We begin today’s roundup with an editorial from USA Today on the president’s unpresidential behavior:
The president says he can’t work with Congress on legislation and be investigated at the same time, then showed this to be true by walking out of a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.
We wonder what his next protestation will be. He can’t negotiate a budget while dealing with a foreign policy crisis? He can’t fight a trade war and cut taxes? He can’t "walk and chew gum" at the same time?
We wonder, too, how he will articulate his dilemma. Perhaps instead of walking out in a huff he will stomp his feet, or scream at the top of his lungs. Maybe he’ll throw his Legos castle against the wall so it breaks into 20 bazillion pieces. Boy, wouldn’t that be something.
The fact is, presidents are subject to investigations. Some are legit. Others transparently partisan. Nonetheless, presidents get things done.
Here’s David A. Graham’s analysis at The Atlantic:
So Trump is suggesting he won’t work with Democrats on anything until they drop their investigations. “It is not possible for them to investigate and legislate at the same time,” he tweeted. But being able to do both oversight and lawmaking is precisely how Congress is structured, and as veterans of any previous administration can attest, plenty can get done while Congress is investigating a White House. [...]
If Trump were to follow through on his threat to not do anything with Congress until House Democrats drop their investigations, things could get even dicier. Within the next few months, the debt ceiling will need to increase and the government will need to be funded. Democrats might have been tempted to hold those bills hostage, just as Republicans have done in the past—but now Trump has given them an opportunity to pass an increase and a spending bill and dare the president to call their bluff. A senior government official told CNBC that the debt ceiling and funding are not subject to Trump’s ultimatum, but the president has demonstrated again and again that only he can speak for himself. And if he doesn’t act, and the U.S. defaults or shuts down? It could be fodder for another article of impeachment.
And here’s Michelle Goldberg’s take on impeachment at The New York Times:
If Trump’s outrageous misdeeds are visible for all to see — and they are — you don’t need further investigation to justify beginning an inquiry into whether impeachment is justified. Pelosi has suggested that impeachment will distract from the affirmative Democratic agenda, but the Republican-controlled Senate is no more going to pass progressive legislation than it will vote to remove Trump. And now the president has ruled out action on bipartisan initiatives like infrastructure investment, essentially refusing to fulfill his constitutional responsibilities whether he’s impeached or not.
Joan Walsh also makes the case for an inquiry at The Nation:
Clearly Trump is devolving under the stress of the job and the many valid investigations of him, his administration, his businesses, and his family members. As Pelosi notes, he’s losing in the courts: Just this week, a federal court ordered Trump’s accountants to release his tax returns as requested by House leaders, and ordered Deutsche Bank and Capitol One to provide information about his borrowing and other business details. On Wednesday he showed up for a meeting to discuss a possible infrastructure deal and refused to even sit down with Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer; instead he blew out to the Rose Garden to denounce the Democrats for investigating him and refusing to work with them on any business if they continue. [...]
Pelosi argues that Trump will hit Democrats as too divisive if they proceed to impeachment. But he’s already acting that way, refusing to cooperate on any joint projects as long as they’re carrying out their lawful responsibility of oversight. As Lawfareeditor Quinta Juracic has argued repeatedly and convincingly, not moving to impeach Trump accepts his multiple levels of outrageous behavior as the new normal. She calls impeachment “a way of marking a breach, declaring that the presidency should not be what a particular president has tried to shape it into.”
Meanwhile, on a separate topic, don’t miss The New York Times and its editorial on how the charges against Julian Assange may jeopardize a free press:
The new indictment goes much further. It is a marked escalation in the effort to prosecute Mr. Assange, one that could have a chilling effect on American journalism as it has been practiced for generations. It is aimed straight at the heart of the First Amendment.
The new charges focus on receiving and publishing classified material from a government source. That is something journalists do all the time. They did it with the Pentagon Papers and in countless other cases where the public benefited from learning what was going on behind closed doors, even though the sources may have acted illegally. This is what the First Amendment is designed to protect: the ability of publishers to provide the public with the truth.
President Trump has waged a relentless campaign against the news media, going so far as to repeatedly label it the “enemy of the people.” But with this indictment his administration has moved well beyond dangerous insults to strike at the very foundation of the free press in the United States. The Espionage Act has been used against those who disclose classified information only rarely, for good reason. It has never before been used against a journalist.
