We begin today’s roundup with a preview of tonight’s State of the Union address, where unfortunately we predict too many pundits will give Donald Trump glowing praise for successfully reading on a teleprompter what a group of staffers wrote for him. First up, Michael Tomasky at The Daily Beast:
The cancerous lie at the heart of this presidency, which his speech will ignore or elide, is that the state of our union is not strong at all.
In fact, it is dying. Not in some abstract sense. I mean we are in imminent—imminent—danger of losing the right to call ourselves a republic, a nation of laws.
How does a “union,” of the sort the president will boast about tonight, go from being a nation of laws to a fiefdom of a dear leader’s whim? Through a hundred small steps from Jan. 20, 2017, to now. But for present purposes, let’s focus on three. And interestingly—and note this well—they’re not mostly Donald Trump’s fault. They’re mostly the fault of his Republican enablers.
Here’s Dana Milbank at The Washington Post:
On Tuesday night, the president will read a speech somebody else wrote for him. The pundits will say he sounds presidential. And on Wednesday Donald Trump will go back to being Donald Trump.
White House officials prepped reporters for Tuesday’s performance by saying that President Trump will be “optimistic” as well as “very unifying” and that “the tone will be one of bipartisanship and it will be very forward looking.” And Trump will speak “from the heart.”
No. Trump will speak “from a teleprompter.” That’s why we’ll hear “unifying” and “bipartisan” notes. If you want “from the heart,” check his Twitter account.
On to the other big story, the continued attacks on our federal law enforcement and the efforts to undermine the Russia investigation...David Graham analyzes the removal of Andrew McGabe from the FBI:
Whether the president explicitly ordered McCabe pushed out is somewhat beside the point: His position was clear. Axios reported last week that Attorney General Jeff Sessions, responding to Trump’s public comments, had asked FBI Director Chris Wray to fire McCabe, but that Wray had refused and threatened to resign.
Assuming both that the White House didn’t deliver the final push now, and that Wray refused to fire McCabe before, what changed to produce his departure?
At The Week, Paul Waldman calls it a “ slow motion massacre” :
From the beginning, that was an absurd lie that nobody believed. The idea that Trump would fire the FBI director because Comey had treated Hillary Clinton unfairly was simply ludicrous, and they soon stopped mentioning it. But if Rosenstein thought he had demonstrated his membership on Team Trump, he was mistaken. Sessions had recused himself from the Russia investigation because of his own contacts with the Russian ambassador while he was working on the Trump campaign, so responsibility fell to Rosenstein, the second in command. He chose Robert Mueller, whose integrity would be beyond question, to serve as special counsel. And only Rosenstein has the power to fire Mueller.
Which is just what everyone knows Trump wants to happen.
Eugene Robinson dismantles Trump’s immigration plan:
President Trump’s immigration proposal reveals what he has been after all along: an end to family-based immigration and the “lottery visa,” which would mean fewer Latino, African and Muslim newcomers. And perhaps more Norwegians, if any want to come.
Yes, Trump is trying to Make America White Again. You’re probably not surprised.
Catherine Rampell also points out how this “compromise” plan is a giveaway to Miller and others:
The White House’s immigration plan is not a “compromise.” It’s not a “generous” deal for Democrats, and it’s not full of “concessions.” It’s a sleight of hand designed to help the far right shove through sharp new limits on legal immigration, under the pretense of moderation and reasonableness.
Supposedly this immigration framework includes “concessions” to Democrats because it involves protections for “dreamers,” the young undocumented immigrants who were brought into the United States as children.
But here’s the thing: Nearly everyone, Democrat and Republican, wants to protect dreamers.
On a final note, don’t miss this important piece by Preet Bharara and Christine Todd Whitman at USA Today on the need to protect our democratic institutions:
One year into the Trump presidency, it’s clear that the norms and boundaries traditionally guiding American political behavior have deeply eroded. That matters greatly. A workable democracy can thrive only when there are basic rules, often unwritten, that curb abuse and guide policymakers. Though the two of us are from different political parties, we both believe that now is the time to ensure the president and all our public officials adhere to basic rules of the road. It’s time to turn soft norms into hard law. [...]
[W]e’re launching an independent democracy task force at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law to holistically review these informal rules, which ones should remain guidelines, and perhaps which ones should be enshrined into law. We’ll examine norms surrounding financial conflicts, political interference with law enforcement, the use of government data and science, the appointment of public officials and any other issues that may arise in the coming months. We will be joined by experts and former officials from both parties. The goal is to issue a set of recommendations, policies that can be enacted that mend the gaps in our system and ensure we have a government that functions ably, competently and with the trust of the American people.