There’s a point about strategy about the new Supreme Court pick I wanted to discuss with you. It’s very important and I have a clear view. But I want to share some contrary views too. Read More
The Times has a fascinating article tonight on the Trump White House’s courtship of Justice Anthony Kennedy, building a relationship and rapport to make Kennedy comfortable retiring on Trump’s watch and ahead of the 2018 midterm election. One particular detail grabbed my attention: Justice Kennedy’s son Justin was the global head of real estate capital markets at Deutsche Bank and a key lifeline of capital to President Donald Trump. Read More
Federal judge in DC thrashes Trump administration’s approval of Medicaid work requirements for Kentucky. The devastating decision blocks the new requirements from taking effect Sunday.
I have a whole backlog of posts to share with you – how to subpoena the President’s tax returns, the terribly run company Facebook and its impact on the news industry and a few other things. But my day hasn’t gone precisely as I’d planned. So more soon.
We’re far past the point where it matters whether President Trump is a ignorant and destructive fool or operates as some sort of agent of the Russian Federation. The upshot appears to be the same. The Washington Post reports that President Trump has tasked the Pentagon with analyzing withdrawing US troops from Germany. Quoting the nominal explanation the Post was given: “Trump was said to have been taken aback by the size of the U.S. presence, which includes about 35,000 active-duty troops, and complained that other countries were not contributing fairly to joint security or paying enough to NATO.” Read More
President Trump on trade, Crimea and NATO, per the pool report from Air Force One.
On WTO: “We’ve been treated very badly by the WTO…it’s a very, very unfair situation. When you look at the WTO, that’s where China emerged, when they joined the WTO. We have been treated very badly. We have lost many, many cases over the years…we’ve had minority judges..we’ve had a minority position in judges. WTO has to start treating the United States fairly because they have not treated us fairly.”
“I’m not talking about pulling out. I’m saying they haven’t treated us fairly. We have not been treated fairly.”
In the digital publishing world, there’s been a buzz about this article in Slate in which slate staffer Will Oremus detailed the impact on the publication of Facebook’s dramatic retreat from the news business. The numbers are stark but not surprising for people in the industry. Indeed, Oremus makes the point that most news organizations are not willing to release these numbers. (We’ll come back to that point in a moment.) In January 2017 Slate had 28.33 million referrals from Facebook to Slate. By last month that number had dropped to 3.63 million. In other words, a near total collapse.
One of the benefits of being a small, independent news outlet that I run is that I’m happy to share these numbers. And I don’t need to ask anyone’s permission. Read More
I’d missed this. This is from a press conference at the G-7 Summit in Charlevoix, Canada. He seems to argue that Russia has done a kind of gut renovation in Crimea. Sort of like a hotel refurb …
Well, you know, you have to ask President Obama, because he was the one that let Crimea get away. That was during his administration. And he was the one that let Russia go and spend a lot of money on Crimea, because they’ve spent a lot of money on rebuilding it. I guess they have their submarine port there and such. But Crimea was let go during the Obama administration. And, you know, Obama can say all he wants, but he allowed Russia to take Crimea. I may have had a much different attitude. So you’d really have to ask that question to President Obama — you know, why did he do that; why did he do that. But with that being said, it’s been done a long time.
One throughline in our latest Trump Swamp Weekly Primer — focusing on corruption and abuse of power within the administration — is retaliation. Those who blow the whistle or make public the shady things their bosses are up to find themselves reassigned, forced out of a job, or receiving intimidating visits from the Department of Homeland Security.
That’s interesting.
Tune in tomorrow morning on @GMA for more on my conversation with President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen. pic.twitter.com/W7xYoMo4DD
— GeorgeStephanopoulos (@GStephanopoulos) July 2, 2018