SUMMARY: Facebook is exquisitely designed to feed our addiction to hyper-partisan content. In this world, fringe players who are apt to be more strident end up at the top of our news feeds, burying the middle ground. Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports on the ways junk news feeds into our own beliefs about politics, institutions, and government.
SUMMARY: The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, come at a particularly tense moment in the region. But there's also a lot of excitement around the Games themselves. John Yang talks to Christine Brennan of USA Today about what and who to watch, the Russian doping scandal, and how one athlete has spoken out against Vice President Mike Pence leading the American delegation.
SUMMARY: Fireworks opened the 2018 Olympic Games, but competed for attention with a diplomatic spectacle. The leaders of South Korea and North Korea showed off a historic handshake, while Vice President Mike Pence kept his distance, underscoring apparent divisions between Washington and Seoul. John Yang gets two views from former State Department officials Anthony Ruggiero and Frank Jannuzi.
SUMMARY: A brutal murder of a 15-year-old girl in Southern Germany has placed the country's open-door immigration policy under intense scrutiny. In addition, a new government-sponsored study found that violent crime rose in one state by 10 percent in two years, with 92 percent of the increase attributed to young male migrants. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports on the political fallout.
SUMMARY: What’s the political fallout from President Trump's reported incendiary comments about some immigrants? Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report and Margaret Talev of Bloomberg News join John Yang to discuss whether it has derailed immigration talks about DACA protections and how Republicans are responding in different ways.
SUMMARY: President Trump's reported remarks at a White House meeting last week continue to dominate in the days before a looming government funding deadline. As senators grilled Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on a specific profanity and President Trump was pressed on a different detail, Congress and the White House try to reassemble talks over DACA. Lisa Desjardins joins Judy Woodruff.
SUMMARY: The clock is ticking as lawmakers labor to find a way to keep the federal government running, hitting up against demands for more defense spending and a fix for the expiring DACA program. Lisa Desjardins and Yamiche Alcindor join Judy Woodruff to discuss where negotiations stand and what the White House wants.
SUMMARY: Michael Wolff defended his headline-grabbing new book “Fire and Fury” on Monday, saying he “absolutely” stands by his reporting depicting a chaotic first year inside the Trump White House.
“I spent the better part of seven months in close proximity to everyone in the White House,” Wolff told PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff in an interview Monday. “I had no agenda. I was perfectly willing to write a book in which Donald Trump was the unexpected successful President.”
But Wolff said his White House sources told him they became increasingly alarmed with Trump’s behavior as his first year in office wore on.
Numerous media outlets have reported on a chaotic atmosphere in the White House since Trump took office. But Wolff’s book stands out in part for the on-the-record quotes disparaging Trump or members of his family made by top current and former advisers, like former chief strategist Steve Bannon. Bannon’s comments in the book appeared to cause a rift between him and the White House, which distanced itself from Bannon in recent days.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including new revelations in the Russia investigation, the war of words between President Donald Trump and former White House adviser Steve Bannon, and what former Vice President Joe Biden told Woodruff earlier this week about the future of the Democratic Party.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): Next to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome, gentlemen.
So, David, the lead of the program tonight is what I guess a lot of people in Washington are reading and talking about right now, are these Russia revelations, what the President did or didn’t do in trying to pressure the Attorney General to stay involved or not in this investigation.
Then other stories keep coming out. We talked about it a few minutes ago in the program, but are we really learning more about what President Trump did?
David Brooks, New York Times: Well, we knew that he really wanted to squash this investigation, but I think what we’re learning is a lot of the details, a lot of the efforts that he made, the letter he wanted to write, his attitude toward government.
To me, the most astonishing quote of the whole deal is he saying, “Where is my Roy Cohn?” And Roy Cohn was Joe McCarthy’s henchman, more or less. And so he’s basically — and a mentor to Donald Trump, it should be said, later in life.
And so he thinks government is sort of a family mafia business, and he can shut it down, and loyalty to the Don is the primary value here.
To me, that was just a mind-boggling quote, because most people consider Roy Cohn and Roy Cohn's role with Joe McCarthy as a shameful moment in American history, not something you want to emulate.
Judy Woodruff: So, Mark, are we learning more here? I mean, the stories are coming almost by the bushel full, and every one of them has a little bit more information about what happened.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Yes.
Well, we’re certainly learning — and I’m trying to separate the stories right now, but we’re learning the President was deeply involved in trying to divert attention on that return flight from his European trip in July, you know, that he was — that this is a matter of personal urgency to him, and which just sets off alarms.
I mean, why? What is it? I don’t think there is — we’re anywhere near a smoking pistol or anything of the sort on him and Russia, but there’s no question of his hypersensitivity, concern, involvement and unseemly involvement in trying to divert attention and to send the attorney general out as his personal attorney.
I mean, he really views the Attorney General of the United States not at the Department of Justice, but as a personal attorney, and is somewhat upset that he doesn’t have the same relationship with Jeff Sessions that he perceives that John Kennedy had with Robert Kennedy, who was his brother and his campaign manager.
SUMMARY: In an upcoming book, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is quoted as saying a 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr., campaign staffers and a group of Russians was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.” Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times, and Robert Costa host of Washington Week, talk with Hari Sreenivasan about the latest revelations in the Russia investigation and so-called Steele dossier.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the GOP tax bill signed into law, the things lawmakers didn’t accomplish before the end of the year and what it will mean for the 2018 midterm elections, plus David and Mark share whom they would give holiday gifts to this year.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Gentlemen, welcome.
Three days before Christmas, Congress has just gone home. David, the President says this tax bill that they passed is a great gift for the American people. He said today corporations are going wild over this. They’re showering their employees with bonuses.
But the polls show people are still skeptical. What are people to make of this?
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes.
Well, I have not been a big fan of this tax bill for a whole number of reasons, one of which I think was revealed today. When you look at all the intricacies of it, not all the big things, little changes that could have vast effects on American societies.
For example, we have got the health insurance system, the employer-based health system because of some minor change during World War II. This has all sorts of minor things. Because we had no hearings, because we had no expert review, and no time to actually look at what’s in the bill, it has dozens of that kind of minor changes that could have massive effects.
For example, we could all — it doesn’t make sense to work for a company anymore, when you can declare yourself a corporation and pay the corporate rate. And so that could just have massive effects of the economy.
So it’s actually kind of hard to know what the effects of this tax bill will be, because I think most of them are unintended.
Judy Woodruff: So, are people scratching their heads, Mark, or are they worried? What do you see?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: People have concluded, at least strong initial judgment, Judy, that it is a bill that favors corporations and favors the very well-off.
And that is a conclusion. As Peter Hart, the pollster says, when a negative judgment is formed, it’s very difficult to overcome that. And that is the perception.
Most people don’t have the option of declaring themselves corporations. That comes to a level of affluence and influence not available to most American families.
And I think what David cited is a good example.
David Brooks: Yes. I would say one thing. I don’t think it is going to be a political loser for the Republicans.
Judy Woodruff: You don’t?
David Brooks: Because 80 percent of the country does — or tax units, does get a break out of it of varying sizes.
Some people will get pretty significant breaks. If you have a kid or a couple of kids, the child deductible tax credit, it doubles and it becomes refundable, so you actually get a check in the mail. And a lot of people are going to be seeing that. And a lot of people are going to be surprised to see that.
So I don’t think it will be the total loser that it looks now. I think now the polling, people don’t know what’s in the tax bill. They just don’t like Trump. He’s associated with it. They get the Republicans favor the rich.
But this bill is — you spend a trillion-and-a-half dollars, you can give a lot of money away.
Judy Woodruff: So, Mark, you…
(CROSSTALK)
Judy Woodruff: Go ahead.
Mark Shields: In 1986, which was an employer tax reform bill, Ronald Reagan, passed the Senate 74-23, passed the House 296-132, bipartisan, overwhelmingly, and popular.
And President Reagan refused to sign anything that wasn’t deficit-neutral, and, Judy, historic. And that year, 1986, the Republicans lost control of the Senate, lost nine Senate seats. Democrats increased their majority in the House.
It is a — in 1981, after President Reagan signed his then historic first tax cut, the same thing. The Republicans suffered.
David’s point is that they get a couple more bucks. I get 20 bucks more or 30 bucks more in my check. But I’m going to be regaled and inundated with stories of millionaires walking away, of special interests, of Wall Street getting it. And it becomes very relative. I’m starting to feel duped, because all of these wealthy people are getting windfalls.
David Brooks: Yes.
I think the Republicans are going to do very bad in the midterm, but not because of the tax bill.
Mark Shields: OK.
David Brooks: And there are lot — in ’86, it was revenue-neutral. In ’81, there was a recession. Now times are economically good.
Mark Shields: That’s right.
