Wow, you don’t say: a member of the Trump administration doesn’t seem to understand how the Civil War got started or what it was. Today, in a trolling interview with Laura Ingraham timed beautifully to line up with news of Mueller’s newly-announced indictments, Chief of Staff John Kelly called Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, who enslaved and tortured black people and waged war against his own country for the right to continue doing so, an “honorable man.” He also said “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War,” which is inaccurate in about a million ways. But hey, certainly isn’t important for the West Wing to get the facts of this country’s defining war correct. Anyway, here’s something John Kelly will never read that’s worth your time. [ABC News]
Trump has decided that George Papadopoulos, a former campaign advisor who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts, is in fact a loser and a nobody and who cares about George?? No one, and certainly not Donald Trump! “Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar,” the president tweeted. [New York Times]
Speaking of George Papadopoulos, here is the tale of another man named George Papadopoulos who had a very bad day yesterday. [The Atlantic]
Facebook, Google, and Twitter testified to a Senate judiciary subcommittee today on Russian interference in the 2016 election, conceding that the Russian disinformation campaign was much more extensive than they had previously admitted. [Washington Post]
Hope Hicks will be interviewed by Robert Mueller’s team. [The Hill]
Here are some tweets the president was allowed to publish:
