As awful as the intel/Comey/Russia story is, at this stage the messaging should be about health care. Or at least not ignore health care. Health care affects every voter. But the ground is changing daily, and obstruction of justice breaks through the partisan bubble in a way Russia ties have not yet.
PPP:
Health Care Puts House in Play
PPP's new national poll finds that Republicans are facing significant backlash over the health care bill that's having the effect of firing up Democrats and putting them in position to make major gains in the House next year.
Democrats now have a 49-38 lead overall on the generic Congressional ballot, up from 47-41 a month ago. Even more notable though is that among voters who say they're 'very excited' to turn out in the 2018 election, the Democratic lead balloons to 27 points at 61-34. The outcome of lower turnout midterm elections often hinges on which side is more engaged, and Democrats have the clear advantage at this point on that front- 63% of their voters say they're 'very excited' about voting in next year's election, compared to only 52% of Republicans who say the same…
Only 40% of voters approve of the job Trump is doing to 54% who disapprove. For the first time we find more voters (48%) in support of impeaching Trump than there are (41%) opposed to the idea. Only 43% of voters think Trump is actually going to end up serving his full term as President, while 45% think he won't, and 12% aren't sure one way or the other.
It’s only one poll, but more like this and Republicans will discover their inner patriot.
But this, too:
Alex Roarty/McClatchy:
Worried about fallout, Dems poised to poll-test impeachment
Democratic strategists are racing to figure out if it’s politically wise to call for Donald Trump’s impeachment, as one bombshell revelation after another about the president’s ties to Russia are forcing Senate and House candidates to consider the question far sooner than anyone expected.
In a significant development, party operatives say they now expect Democrats will poll-test the public’s views on impeachment, trying to acquire hard data about an issue that until now has not been seriously analyzed. Others strategists also say candidates and party organizations to begin conducting focus groups on the question.
These operatives acknowledge they’ve been caught off guard by the speed with which impeachment has become a relevant issue -- and are wary of the political damage it could cause if not handled correctly.
Jonathan Chait/New York magazine:
Trump’s Protective Republican Wall in Congress Cracks
The Republican Congress has surrounded the Trump administration with a protective wall. The majority party has denied Democratic demands for independent investigations, quashed bills to force President Trump to release his tax returns, and avoided any serious effort at oversight. Hours after the New York Times reported that James Comey has memos describing Donald Trump attempting to steer him away from the Russia investigation, that wall began to crack...
Congress is far, far away from the majority of the House, and two-thirds of the Senate, necessary to impeach and remove a president of their own party. But the policy of shutting down all oversight or investigation is no longer tenable. And once the apparatus for producing evidence against Trump begins to churn, there is no telling where it will end. A few days ago, impeachment and removal seemed inconceivable. Suddenly, it isn’t.
Josh Kraushaar/National Journal:
Fear and Loathing In the GOP
An entire class of Republicans instinctively defends anything the president does, as long as it enrages the Democratic opposition. That could change if he bungles a crisis that affects their lives.
Republicans are so focused on the short-term politics that they’re neglecting to game out the possible blowback from Trump’s antics down the road. Most Senate Republicans won’t be on a ballot next year, but relatively few are calling out Trump for his misconduct. House Speaker Paul Ryan dismisses Trump’s erratic behavior as a distraction from the serious business before Congress. They’re desperately trying to rationalize any defense of the president by insisting it’s for the greater conservative good.
Republicans are assuming that Trump’s base will be with him forever. Don’t count on it. If the president continues to cocoon himself from sound advice and undermine his own staff, the political consequences will be clear down the road. And if he loses the Republican base, he’ll lose the support of his last line of defense in Washington.
Josh (mostly) wrote the above before the Comey memo story was out.
Elise Viebeck and Dave Weigel/WaPo:
Lawmakers to Trump: Turn over transcript of meeting with Russians
Members of Congress — primarily Democrats — have spent several days demanding Trump to turn over tapes of White House meetings after he suggested, while defending his decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey, that he records his conversations.
But the calls intensified Tuesday morning after Trump seemed to acknowledge on Twitter that he had shared sensitive information during his meeting with the Russians.
“For the purpose of transparency, the White House should share a transcript of the meeting with the House and Senate intelligence committees,” former intelligence officer and freshman Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) tweeted Tuesday morning.
“Our allies and partners must have the utmost confidence that sensitive information they share with us will not be disclosed,” Gallagher wrote.
Philip Bump/WaPo:
Trump’s careening toward an inevitable showdown with an undeniable truth
As it stands, there’s enough to the Times report to give Trump defenders wiggle room. But, again, the path of the past 10 days has been toward less and less wiggle room and a more and more direct contrast between Trump and some other trustworthy outside individual. That’s the moment of tension that has been building since Trump announced his candidacy, always pitting him against imperfect foils like Ted Cruz or Hillary Clinton or the mainstream media. Eventually — seemingly inevitably — that wave will crash into a wall.
Tom Ricks/FP:
McMaster’s former staff officer in Iraq: A general must not just stand by while a lie is being promulgated
Tom,
I haven’t anything to say to you regarding HR. He is my friend and my advice to friends is private. However, I would like to clarify a point regarding the honor code of the officer corps.