David Brooks: So you can vote on a lot of things. In general, when you run up big deficits and give away — back money to people, they like it. And people like me say, hey, you should worry about the deficits or you should worry about the distribution effects.
That’s just never been, I think, my experience of how people respond to it. They say, hey, I got some money back.
In a commencement speech years ago, author David Foster Wallace told this story: Two young fish are swimming along, and they pass an older fish swimming the other way. The older fish says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a while. Then one looks at the other and says, “What the hell is water?” Wallace noted the point of the story was that “the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about." And that may describe American politics at the moment. President Donald Trump has brought about a profound crisis that is undermining the nation’s democratic system, and it is so pervasive and encompassing that it is not being fully acknowledged. It is the water.
The crisis is not rooted in Trump’s advocacy of conservative policies—the Muslim ban, tax breaks for the wealthy, hollowing out the State Department, killing climate change action. Nor is it triggered by his rude and classless behavior, as he spends long hours watching cable news, consuming Diet Coke, and rushing to Twitter to attend to petty grievances, instead of working diligently to advance the interests of the citizenry. The country can survive bad policies and an immature and erratic commander in chief (unless, of course, his recklessness leads to nuclear war). What the United States faces this holiday season is an unparalleled, widespread, Trump-inspired assault on the principles, norms, and purpose of democratic governance.
Creeping authoritarianism, creeping autocracy, creeping kleptocracy—call it what you want. But the creep has turned into a sprint. The offenses to good government and fundamental values are happening each day, often several times a day—and in such a fusillade that there is often not enough time to ponder the horrendous implications of each one. And not enough space to consider the fundamental deterioration under way. Another aquatic metaphor: We are too busy being slammed by what’s coming out of the fire hose to see the water damage that is being done.
In recent days—like any set of recent days—the outrages have been many. During a phone call with Vladimir Putin, Trump, according to a White House “readout,” thanked the Russian leader “for acknowledging America’s strong economic performance in his annual press conference.” And they discussed working together to “resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea.” Apparently they spoke not a word about Russia’s attack on the United States during the 2016 campaign. Which seems to be the pattern. Since Trump took office, there has not been a single sign he has pressed Putin regarding Moscow’s operation to subvert American democracy. And as a much-noticed Washington Post piece pointed out, Trump has throughout the last year adamantly refused to accept the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia engaged in information warfare to help him win the Presidency—and has taken no measures to prevent a rerun. So here we have an American President abdicating—out of pique—his most fundamental obligation: to protect the nation from foreign attack. And his party colleagues barely bat an eye at Trump’s negligence.
If a dogcatcher refused to catch dogs, he would be deemed unfit for the position. But Trump has abdicated the top responsibility of the commander in chief, and this does not scandalize the congressional majority. The Constitution awards power to the President so he can safeguard the nation. Trump uses this power to safeguard his own power.
Trump’s reckless disregard for norms and rules has been embraced by his champions and foot soldiers. Claiming to be a law-and-order sort of guy, he has viciously attacked law enforcement that might affect him and his cronies. Angered by the ongoing FBI investigation of the Trump-Russia scandal, he claimed the bureau is “in tatters." And Fox News, a for-profit state news organ, dutifully puts on air a conservative activist who compares the current FBI to the KGB and essentially calls for the entire bureau to be shut down. (About a year ago, Trump equated the US intelligence community with Nazi Germany.) Others, on and off Fox, cheer for Trump to become a strongman leader who readily dispatches his perceived enemies. Though Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, Trump’s minions still rally to the cry of “Lock Her Up” and demonstrate their belief that extremism in the name of defending Trump is no vice. It’s not just party over country; it’s Trump over party over country.
Trump and his comrades regularly assault the institutions of government that can impose a check on a President. Trump dismissed FBI chief James Comey in an attempt to protect himself. And Trump’s congressional allies in the past weeks have intensified their criticisms of special counsel Robert Mueller, devoting far more vitriol to his investigation than to Putin’s secret war on a US election. The same folks who were fine with over a dozen Benghazi inquiries now look to undermine a duly authorized probe—led by a Republican!—that threatens to reveal truths inconvenient for the President. And they are eager to shutter or distract the congressional investigations that are supposed to deliver to the public the truth about the 2016 campaign. These GOPers are joining Trump in embracing political power instead of principle and, like the President, making it easier for a foreign foe to assault the United States and then escape consequences. This is a violation of their oath of office, and they don’t care.
