Just how did Donald Trump and Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP gang manage to fall short in their longstanding bid to repeal Obamacare? Sen. Ron Johnson offered one explanation, saying of the no-hearings, no-expert-testimony, no-CBO-score finale, “It’s an insane process.” Via The Washington Post.
New York Times columnist David Leonhardt has another explanation. Even in this time when fake news seems to rule, facts do apparently still matter.
Trump’s latest gambit — to just allow Obamacare to fail — is indicative of the Republicans’ main problem. They know how to attack government programs, but, despite controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, they don’t yet know how to govern. Via New York magazine.
Revenge of the GOP women: Three women who were left out of the Senate working group that put together the failed healthcare bill joined together to tank it. Via Vox.
One of Trump’s most cherished goals has been to erase as much as possible of the Obama legacy. The Obamacare-repeal disaster is just one way in which he has failed. Via The Los Angeles Times.
The inimitable Molly Ball writes in The Atlantic that Republicans aren’t turning on Trump. They’re turning on each other. As one unnamed House staffer puts it, it’s Republican-on-Republican violence.
We now know the identity of the eighth person at the Don Jr.-Russia meeting, which apparently wasn’t only about adoption. His name is Irakly Kaveladze. He is a Soviet-born American citizen who was once known as “the poster child” — via former Michigan Sen. Carl Levin — of Soviet money-laundering schemes. Via The New York Times. And then there was the undisclosed second, “really weird” Trump Sr.-Putin meeting.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos seems to be ready to undermine Title IX protections for victims of campus rape. Via The Baltimore Sun.
From The National Review: If you want to know how bad things are for Trump, David French writes that it’s time for Republicans to stop talking about Hillary Clinton and thinking instead about Jimmy Carter.
It’s time for Hillary Clinton to bow gracefully out of public life, along with all other women. Via The New Yorker. Yes, it’s a Daily Shouts.