An officer may not tolerate a lie.
Five Thirty Eight:
Even The Biggest Scandals Can’t Kill Party Loyalty
There have been lots of questions, especially among liberals, about when congressional Republicans might turn on President Trump, particularly in the wake of his controversial firing of FBI Director James Comey and the reports late Monday that he compromised classified information. The assumption behind these questions is that at a certain point, something so outrageous will be revealed about Trump that the resulting scandal will … er … trump party loyalty.
But, at least historically speaking, even the biggest scandals don’t wash away partisanship.
Greg Sargent/WaPo:
Republicans who are complicit in Trump’s abuse of power will soon have a big problem
A few Republican senators heroically ventured on to the Sunday shows to profess deep concernabout President Trump’s abrupt firing of the man overseeing the investigation into the small matter of whether his campaign colluded with a foreign power to undermine our democracy. Meanwhile, the New York Times assures us that GOP senators are “increasingly unnerved” by Trump’s “volatility” and are “starting to show signs of breaking away from him.”
That’s nice. But until GOP lawmakers support a full and independent probe into the Russia affair — not to mention real oversight of all the other ways in which Trump is shredding our democratic norms — they are essentially complicit in his ongoing abuses of power. Can this go on forever?
The Russia Scandal Is Driving Trump Mad. It Might Undo Him—and the Republicans.
But Trump himself provides the most convincing evidence of the impact of the Russia scandal, which has clearly gotten under Trump’s skin. He brings it up at inopportune moments, even when it goes against his interest. Last Thursday, in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Trump broke with the official White House story that Comey was fired on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who wrote a memo critical of the FBI director’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. “When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,’” Trump said. “I was going to fire Comey. Oh, I was going to fire regardless of [Rosenstein’s] recommendation.”
Trump not only revealed his true motives here, but also his obsession. “Rather than ignoring the Russia investigation and focusing on priorities like health care and taxes, he keeps drawing more attention to the subject with intemperate Twitter posts, angry interviews and actions like the firing of Mr. Comey,” The New York Timesreported. “He is so consumed by the matter that he studies congressional hearings on the Russia case, scrolling through them using TiVo. The night before dismissing Mr. Comey, he invited Time magazine journalists to dinner and, on a 60-inch-plus television he has had installed in the dining room, showed them various moments from the hearings, offering play-by-play-style commentary.”
Preet Bharara/WaPo:
Are there still public servants who will say no to the president?
For me, the past week has been deja vu all over again. To restore faith in the rule of law, three obvious things must happen: First, we need a truly bipartisan investigation in Congress. That means no partisan nonsense — just a commitment to finding the facts, whatever they may be, proving (or disproving) Russian interference in our election and anything related. Congress is a check and a balance, and never more important than when a bullying chief executive used to his own way seems not to remember the co-equal status of the other two branches.
Second, the new FBI director must be apolitical and sensitive to the law-enforcement mission, not someone with a long record of reflexive partisanship or commentary on the very investigative issues that will come before the bureau. Unfortunately, some of the candidates paraded by cameras this past weekend reality-show style fall into that category. I can’t think of anything worse for FBI morale, for truth-finding or for public trust. More than ever the FBI needs a strong and stabilizing hand, which means somebody who has not spent most of his or her career pandering for votes, groveling for cash or putting party over principle.
Finally, I join in the common-sense call for an independent and uncompromised special counsel to oversee the Russia investigation.
David Frum/Atlantic:
A Special Prosecutor Is Not the Answer
Rather than an inquiry focused narrowly on criminal conduct, the way to resolve questions swirling around President Trump and his associates is to impanel an independent commission.
Of all the types of independent investigation that have been suggested, a special prosecutor is the most likely to disappear down rabbit holes—the least likely answer the questions that needed to be answered. A select committee of Congress or an independent commission of nonpartisan experts established by Congress can ask the broad question: What happened? A select committee or an independent commission can organize its inquiry according to priority, leaving the secondary and tertiary issues to the historians. A select committee or an independent commission is not barred from looking at events in earlier years statutes of limitations. A select committee or an independent commission seeks truth.
This is an amazing story:
Monkey Cage Blog/WaPo:
This is why Trump’s loose tongue has compromised U.S. security
The most direct and immediate impact may be to jeopardize a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State, thereby making it more difficult to detect and thwart terrorist plots. It is also possible that Moscow could use the information to its advantage in various ways that harm the United States or its allies.
Anne Applebaum/WaPo:
The experts were right: Trump isn’t fit to be president
None of those disastrous decisions was part of a deliberate plan. Each one was made because of the president’s willful ignorance, impulsiveness and inexperience. It is not at all surprising to learn that — during a conversation that shouldn’t have been happening, one that was photographed by a Russian journalist who shouldn’t have been there — the president revealed details of an ongoing intelligence operation. Once again, this was not part of a deliberate plan. Instead, it happened because the president is a braggart who wanted to show off his access to “great intel” and to impress his important guests.
That’s old news.