THE MORNING PLUM:
There are numerous worrisome moments in this interview, from his incoherence on the health-care debate (“preexisting conditions are a tough deal”) to his odd asides about history (Napoleon “didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death”). But I wanted to highlight the sum total of the picture that results from three things Trump said:
- Trump flatly declared that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions had told him in advance that he would recuse himself from the Russia probe, “I would have picked somebody else.” Just as bad, Trump also said that Sessions’s recusal was “very unfair to the president,” i.e., unfair to him.
- Trump said clearly that if special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is examining his family’s finances, he would view that as an abuse of his role. While Trump declined to say whether he would try to get Mueller removed, he said he would view any such overstepping as a “violation.”
- In at least two exchanges, Trump was asked directly about the fact that Donald Trump Jr.’s email chain showed that the information offered to his campaign in advance of the now-notorious meeting came from the Russian government. In one of them, he strongly suggested that being open to such information was no biggie. In the other, he dismissed the offer itself as “standard political stuff.”
First, Sessions. The attorney general recused himself from overseeing the FBI probe into Russia’s undermining of our election, and possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia, because it had become obvious that he could not preside over an impartial investigation, given the lack of clarity around his own dealings with Russia while serving on the Trump campaign. Reading this interview, I think it is not clear that Trump even grasps the idea that the public deserves an investigation that follows rules and procedures designed to bolster confidence that it will be impartial.
Benjamin Wittes, founder of the Lawfare blog, aptly denounces Trump’s “monomaniacal view of the relationship between the president and law enforcement,” in which the latter is there to “serve” the former. I would add that the Russia investigation is not just about Trump. It is also about our democracy. Trump often appears unable to disentangle questions about Russian electoral sabotage — which, remember, was intended to undermine public faith in our elections, in the words of our intelligence services — from questions about his campaign’s possible collusion in it. Aside from the collusion question, Trump often seems hamstrung by megalomania from grasping that a full accounting into the whole affair is an imperative to restore public trust and confidence in our democracy. It can only be about an effort to get him.
All this spills over into his comments about Mueller. Trump appears to understand that he cannot be seen saying that he will seek Mueller’s removal if he asks too many impertinent questions. But it’s not clear he grasps how serious such a move would be as an abuse of power.
Trump, of course, fired former FBI director James B. Comey after demanding his loyalty. During the Times interview, Trump flatly asserts that Mueller should “never have been appointed” and justifies the Comey firing by recounting that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein gave him that memo criticizing Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton probe. But remember, the special counsel was appointed because Trump abused the process in firing Comey: The White House initially claimed, falsely, that it was because of Rosenstein’s memo, then Trump admitted on national television that it was due to the Russia probe, revealing a possible effort to create a cover story for that firing, leading to the Mueller appointment. In the interview, Trump blithely alludes to this, when he says: “Perhaps I would have fired Comey anyway, and it certainly didn’t hurt to have the letter.” In other words, yes, the letter might actually have been a cover story for the firing! There is no apparent recognition of why this might be a cause for concern.
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In this context, Trump’s suggestion that Mueller had better refrain from looking at his family is startling. It has already been reported that Trump mulled trying to oust Mueller, until his staff talked him out of it — and worse, that staff members still aren’t sure he won’t do this in the future. In this interview, Trump sees no need to reassure the public that proper processes will be adhered to, in order to preserve the public trust (a quaint concept, clearly).
Now, Trump’s comments about the Russia meeting. As former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has written, the key to understanding this meeting is to put aside whether such eagerness to collude was illegal. The more important point is that it reveals a contemptuous prioritization of winning at all costs over the baseline need to show allegiance to our system of government. This was public misconduct. But in the Times interview, Trump basically confirmed that he sees no problem with what happened — even after being confronted directly with the fact that the info was advertised to his campaign as coming from the government of Russia.
Ultimately, the picture that emerges from this interview is this: Trump has done no evident reflection on the obligations to the public that accompany the massive public authority that has been entrusted to him. He has no clear sense of why it is even desirable, as a matter of public trust, to demonstrate respect for the norms and procedures that are meant to safeguard against abuses of that authority. I know that sounds prim and stuffy and perhaps even obvious, given all the madness we’ve already seen from Trump. But it still matters, and to see it displayed so nakedly is more unsettling than usual.
