In junior high, I was all set to compete in a talent show with my three best friends. We were to do a dance routine to a song called 123456 Bass. Yet just before the show, the group asked me to design the costumes instead, and I learned that for weeks, they had been meeting secretly to practice and gossip about how bad I was at dancing. All this is to say, for once, I understand exactly what President Donald Trump is going through.
Despite spending his Tuesday talking shit about French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron to the press from the NATO global summit, Trump’s little feelings were awfully hurt to find out that Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been giggling behind his back about how bad he is at press conferences:
His feelings were so hurt, in fact, Trump canceled his Wednesday press conferences and went home, saying he wasn’t going to play with “two-faced” Justin Trudeau any more. Maybe he could just sit out and design the costumes next year. [The Washington Post]
But on the homefront, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler is also quite rightly talking shit. On Wednesday’s first impeachment hearing, Nadler opened by telling the committee that Trump’s “abuse of power and obstruction of justice,” demonstrated by his attempts to conspire with Ukraine, was part of a pattern—one that began with his efforts to undermine Robert Muller’s investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia:
“‘President Trump welcomed foreign interference in the 2016 election. He demanded it for the 2020 election,’ Nadler said.
‘In both cases, he got caught,’ he added. ‘And in both cases, he did everything in his power to prevent the American people from learning the truth about his conduct.’”
After that, a bunch of law professors explained that conspiring against political opponents with a foreign country is bad, while Republicans made good on their promises to disrupt the procedure. The lone Republican law professor who testified asked if maybe the hearing shouldn’t wait until all the other pending litigation concerning the president is settled before focusing on this crime. One crime at a time, people!
Despite this advisement, the Committee might draft the articles of impeachment as early as next week. [Politico]
- A bunch of squares stopped cool guy Andrew Yang from creaming in people’s mouths. [Rolling Stone]
- International consulting firm McKinsey helped ICE figure out how to imprison asylum-seekers on the cheap. Their suggestions included starvation, denial of medical care, and leaving detainees to fend for themselves—suggestions so inhumane and horrific even ICE workers didn’t want to implement them. [New York Times]
- Former McKinsey employee and person who won’t go away Pete Buttigieg went as far as describing his former employer’s plan to starve people as “disappointing.” [Dan Merica Twitter]
- Gumshoe reporter Rudy Giuliani is gonna crack this Ukraine story wide open. [New York Times]