Al Cross/Courier-Journal:
But McConnell and Republicans are about to get jammed between the interests of their base and the interests of persuadable voters, and of the national interest. The president appears to be losing his non-Republican base.
A Monmouth University poll found that Trump’s support in the 300 counties he carried by single digits is only 34 percent, down from 41 percent in March. The Russia bombshell hit during the polling period, and it had an impact; afterward, a majority in those counties said Trump’s attitude toward Russia is a national-security risk.
A Quinnipiac University poll May 4-9 showed that 54 percent of Americans want Democrats to control the House, and only 38 percent want Republican control, the largest margin ever in that poll.
In results that could be reflected in Kentucky, the poll showed Trump’s support among whites without college degrees, perhaps the most important part of his base, had dropped to 47 percent from 57 percent. The percentage saying they disapprove strongly is now larger (40 percent) that those saying they strongly approve (34 percent). In midterm elections, which have lower turnout, voters with strong feelings matter more.
So, as he looks out on an increasingly bleak political landscape, what does Mitch McConnell have to say?
This kind of result, of course, requires immediate and substantive lectures on what Democrats are doing wrong, and what lessons they haven’t learned. Don’t disappoint me!!
Mitch Landrieu (transcript):
America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.
So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.
And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.
So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.
This kind of speech, of course, requires immediate and substantive lectures on “begs the question” while ignoring the substance of the speech. Don’t disappoint me!!
Sarah Posner/WaPo:
Brennan’s explosive testimony just made it harder for the GOP to protect Trump
Indeed, in one of the most important moments, Brennan’s testimony ended up making it very clear that there was a sufficient intelligence basis for the FBI to conduct an investigation into whether those “contacts and interactions” amounted to collusion.
The result of this was that, by trying to get Brennan to say there was no collusion, Republicans made it overwhelmingly obvious that they are trying to undermine the investigation, or at least erode public confidence in it — as is Trump.
Dave Leonhardt/NY Times on AHCA:
So the current period is important. It’s a time for all those groups that oppose the bill, and for the engaged progressive base, to put senators on notice. They shouldn’t be tinkering around the edges of a bill that would hurt the middle class and the poor, the sick and elderly, children and the disabled. They won’t get credit for making it marginally less cruel.
A small group of Senate Republicans has shown signs of being persuadable, and only three are likely needed to stop a bill. The group includes Lamar Alexander, Shelley Moore Capito, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Dean Heller, Lisa Murkowski and Rob Portman.
Vox:
Views on immigration and terrorism, in other words, are good predictors of economic optimism. So are gender, age, income, and party affiliation. But the best predictor, by far, is the simple question of how Americans feel about Donald Trump.
These statistics come from a new project from Vox and SurveyMonkey that seeks to provide a deeper and more detailed look at the drivers of Americans’ economic attitudes than traditional confidence surveys.
Since January, we’ve been polling more than 9,000 Americans each month about their views on the economy. (The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment surveys, by contrast, ask about 500 people a month.) Using our large samples and detailed questions, we can investigate not only how Americans feel about the economy but also what influences their opinions — chiefly, politics.
Rick Hasen/waPo:
Sometimes the most important stuff in Supreme Court opinions is hidden in the footnotes. In Monday’s Supreme Court ruling striking down two North Carolina congressional districts as unconstitutionally influenced by race, the majority buried a doozy, a potentially powerful new tool to attack voting rights violations in the South and elsewhere.
At issue in the case was whether two congressional districts drawn by the North Carolina General Assembly were unconstitutional “racial gerrymanders.” A racial gerrymander exists when race — not other criteria, such as adherence to city and county boundaries, or efforts to protect a particular political party — is the “predominant factor” in how a legislature draws lines and the legislature presents no compelling reason for paying so much attention to race.
WaPo points out James Comey isn’t the only one who takes notes:
Trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe after Comey revealed its existence
Trump’s conversation with Rogers was documented contemporaneously in an internal memo written by a senior NSA official, according to the officials. It is unclear if a similar memo was prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to document Trump’s conversation with Coats. Officials said such memos could be made available to both the special counsel now overseeing the Russia investigation and congressional investigators, who might explore whether Trump sought to impede the FBI’s work.
Daily Mirror:
Big game hunter crushed to death by elephant as it collapses on top of him after being fatally shot
A female elephant stormed the group of hunters and lifted Theunis Botha with her trunk before falling on him
Sarah Posner/WaPo:
On his trip abroad, Trump is being graded on a massive curve. He’s done nothing to deserve it.
Today Trump said nothing about whether the improper disclosure actually occurred — he only said that he didn’t mention Israel. But the disclosure didn’t seem to matter to Netanyahu, who, according to Haaretz, assured reporters that intelligence cooperation between the two allies remained “excellent.” The exchange bore all the hallmarks of two allies straining to get past very difficult tensions in their relationship.
But it also highlighted how Trump has largely been given a pass for a series of missteps — some more serious than others — relating to Israel.
Morning Consult:
Republicans Are Losing Voters’ Trust on Health Care, Polling Shows
Congressional Republicans’ efforts to overhaul Obamacare are not inspiring confidence among the public, according to Morning Consult polling from the past few months.
Weekly surveys tracking registered voters’ opinions on who they trust more to handle health care — congressional Democrats or Republicans — show the GOP trending in the wrong direction. In the first survey, conducted March 9-13, Americans gave Republicans in Congress a slight edge (43 percent vs. 39 percent) over their Democratic counterparts. It’s been a steady slide since then: In the most recent Morning Consult poll, 45 percent of registered voters said they trust Democrats more on health care, compared with 35 percent of Republicans.
Paul Waldman/WaPo:
Sorry, suckers: Trump is perfectly happy to help Paul Ryan shred the safety net
But it has become obvious that Trump’s words about protecting programs like Medicaid were not “positions” in the sense of being a stance he took based on something he believed. They were passing impulses, probably based on his reading of whoever was in the room with him at a particular moment. Once they escaped his mouth and faded into the ether, they exercised no more hold on him than a promise to release his tax returns or make Mexico pay for a border wall. If they were things Trump genuinely believed in, the White House staffers who wrote his budget would know they’d have to take them into account. But they didn’t.
This is the problem with treating Trump as if he has thoughts and ideas. He doesn’t. But the Trump budget is so bad Republicans are talking about working with Democrats. That's how bad it is.