Week 68
This was Trump’s worst week since taking office. So far.
This week Trump lost loyalist Hope Hicks, and along with the broadening and deepening Trump-Russia probe, Trump became even more unhinged, angry and erratic, deciding by midweek he would ignore all experts and party loyalists and unilaterally act?—?first on gun control, which he retracted a day later, and then imposing tariffs, again against the counsel of all around him. Also striking out at and threatening to fire or push out almost everybody left in leadership in his shrinking regime, including his son-in-law and daughter, while low and mid-level staffers raced for the exits.
The length of this list will stand testament to what it felt like to live in America this week. Trump’s daily rages and outrageous, puerile, unpredictable behavior have stunned our country and the world. There is almost no aspect of Trump or his White House operating with a semblance of what have been our democratic norms, or a sense of order and balance. Complete, and ongoing meltdown.
- The Trump campaign used a photo of a 17-year-old Parkland survivor surrounded by her family in a hospital room in an email sent Saturday soliciting donations for the campaign.
- On Saturday, at CPAC, columnist Mona Charen criticized the “hypocrites” in the GOP for being silent about sexual harassers and abusers of women who are in the party. Charen was booed and had to be escorted out.
- On Saturday, tentative plans for Mexican President Peña Nieto to make his first visit to the White House were canceled after a testy call with Trump in which Trump refused to publicly affirm that Mexico won’t pay for his wall.
- Roberta Jacobson, US ambassador to Mexico, quit amid tense relations with Trump. Jacobson was one of the most experienced Latin America experts in the State Department, with 31 years of experience in the region.
- Numerous colleges sent emails and tweets to students and parents advising high schoolers that getting suspended for being involved in protests on gun control will not hurt them in the admissions process.
- On Saturday, House Democrats released a 10-page rebuttal to the Nunes memo, redacted over a two week period by the FBI, countering claims that top FBI and DOJ officials abused their power spying on Carter Page.
- The memo said Page was interviewed by the FBI “multiple times about his Russian intelligence contacts” in March 2016, the same month he joined the Trump campaign. The FBI originally took interest in Page in 2013.
- The memo also says the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Russian election interference began on July 31, and by September 2016 the bureau had numerous “sub-inquiries” into Trump campaign associates
- Contrary to the Nunes memo’s accusation, the FBI received the dossier in September 2016, so the dossier played no role in the FBI’s initial probe.
- The October 2016 surveillance warrant application against Page, as well as the three subsequent renewals, were approved by federal judges appointed by Republicans. The court knew who paid for the dossier.
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