Teachers Rock

Singapore or Bust:  Question of the day, what happens to those special coins minted to commemorate the Singapore summit meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un if it never happens? Yesterday, during a press conference with South Korea leader Moon Jae-in, Trump warned that the summit might not happen or might not happen on schedule.  During the press conference Trump and Moon lavished praise on each other, with Trump talking about his long term and wonderful relationship with Moon and South Korea, particularly ironic since Moon only recently assumed his position and Trump routinely criticizes trade with South Korea and the size of US military expenditures in the country.  For his part Moon, returned the flattery in spades, giving Trump full credit for pushing North Korea to the table.  Despite their chumminess, they are not on the same page with regard to the planned Singapore summit.  Trump, who has woken up to the reality that things might not work out well with North Korea, appears to be losing some of his enthusiasm, and in typical Trump fashion is already assigning blame in case things don’t work out. His target this time is China’s President Xi, who he criticized by suggesting that he must have said something to Kim Jong Un during their recent surprise meeting that caused the North Korean leader to change his attitude about the prospects for satisfactory negotiations with the US. For his part, despite North Korea’s recent pullback,  Moon continue to push for the summit to take place so much so that his spokesman asserts that there is a 99% chance it will move forward.  US experts put that probability closer to 50%.

Mueller Time:  Following their remarks, Trump and Moon took a few questions from the press.  As usual, the US reporters took the opportunity to lob a few questions in about domestic policy and the Mueller investigation.  Trump made it clear that he wasn’t all that interested in entertaining those questions, particularly one about whether or not he still has faith in Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein by waving off the questioner and refusing to answer, hardly a vote of confidence in Rosenstein.  Insiders report that Trump had hoped that he would have the opportunity to rid himself of Rosenstein over the weekend by forcing him to resign or to commit a “fireable” offense. He was somewhat surprised and very disappointed that Rosenstein, together with FBI Director Wray, agreed to accommodate his demands to investigate the “spying” on his campaign team, something he is now calling Spygate, and that other more ridiculous demand to share key documents about aspects of the investigation with his Republican enablers.  As to the sharing of those documents, as agreed over the weekend, Chief of Staff Kelly has arranged for a “reveal” meeting to take place later this week.  As of now only Republicans are invited to attend the meeting so while Congressmen Nunes and Gowdy will be shown all or at least some of the secret stuff that they want to see, their Democratic colleagues will have to read about it in the press after the information gets leaked, something that will probably happen almost immediately.  The fact that no Democrats will be included in the meeting breaks with usual practice but then again nothing is usual anymore. At her daily news conference,  Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to a question about why Democrats were being excluded by dismissively saying that Democrats weren’t invited because they hadn’t asked to see the confidential information and if you don’t ask, you don’t get to participate.  Sanders was on a roll, when asked why reporters from CNN and the Associated Press  were physically blocked from attending an EPA summit where EPA Director Scott Pruitt was speaking on harmful chemicals in water, she said that she couldn’t comment.  When pushed further by a reporter from NBC as to whether it was ever okay to selectively block press from such an event she said “I’m not going to weigh into random hypotheticals that may or may not exist, I don’t know any information about this specific incident.”  Her cavalier and dismissive attitude towards the press must really impress her boss who, shortly after the 2016 election, told Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes that he bashes the press to "demean" and "discredit" reporters so that the public will not believe "negative stories" about him.  Sadly, that strategy seems to be working out well for him.  As to Mueller, lawyer/advisor Giuliani who earlier asserted that Mueller promised to end the investigation into obstruction in September, is now saying that Trump will only agree to sit down with Mueller’s team if Mueller takes all questions about obstruction off the table.  Giuliani appears to be taking a page from the Trump press manipulation handbook.  He keeps asserting that Trump really wants to meet with Mueller and that he’s reserving time in his summer schedule, time that would otherwise be spent on the golf course, to prepare for questions, while proposing  impossible conditions and advising Trump to never sit down with Mueller.  While that interview tango goes on, lawyer/fixer Cohen’s problems continue to grow.  Yesterday, Cohen’s business partner Evegeny Friedman, the “taxi king” who had been indicted last year on New York state charges for failing to pay $5 million in transit surcharges between 2012 and 2015 reached a plea agreement with prosecutors that will allow him to avoid what could have been substantial jail time.  In exchange, Friedman has agreed to cooperate with Federal and New York State prosecutors.  And by cooperate, think spill his guts about everything he knows about Cohen.  This is a bigly problem for Cohen and could be the event that causes him to turn on Trump.

Politics:  Yesterday, was primary day in Georgia, Texas and Kentucky.  On the Democratic front,  Stacey Abrams won the Democratic primary for Governor of Georgia. Though she faces an uphill battle, if she wins in the fall she will be the first African American woman to become a Governor.  Mainstream Democrats were happy to see their mainstream candidate, Lizzie Fletcher beat out Laura Moser, her Bernie supported and possibly too progressive for Texas rival in the Texas 7 District, a flippable district that the Democrats hope to take in November.  In a sign that the teacher rebellion continues to upend Republican politics, Jonathan Shell, the Republican leader in the Kentucky House who had been seen as a rising star in the party, lost his seat to Travis Brenda, a math teacher who made it clear that teachers aren’t going to sit on the sidelines silently while their pay stagnates and their budgets get cut.  On the legislative front, on a somewhat bipartisan vote, Congress passed legislation rolling back some of the Dodd-Frank bank regulations put into place after the last market meltdown. As to ZTE, the Chinese phone company that Trump wants to preserve in order to make his good buddy President Xi happy, the Senate Banking committee weighed in with their disapproval of his intentions by overwhelmingly approving an amendment to block him from easing sanctions on ZTE without first certifying to Congress that the company is complying with U.S. law.