Meanwhile, special interests run amok on Capitol Hill, writing a tax bill that is jammed through Congress without true and serious deliberation. There is a recklessness driving this process that is encouraged by Trump. Debate, discourse, expertise—none of it matters. All that counts is raw power. There is no respect for orderly and thoughtful consideration. Citizen participation is of no significance. The rich win in this huge, bottom-to-top wealth transfer, as corporate lobbyists wield more influence than economic experts and members of the minority party. The tax bill will directly reward legislators pushing for it—and Trump and his family. (A reminder: Trump still has not followed a decades-old practice of Presidential candidates and Presidents releasing their tax returns.) And Ivanka Trump complains that the Democrats just don’t have the guts to join in the pillaging. This is absolute and raw class warfare. And as tax breaks are awarded to the well-heeled, the Children’s Health Insurance Program withers and millions of young Americans lose access to medical care. Arrogance is in the air. The driving message: We can do this…because we can.
There is much else going on that tears at the fabric of decent and honest government. Ethics guidelines are routinely and casually flouted by Trump officials (and relatives). The message is clear: rules are for others. Inexperienced people are placed in important jobs (and judgeships), and entire departments are hollowed out. Agencies are instructed to ignore science and facts—meaning, reality. The goal is obvious: diminish the reputation of government and its ability to serve the public. The swamp has grown deeper and wider.
The Christmas lights are shining, but these are dark days. Trump’s list of legislative accomplishments is short. His coattails are also short at the moment. But his malicious soul has spread through the executive branch he commands, infected the judicial branch he fills, and captured the party that controls the legislative branch. And this soul does not recognize the fundamental values that are supposed to guide the government: accountability and public interest. His basic view is evident: l’état, c’est Trump. And too many people in his party have accepted this and enabled him.
If Trump tries to fire Mueller or orders a reckless attack on North Korea, it will be obvious that a crisis is at hand. But a (relatively) quiet crisis has taken hold: Trump and his comrades are seeking to empower themselves and supplanting national priorities with self-serving and self-enriching ones, while delegitimizing those components of government they cannot use for their own ends or that would check their own prerogatives. This corrosion is happening bit by bit every day—as the flashpoint outrages (that is, Trump’s tweets) come and go at hyper-speed and suck up our collective attention. David Foster Wallace’s fish may not be able to tell they are swimming within water. But if that water becomes polluted and depleted of oxygen, at some point they damn well will notice. Trump has poisoned the civic sphere of America, and this crisis will continue to deepen until his contagion is widely viewed as what it is: a threat to the nation.
Summary
We first dubbed President Donald Trump, then just a candidate, as “King of Whoppers” in our annual roundup of notable false claims for 2015.
He dominated our list that year – and again in 2016 – but there was still plenty of room for others.
This year? The takeover is complete.
In his first year as President, Trump used his bully pulpit and Twitter account to fuel conspiracy theories, level unsubstantiated accusations and issue easily debunked boasts about his accomplishments.
And a chorus of administration officials helped in spreading his falsehoods.
Trump complained — without a shred of evidence — that massive voter fraud cost him the 2016 popular vote. He doubled down by creating the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity and appointing a vice chairman who falsely claimed to have “proof” that Democrats stole a U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire.
Even as he mobilized the federal government to ferret out Democratic voter fraud, Trump refused to accept the U.S. intelligence community’s consensus finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 campaign.
Trump disparaged the “so-called ‘Russian hacking’” as a “hoax” and a “phony Russian Witch Hunt,” and compared the conduct of U.S. intelligence agencies to “Nazi Germany.” He then falsely accused the “dishonest” news media of making it “sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community.”
When he spoke of himself, Trump’s boastfulness went far beyond the facts.
He claimed that his inaugural crowd “went all the way back to the Washington Monument,” and sent out his press secretary to declare it the “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.” He described his tax plan as the “biggest tax cut in the history of our country,” and took credit for making the U.S. nuclear arsenal “far stronger and more powerful than ever” after seven months on the job. None of that was true.
Trump is clearly an outlier. If he and his aides were removed from our list, we would be left with a dozen or more notable falsehoods roughly equally distributed between the two parties. You’ll find those at the end of this very long list.
Forgive us for the length. But consider this: It could be even longer.
(And for a short summary on the highlights, see our video on six of these claims.)
Analysis
The Russia Investigation
Two weeks before Trump took the oath of office, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified intelligence report that described an “influence campaign” ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 election.
