Pearls from Rudy

He Said What:   A good part of the news day was consumed by Rudy Giuliani, his despicable statements about Stormy Daniels and his idiotic, undiplomatic remarks about North Korean leader Kim Jung Un.  I’ll get to that but first here’s some more important news.  Late last night the Justice Department announced that it won’t defend the Affordable Care Act against lawsuits from several Obamacare unfriendly states.  Those lawsuits claim that because Congress passed legislation eliminating the penalty incurred by people who opt not to obtain health insurance, something that Trump and other anti-Obamacare politicians inaccurately refer to as the elimination of the individual mandate, than states can’t be required to provide coverage for people with preexisting conditions.  The logic behind the argument is that lacking the penalty related revenues that were previously paid by people who didn’t buy insurance, there isn’t enough money to subsidize the coverage of all those “sick” people. Of course none of those states acknowledge that this is a self-inflicted wound created by those who are trying to dismantle Obamacare.  It’s not clear that these states will prevail in court but it is quite possible that the final decision will end up in the hands of the Supreme Court.  In any case eliminating coverage for people with preexisting conditions would further chip away at Obamacare which is the whole point of the states’ lawsuit and the uncertainty associated with the lawsuit will increase premiums. Paradoxically, threatening coverage for people with preexisting conditions will also provide Democrats another great talking point for the midterms, since the availability of affordable health care coverage has become an increasingly important issue for many of the same voters who used to hate Obamacare.  Though health care isn’t much of a priority, rooting out leakers is a major issue for Trump and his Department of Justice so last night the DOJ announced the indictment of James Wolfe, a long term Senate Intelligence Committee staffer for lying to the FBI.  As part of the investigation into his actions, the DOJ took the unusual step of subpoenaing many years of emails and phone logs of Ali Watkins, a NY Times reporter who previously worked for Buzzfeed and Politico.  The records sought did not cover the period during which Watkins worked for the NY Times and it’s not clear that she was one of the recipients of Wolfe’s leaks, however, she did have a brief relationship with Wolfe, something that he denied during his interviews with the FBI; that’s relevant because at least for now Wolfe has been indicted for lying rather than leaking, though it appears he really was a leaker to at least four or five reporters.  The grabbing of Watkins’s records is a particularly aggressive move and likely represents an escalation of the DOJ’s war against leaks to the press, one that may be focused on the leaking of that Trump damning Russian related information.  Notably its thought that Wolfe communicated details about Carter Page’s contacts to some of his contacts and Watkins was an author of a story about Page’s Russian canoodling back when she worked at Buzzfeed.  Now, returning to Giuliani, it’s not clear why he is hanging out in Tel Aviv, but he certainly is making the most of the press coverage that he’s getting during his Holy Land trip. He’s slammed Kim Jong Un, claiming that he is so desperate to meet with Trump that he got down on one knee and begged for the meeting after Trump sent him the Dear Kim letter cancelling the Singapore Summit, the summit that is now back on and scheduled to take place next week, the one that Trump says he doesn’t really need to prepare for because the only thing that matters is attitude and he’s got plenty of that.  Then he slammed Stormy Daniels by expressing his disgust about her profession, saying that he has no respect for her because as a porn star “she sells her body for sexual exploitation.” He went on to say that he knows that Melania believes her husband had nothing to do with Stormy Daniels and anyway all you have to do is look at those three classy women Trump married to know that he wouldn’t hang with someone like Stormy even though we all know that he did hang out with Stormy and that he also hung out with and tried to pay Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal during their first encounter.  Giuliani who is in the process of his own third divorce and who was forced out of NYC’s Gracie Mansion when he was mayor after his second wife learned about their divorce from press reports while he was having an affair with one of his aides also made it clear that he never watches porn.  Secretary of State Pompeo laughed off Giuliani’s comments about Kim Jong Un by saying that Rudy doesn’t speak for the administration.  Melania’s press secretary made it clear that the current Mrs. Trump, whose “modeling” photos are now once again going viral as a result of Giuliani’s comments, has never expressed any of her thoughts, especially her thoughts about her husband’s extramarital relationships, to Giuliani.  Despite all this Giuliani is still serving as Trump’s spokesperson or resident clown, or both.  

Other News:  Before heading to Singapore Trump is heading off to Canada for the G7 Economic meeting.  Trump plans to skip out early from the conference, missing the sessions on climate change and the environment, mostly because he cares little about the environment and sees no point in discussing climate change something that he views as the scientific equivalent of “fake news”.  He also isn’t looking forward to seeing any of the other attendees particularly host Prime Minister Trudeau who he recently called out as indignant during one of their recent antagonistic conversations about tariffs, France’s President Macron who has also called him out over tariffs and Germany’s Angela Merkel who he never wants to see.  Trump feels that there is no point in even attending the meeting since he’s outnumbered on key issues, and, given his druthers, would just stay home and play another round of golf in preparation for his meeting with Kim Jong Un in Singapore. The other members of the G7 group anticipate that the US will not be a signatory to their traditional post meeting statement, they are probably right.   In legislative news, Senator Bob Corker’s efforts to get some sort of legislation passed in order to limit Trump’s tariff powers seems to be fizzling.  Attempts by a rogue group of Republican members of the House to force DACA friendly immigration legislation remain hung up, at least for the moment, despite Speaker Ryan’s promise to come up with immigration legislation that is “hardline,” pleasing to Trump and Dreamer friendly, a solution that seems pretty much impossible.