This week, President @realDonaldTrump and House Speaker Paul Ryan scored a yuge victory of sorts (a pyrrhic victory, to be exact).
If, like Reince Priebus, you're a fan of sports metaphors, you might call it an "own goal."
By passing an incredibly unpopular healthcare (in name only) bill, House Republicans basically handed Democrats—especially those in red states—a gift that is likely to keep on giving for the next 18 months.
In their defense, many (most?) of the Republicans who voted for the bill didn't actually bother to read it, and thus had no way of knowing just how bad it was.
Unfortunately for them, that probably won't provide much (if any) solace to the tens of millions of Americans who stand to lose their insurance coverage or pay a lot more for it due to pre-existing conditions—such as having been the victims of sexual assault or domestic violence.
While their votes might ultimately cost many House Republicans their jobs (and the party its majority), at least they got to celebrate at the White House with a kegger, and take smiling selfies with Ivanka.
So, they've got that going for them, which is nice.
Morning lineup:
Meet the Press: HHS Secretary Tom Price; Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO); Roundtable: Matt Bai (Yahoo News), Rich Lowry (National Review), Eliana Johnson (Politico) & Kristen Welker (NBC News).
Face The Nation: White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney; Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV); Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; "Pennsylvania Voters"; Roundtable: Susan Page (USA Today), Michael Gerson (Washington Post), Jamelle Bouie (Slate) & Nancy Cordes (CBS News).
This Week: House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI); Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME); Dr. Atul Gawande (The New Yorker); Roundtable: "Independent" Strategist Matthew Dowd, Republican Strategist Sara Fagen, Roland Martin (TV One), Former Obama Treasury Official Steven Rattner & Cokie Roberts (ABC News).
Fox News Sunday: White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus; MIT Economost/Obamacare Architect Jonathan Gruber; Republican Strategist Karl Rove; Roundtable: Brit Hume (Fox News), Former Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) & Juan Williams (Fox News).
State of the Union: HHS Secretary Tom Price; Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R); Roundtable: Former South Carolina State Rep. Bakari Sellers (D), Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Democratic Strategist Jen Psaki & Republican Strategist Amanda Carpenter.
Evening lineup:
60 Minutes will feature: a report on the deportation of Roberto Beristain, a family man and business owner, who came to the U.S. illegally nearly 20 years ago (preview); an interview with Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz (preview); and, a look back at the Chicago Cubs' World Series-winning season (preview).
Late night shows:
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Monday: Actor Rami Malek; "Science Guy" Bill Nye; Singer-Songwriter Roger Waters.
Tuesday: Stephen's Former "Daily Show" Colleagues Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, Ed Helms & Rob Corddry.
Wednesday: Actor Nick Offerman; Actress Megan Mullally; Actor Aaron Taylor Johnson; Singer-Songwriter Dave Matthews; Multi-Instrumentalist Tim Reynolds.
Thursday: Actress Mayim Bialik; Actor Andy Karl; Actor Ramy Youssef.
Friday: Actor/Comedian Tracy Morgan; Actor Timothy Simons; Musician Dan Auerbach.
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
Monday: Actress/Comedian Wanda Sykes; Tuesday: Actor Djimon Hounsou; Wednesday: Former Advisor to President Obama Valerie Jarrett; Thursday: Actor/Comedian D.L. Hughley.
Elsewhere...
Ivanka Trump's latest book was released to savage reviews, for—among other things—the insensitive misappropriation of famous quotations.
Trump's new book shares a name and a mission with her company's marketing campaign: Women Who Work. Organized into sections with titles like "Dream Big" and "Make Your Mark," Women Who Work is a sea of blandities, an extension of that 2014 commercial seeded with ideas lifted ("curated," she calls it) from various well-known self-help authors. Reading it feels like eating scented cotton balls.
Ostensibly a business guide for women, Women Who Work is a long simper of a book, full of advice so anodyne ("I believe that we each get one life and it's up to us to live it to the fullest"), you could almost scramble the sentences and come out with something just as coherent. In spite of this formlessness, there are distinct, revealing moments here.
Trump's lack of awareness, plus a habit of skimming from her sources, often results in spectacularly misapplied quotations — like one from Toni Morrison's Beloved about the brutal psychological scars of slavery. "Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another," is positioned in cute faux-handwritten capitals (and tagged #itwisewords) before a chapter on "working smarter." In it, she asks: "Are you a slave to your time or the master of it? Despite your best intentions, it's easy to be reactive and get caught up in returning calls, attending meetings, answering e-mails ..."
Meanwhile...
Steve Handel, the husband of Jon Ossoff's special election opponent, thought it would be a good idea to retweet a racist image.
The husband of Republican congressional candidate Karen Handel shared an image on his Twitter timeline Tuesday that urged voters to support his wife in order to "free the black slaves from the Democratic plantation."
Handel's husband, Steve Handel, shared the image in the form of a quote-tweet, in which he shared the tweet of another user who initially posted the image and added his own commentary. In a statement to CNN's KFile on Tuesday, Handel's campaign said her husband hadn't paid attention to what was said in the original tweet.
"Like many of us, he (Steve) made a mistake and retweeted something he didn't pay a lot of attention to, thinking it was just an absentee vote message. It clearly was not appropriate and has been deleted," a campaign spokesperson said.
And, finally...
Self-styled historian Bill O'Reilly defended Trump's ahistorical comments about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War.
Fired Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday defended President Trump's assertion that Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War, attacking former CBS News anchor Dan Rather and other Trump critics as "morons."
"You may have seen a bunch of people on cable news, and that's one of the reasons I don't really miss it, saying that President Trump is a moron for saying that Andrew Jackson might have prevented the Civil War because of Jackson's skills in running the country," O'Reilly said on his "No Spin News" nightly podcast.
"So Dan Rather, who knows very little about history, and others go out and they hammer Trump like he's a moron."
"Trump was right," O'Reilly said. "Andrew Jackson would not have tolerated any secession movement at all and would have moved federal troops much faster into the problem situations. James Buchanan, Old Buck, did nothing. He was afraid. And that emboldened the South. End of historical story."
The more you know.
– Trix