Greg Sargent:
Trump’s tower of lies is crumbling
Oh my goodness, I had no idea! Oh my goodness! That totally sounds like Trump, doesn’t it?
What this really illustrates is how hard it has gotten for Trump to find a non-incriminating pathway through the minefield of basic realities that are now catching up with him.
Peter Baker/NY Times:
New Revelations Suggest a President Losing Control of His Narrative
Even in the current political environment that some derisively call the post-truth world, the past few days have offered a head-spinning series of revelations that conflicted with the version of events Mr. Trump and his associates had previously provided. Whether called lies or misstatements, Mr. Trump’s history of falsehoods has been extensively documented, but the string of factual distortions that came to light this week could come back to haunt him.
WaPo:
As a willing warrior for Trump, Sarah Sanders struggles to maintain credibility
Sanders was thrust into an especially harsh limelight over the past week. She was the subject of an acerbic broadside about her “bunch of lies” by comedian Michelle Wolf at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. Then she was forced to explain the inconsistent accounts from her, President Trump and his new personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, about the hush money paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. The week was punctuated by an onslaught of commentary about Sanders’s character.
Polite way of saying she doesn’t have any credibility. She lies every day. It’s about time she was called on it. Thank you, Michelle Wolf. And now, finally, the press is following suit.
David Rothkopf:
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Then, the guy said, in a very quiet voice, "Look...here's the problem: We did it. We did it all." It was clear his focus had shifted. He realized he was personally in trouble. He realized the company was going down.
The company of course, was Enron. The rest is history. But I'll never forget that moment when the penny dropped and it became clear, something very very bad was happening at this place & that these guys were in way over their heads. That's happening now throughout the West Wing.
It is starting on Capitol Hill. The people who realize what's happening may be able to save themselves, move to the right side of this story. Do some good. Those who continue to deny will only become collateral damage. Trump is the Enron of presidents.
He did it. He did it all. He did more than we know.
The penny is dropping. How you respond will define your careers, for some it may define whether you even have careers in the future. Or freedom. Or reputations. Time to wake up.
David Jolly/WaPo:
Many GOP politicians dislike Trump. They’re terrified to admit it.
What too many lawmakers fail to see is this: If you don’t go on the record, your opinion doesn’t count. Worse, neither will your legacy. Refusing to publicly acknowledge your convictions simply affirms your unwillingness to act on them. And that is an indictment of you, not the president.
History rightfully discards those unwilling to take a stand, those who, in the face of a divided nation, shrink from controversy and seek refuge in the shadows of their indecision. Conversely, history memorializes those who speak with courage, those who, at defining national moments, put country over party.
So speak up. Your legacy will be richer for it. But know this — there will be no record of your legacy if you continue to whisper on background.
Michelle Goldberg/NY Times:
Does Giuliani Have a Plan, or Is This Just a Freakout?
Perhaps Giuliani knew that information demonstrating a link between the Daniels payment and the Trump campaign was about to surface. That means there are two possibilities for Giuliani’s bizarre media jag. Either he was acting purposefully, because even worse news for his client is on the way, or he was acting haphazardly, because he’s a has-been who has joined a White House in chaos. Neither possibility bodes well for Trump, who now faces the absurd but fitting possibility of being brought down not through exposure of his collusion with Russia but by the fallout from a single sordid sexual encounter.
A cautionary word from Charlie Cook /National Journal:
Before They Make Gains, Dems Need to Look in the Mirror
A recent article by University of Pennsylvania political scientist Diana Mutz published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences challenges the popular thesis that the 2016 election turned on certain voters feeling “left behind” economically, that they or others close to them lost jobs or experienced stagnant wages due to the loss of manufacturing jobs. Instead, the article posits that voters were driven by a feeling of loss of status. Mutz suggested that “traditionally high-status Americans”—whites, Christians, and men—felt threatened: “Candidate preferences in 2016 reflected increasing anxiety among high-status groups rather than complaints about past treatment among low-status groups. Both growing domestic racial diversity and globalization contributed to a sense that white Americans are under siege by these engines of change.” Mutz used national panel studies of Americans interviewed in 2012 and again in 2016 to support her conclusions.
Reading the article, my interpretation is that it is wrong to say it was either one or the other; that there could well be truth in both theses; that a national poll might not be the best vehicle to explore an election outcome that was fundamentally settled in three states; that those who felt economically left behind might well be disproportionately located in states historically dependent upon manufacturing—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; and that energy and environmental policies might have been felt more in those three states than in many of the other 47.
Griffin Edwards, Erik Nesson, Joshua Robinson and Fredrick Vars/USA Today:
Gun purchase waiting periods don't stop mass shootings but they can save hundreds of lives a year, maybe thousands, that suicide would have ended.
This activism resulted in an array of new firearm legislation in Florida, including a three-day waiting period for firearm purchases. But will the waiting period actually reduce gun deaths?
Whether waiting periods affect gun violence has immediate policy implications outside of Florida, too. Waiting period laws are being debated in other states, and there is at least one bill in Congress that would adopt a federal waiting period.
Evidence supporting some gun regulations is limited or mixed, but our research suggests that firearm purchase delays — including waiting periods — will result in fewer gun deaths, although probably not in the way people might expect. We used sophisticated statistical analysis to connect changes in states’ waiting period laws to changes in homicide and suicide rates over the period of 1990 to 2013. We found substantial reductions in gun-related suicide deaths with no corresponding increase in other forms of suicide. (Another recent study finds similar results.)