* GOP HEALTH-CARE BILL MAY BE BEYOND SAVING: Last night GOP senators met with top White House officials to try to save the health bill. Politico reports:
Privately, senators doubted they could get the 50 votes together for a health care overhaul despite the productive meeting. There was a feeling that while a session that occasionally turned into venting was therapeutic, the challenges facing the fractious 52-member majority may be too great to bridge … it was unclear if billions more for Medicaid will be enough to move the moderate holds outs, with one senator saying there’s an “outside chance” of success next week.
If it looks more like GOP leaders will end up holding a vote to proceed to debate on the repeal-only version, that will indicate that they can’t get to a deal.
* ANOTHER SIGN GOP IS STALLED: The Post reports this nugget on what happened after that meeting:
Following the meeting, several senators described the talks as productive, but none would name specific areas of progress or new agreement that resulted from the gathering.
GOP leaders and conservatives want to gut the Affordable Care Act’s historic coverage expansion. Moderates don’t. It will be tough to bridge that gap.
* BIG CBO SCORE COMING TODAY: Bloomberg reports that the Congressional Budget Office today will release its score of the revised Senate bill (not the repeal-only plan; the one that restores some tax hikes on the rich):
The Congressional Budget Office is expected on Thursday to release its estimate of McConnell’s bill, according to a person familiar with the process. That report will let leaders know how much funding room they have to potentially woo holdout moderate lawmakers from states that chose to expand Medicaid under Obamacare.
The thing to watch is whether it will show a massive coverage loss. If the bill would mean just a few million fewer than the 22 million under the previous version, it will be tough for moderates.
* HUGE MAJORITY WANTS GOP TO WORK WITH DEMOCRATS: A new CNN poll finds that a huge majority wants Republicans to work with Democrats in passing a health-care bill:
Overall, almost eight in 10 in the new poll say they’d like Republicans in Congress to try to work with Democrats to pass a health care bill that has bipartisan support (77% say so). Just 12% favor continuing to try to pass a bill that only has GOP backing. Even among Republicans, only about a quarter favor an approach that only has the backing of Republican lawmakers.
Only 12 percent favor the GOP partisan approach. Remember, a partisan bill is the only way Republicans can roll back the ACA’s huge coverage expansion while cutting taxes on the rich.
* PHONE CALL FROM TRUMP DOESN’T MOVE SANDOVAL: The New York Times reports that Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) is holding firm against the GOP health-care bill, despite a call from the greatest dealmaker who ever lived:
Sandoval, who is far more popular in his state than Mr. Trump, never backed off his opposition to the health measure, even after a phone call from the president and a series of one-on-one meetings with senior administration officials at the National Governors Association meeting last weekend in Rhode Island.
If Sandoval keeps opposing the bill, on the grounds that it would harm large numbers of poor people in Nevada, it will be tough for Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) to break with him.
* MEDICAID MAY END UP SAVING OBAMACARE: E.J. Dionne Jr. has a nice column on how the GOP health-care bill may be faltering because basic realities about Obamacare are finally breaking through to the public. Note this:
To the surprise of some on both sides, the debate brought home the popularity of Medicaid, which for the first time received the sort of broad public defense usually reserved for Medicare and Social Security. The big cuts Republicans proposed to the program paradoxically highlighted how it assisted many parts of the population. This creates an opening for a new push to expand Medicaid under the ACA in the 19 states that have resisted it, which would add 4 million to 5 million to the ranks of the insured.
If the GOP bill fails, the response of GOP lawmakers who haven’t yet expanded Medicaid will be something to watch. Barack Obama is no longer in office, which could make doing that easier.
* McMASTER AT ODDS WITH TRUMP OVER RUSSIA: The Associated Press reports that top national security officials are at odds with Trump over his friendliness toward Russia, given the election meddling and other matters:
[National security adviser H.R.] McMaster expressed his disapproval of Trump’s course to foreign officials during the lead-up to his trip to Germany. The general specifically said he’d disagreed with Trump’s decision to hold an Oval Office meeting in May with top Russian diplomats and with the president’s general reluctance to speak out against Russian aggression in Europe, according to the three foreign officials.
AP adds that McMaster and others are also privately critical of Trump’s bilateral meeting with Vladimir Putin.