the hundreds of thousands of young people President Trump has put on the chopping block. But that could change. Read More

In the rush to remove statues, rename facilities and generally close the era of memorialization of Confederate leaders and military figures, I’m surprised there’s been so little mention of US military bases. To be clear, it’s certainly not like I’m the first to ever raise the issue. It’s been discussed quite a lot over the years and especially in recent years. But I’ve seen relatively little mention of it in the post-Charlottesville period. Read More

Read this piece. President Trump just stunned and angered Republicans by agreeing to Schumer and Pelosi’s proposal to tie a temporary debt ceiling increase to disaster relief in Texas and Louisiana.

Let me share a few thoughts on the late afternoon Washington Post story about a Russian firm purchasing targeted ads on Facebook during the 2016 election. To use some highly latinate words, I think this is more suggestive than dispositive. But it is highly interesting. Read More

Why did President Trump shock Republicans and official Washington by abandoning his own Congressional leadership and cutting a debt-ceiling deal with Congressional Democrats? To review, Trump abruptly agreed to a Democratic proposal for a three month debt ceiling extension tied to Harvey relief aid. Democrats were so stunned they tried to go as lo-fi as they could with their victory lap, fearful that any overt celebration would prompt Trump to reconsider. This late Times report confirms that even Trump’s Treasury Secretary, the husband of actress Louise Linton, was caught off guard.

So what’s up with this? Read More