WaPo:
For any president, one of these headlines would be very bad news. For President Trump, they all came in a span of 12 hours:
It was a dizzying Wednesday night for political reporters and followers alike, with a bevy of new information being thrown at them on multiple fronts. And it continued into early Thursday morning with that last headline, from Reuters.
Amber Phillips/WaPo:
Lobbying for a foreign government while simultaneously working for the U.S. government crosses just about every ethical red line you can think of, experts say.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) just fired a top state official because the official didn't tell Abbott that he was also working for the Iraqi government. When that happened, I talked to Meredith McGehee with the Campaign Legal Center about why such dual roles are a fireable offense. She explained:
“There's recognition that there are competing interests and a number of potential conflicts that arise between one government and a foreign government,” McGehee said. “That's just kind of built into a system, where a public servant is supposed to be serving the American people, not serving a second master.”
She added: “Can you imagine a U.S. senator saying, 'Oh, yeah, I'm a U.S. senator and, at the same time, I'm lobbying on behalf of Mexico'?"
I wonder if Jared is as arrogant today as last week?
David Leonhardt/NY Times:
The Young Flee the G.O.P.
Who knows whether the recent shifts will stick. But they do present a real risk for the Republican Party. Research has shown that generations tend to adopt political habits that last a lifetime. The cliché that the young are liberal and the old are conservative is mostly untrue. Liberal or conservative, the young often retain their ideology as they age.
Right now, the Republican Party is Donald Trump’s party, and fewer than one in three adults under the age of 30 approve of him.
Kids these days: How’d they get so smart, anyway?
Peggy Noonan/WSJ had a sad on behalf of the little people:
Mr. Trump’s longtime foes, especially Democrats and progressives, are in the throes of a kind of obsessive delight. Every new blunder, every suggestion of an illegality, gives them pleasure. “He’ll be gone by autumn.”
But he was duly and legally elected by tens of millions of Americans who had legitimate reasons to support him, who knew they were throwing the long ball, and who, polls suggest, continue to support him. They believe the press is trying to kill him. “He’s new, not a politician, give him a chance.” What would it do to them, what would it say to them, to have him brusquely removed by his enemies after so little time? Would it tell them democracy is a con, the swamp always wins, you nobodies can make your little choices but we’re in control? What will that do to their faith in our institutions, in democracy itself?
These are wrenching questions.
But if Mr. Trump is truly unfit—if he has demonstrated already, so quickly, that he cannot competently perform the role, and that his drama will only get more dangerous and chaotic, how much time should pass to let him prove it? And how dangerous will the proving get?
Again, wrenching questions. So this is no time for blood lust and delight. Because democracy is not your plaything.
Read these together:
1. NY Times:
Comey, Unsettled by Trump, Is Said to Have Wanted Him Kept at a Distance
2. Benjamin Wittes, interviewed in the Times:
What James Comey Told Me About Donald Trump
Greg Weiner/Law and Liberty with a conservative essay:
Trump’s apologists, too, are jettisoning the conservatism in whose name they have boarded his train. The relentless litany of excuses—“But Hillary Clinton’s email”; “But Barack Obama and the IRS”; “But the liberal media”; “But the leaks”—ill become their disposition. The only “but” that matters is the one preceding the statement that Donald J. Trump, not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or the liberal media, is the 45th President of the United States and currently occupies that office. The same theory of law, order, and personal responsibility without excuses that his Attorney General has decided is good for petty drug offenses ought to be good for the conduct of the Oval Office, too.
The other “buts”—“But the Court,” “But the legislative agenda” and so forth—disregard another element of conservatism, which is its disposition to take the long view. The wreckage of constitutional norms is more important than policy disputes or even a court seat, all of which are correctable with time. The practice of presidential tweeting is almost certainly now permanent. The precedent of presidential outrageousness being not only excusable but encouraged, precisely because it shatters norms, is hard to restore once broken. Trump has inaugurated the age of Kardashians in the White House, and it will be far harder to roll that back than to undo Obamacare. There is a particular perversity in obtaining a handful of Supreme Court justices at the cost of undermining the norms of the Constitution that it will be their job to defend.
Amber Phillips/WaPo:
Vice President Pence has a growing credibility problem
About the most charitable reading here is that Pence was delivering the White House's talking points before Trump lighted them on fire. But again, Pence is putting his credibility on the line when he offers X as the explanation rather than Y, and it turns out it was indeed Y. He signed up for this, and it's up to him to demand the truth from his boss before he goes out there to defend him.
Politico:
Trump shows wear from a brutal week
The president lashes out at the 'witch hunt' against him that he claims is dividing the country.
Trump greeted the special counsel appointment with equanimity Wednesday night, according to White House officials. He released a measured statement, saying he would be exonerated.
But by Thursday morning, that calm acceptance had vanished.
“This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” Trump tweeted.
“With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!” he added minutes later.
Peter Baker/NY Times:
Trump greeted the special counsel appointment with equanimity Wednesday night, according to White House officials. He released a measured statement, saying he would be exonerated.
But by Thursday morning, that calm acceptance had vanished.
“This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” Trump tweeted.
“With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!” he added minutes later.
But he is down, and so are his aides, many of whom wait for the ax they fear is coming as they hear whispers of shake-ups. With his first foreign trip as president starting on Friday, Mr. Trump is looking for ways to fend off the attacks and investigations while reinvigorating a presidency that has lost control of its narrative.
A reminder about this foreign trip:
