Joe Scarborough says Donald Trump is “hurting the dream of America more than any adversary ever could”:
Sixteen years of strategic missteps have been followed by the maniacal moves of a man who has savaged America’s vital alliances, provided comfort to hostile foreign powers, attacked our intelligence and military communities, and lent a sympathetic ear to neo-Nazis and white supremacists across the globe. For those of us still believing that Islamic extremists hate America because of the freedoms we guarantee to all people, the gravest threat Trump poses to our national security is the damage done daily to America’s image. As the New York Times’s Roger Cohen wrote the month after Trump’s election, “America is an idea. Strip freedom, human rights, democracy and the rule of law from what the United States represents to the world and America itself is gutted.”
Kevin Lipak at CNN:
The White House on Monday sought to project an image of productive forward momentum, even as President Donald Trump and many of his aides remain sidetracked and preoccupied by dual accounts of a warring and mutinous West Wing.
The suggestion that work continues apace inside the administration was belied by Trump himself, who spent much of the morning tweeting angrily about journalist Bob Woodward, whose book detailing dysfunction among Trump aides is released on Tuesday.
Aaron Blake at The Fix:
The White House held its first news briefing in nearly three weeks Monday — apparently for the purpose of arguing that former president Barack Obama shouldn't get credit for the current economy, and President Trump should.
But even as Kevin Hassett, chairman of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers, was pitching that fact-based case, Trump had already undermined it with falsehoods. Trump has rather inexplicably taken a very good economy and insisted upon embellishing and outright fabricating things about it. On Monday, he left his spokesmen to twist in the wind.
Meanwhile, at The New York Times, Michelle Goldberg dives into Brett Kavanaugh’s record on abortion rights and access:
Garza v. Hargan was the only major abortion-rights case Kavanaugh ever ruled on. His handling of it offers a clue about what’s in store for American women if he’s confirmed to the Supreme Court. No one knows whether Kavanaugh would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade outright or simply gut it. But even on a lower court, Kavanaugh put arbitrary obstacles in the way of someone desperate to end her pregnancy. Thanks to Trump, he may soon be in a position to do the same to millions of others.
It’s fitting that last week’s Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were regularly interrupted by the sound of women screaming. Again and again, protesters, most of them female, cried out for the preservation of their rights, and were arrested. Republican men were contemptuous. “What’s the hysteria coming from?” asked Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska.
Let me answer. It is true, as Sasse said, that protesters have claimed for many years that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, women will die. It’s a fair prediction; women died before Roe, and where abortion is illegal, unsafe abortion leads to maternal death. In the past, however, Roe has been saved. Should Kavanaugh be confirmed, it will either fall or be eviscerated.
On a final note, don’t miss The Chicago Sun-Times as it hits back on the claim that Trump’s policies are doing well: