Steven Bannon’s attorney was relaying questions to the White House during his House intelligence committee interview. The White House repeatedly said not to answer questions.
Definitely give this piece by Alice Ollstein a read. It’s not what the article is mainly about. But it’s another example of a key reality everyone should understand by now. John Kelly is really what amounts to Total Quality Trumpism, the same politics, in all its dimensions just with better impulse control and organizational discipline. He’s not some career professional doing the best he can to keep Trump normal. He’s all in. Definitely read this piece.
Tierney Sneed offers this reporter’s notebook (Prime access) on the innumerable ways Paul Manafort’s attorney has already gotten crosswise with the federal judge in the case.
From Reuters … Trump’s pumped he scored so high on a cognitive decline diagnostic test …
He blamed his three immediate predecessors, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, for failing to resolve the crisis and, a day after his doctor gave him a perfect score on a cognitive test, suggested he had the mental acuity to solve it.
“I guess they all realized they were going to have to leave it to a president that scored the highest on tests,” he said.
This was first flagged by Daniel Dale.
Longtime TPM Reader BW has an interesting hypothesis about the chatter surrounding President Trump’s medical exam results. Read More
A few interesting things to note about Bannon’s House testimony today, as described by Axios. Having started by saying he wouldn’t answer any questions about events during the transition or his time in the White House, Bannon flubbed and did discuss a key event: a conversation with Priebus, Spicer et al. about the Don Jr./Trump Tower meeting. Accident? That indisciplined? (The idea that privilege applies to the transition seems to be a complete nonstarter.) Read More
Senator Cotton confirms that his office sends out ‘cease and desist’ letters to constituents “under extreme circumstances.”
The Freedom Caucus, after its usual Hamleting, has agreed to support the House GOP leadership’s short-term budget, virtually guaranteeing it’s passage this evening.
There’s goes most of the evening’s drama. Or … was there really genuine drama in the first place?
The dance is so well-rehearsed at this point that maybe the price of Freedom Caucus acquiescence is allowing them to Hamlet. The legislative “concession” they extract is more or less besides the point. The real point is public prancing about being more purely conservative than Ryan et al.
It’s getting tired.
House passes stopgap spending bill 230-197: 5 Dems voted for it; 11 Republicans voted against it. Senate passage appears unlikely and so Friday will probably be another day of intra-party brinkmanship.