The report said, among other things, that Russian intelligence services hacked into computers at the Democratic National Committee and gave the hacked material to WikiLeaks and other outlets to publicize in an effort “to help President-elect Trump’s election chances.”
A day after the report came out, Trump declared on Twitter that the intelligence community “stated very strongly that there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results.” Not so. The report specifically stated that the intelligence community “did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election.”
This would be one in a long line of false, misleading or unsubstantiated statements by Trump and his aides this year about the ongoing federal investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians.
There is evidence of contacts between Trump aides and Russian representatives during the campaign, as documented in our timeline, but the question of collusion remains unresolved.
To date, two Trump aides — former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos — have pleaded guilty to giving false statements to the FBI. Two other Trump campaign aides — Paul Manafort and Rick Gates — were indicted on money laundering and tax evasion charges related to their work for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine prior to the 2016 election.
Here are some of the false and unsubstantiated claims that Trump and his aides made about the Russia investigation:
- In a March 4 tweetstorm, Trump called it a “fact” that “Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!” Trump offered no evidence of what he equated to “Nixon/Watergate” crimes. Then-FBI Director James Comey told the House intelligence committee on March 20 that the FBI and Justice Department had “no information that supports those tweets.”
- Two days after Comey’s testimony, Trump doubled down by claiming the House intelligence committee chairman “just got … new information” (during a meeting at the White House) that proved he was “right” about Obama wiretapping his phones. There’s still no evidence of that.
- When asked in July to give a definitive “yes or no” answer if he believes Russia interfered with the election, Trump said, “I think it could very well have been Russia but I think it could very well have been other countries.” There is no evidence that other countries were involved.
- Trump tweeted in May that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper “reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows – there is ‘no evidence’ of collusion w/ Russia and Trump.” Clapper didn’t say that. Clapper said he had no such information “at the time,” meaning before he left office in January.
- The White House issued a statement on May 9 saying the President fired Comey as FBI director “based on the clear recommendations” of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway said the firing had “zero to do with Russia.” That was all spin. Trump later said he would have fired Comey “regardless of recommendation,” and he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he decided to act.
- National Security Adviser Mike Flynn told the Washington Post in February that he did not speak to Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, about U.S. sanctions leveled by the Obama administration in response to Russia’s election meddling. Flynn shortly after admitted he did talk about sanctions with Kislyak and resigned. About 10 months later, he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Kislyak.
- In response to Flynn’s guilty plea, Trump claimed that Hillary Clinton “lied many times to the FBI and nothing happened to her.” There is no evidence Clinton lied to the FBI. In fact, Comey, then serving as the FBI director, told Congress last year that there was “no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI.”
- In an interview, Vice President Mike Pence was asked if “there was any contact in any way” between the Trump campaign and “the Kremlin or cutouts they had.” Pence responded, “Of course not. Why would there be any contacts between the campaign?” That proved to be false.
- Donald Trump Jr. agreed to meet on June 9, 2016, with Russians who promised damaging information on Clinton as part of Russia’s support for Trump’s candidacy. The President’s son at first misleadingly described the meeting as “primarily” about the adoption of Russian children, but later acknowledged he agreed to the meeting to obtain dirt on Clinton.
- Jay Sekulow, one of the President’s attorneys, said on July 12 that “the President wasn’t involved” in drafting his son Donald Jr.’s statement about the June 2016 meeting with the Russians. That turned out to be false. Two weeks later, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders admitted the President “offered suggestions like any father would do.”
Trumpian Boasts
- Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law, met with Kislyak on Dec. 1, 2016, during the transition. It was reported in May that Kushner asked Kislyak at the meeting if Russia could set up a secure communications channel for discussions with the Trump transition team. In rebuttal, Trump retweeted a “Fox & Friends” tweet that said, “Jared Kushner didn’t suggest Russian communications channel in meeting, source says.” That’s false. Kushner later told Congress that he “asked if they had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use.”
During the campaign, Trump vowed that if elected, “We’re going to win with every single facet, we’re going to win so much you may even get tired of winning.” That kind of over-the-top boasting didn’t end with his election:
- Trump claimed that China ended its currency manipulation out of “a certain respect” for him, when in reality China had not been devaluing its currency to create a trade advantage since 2014.
- Trump claimed that “the world is starting to respect the United States of America again,” despite surveys that suggest otherwise. The White House provided no support for the statement.
- He said that his “first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal” and “it is now far stronger and more powerful than ever,” when all he did was initiate a review that won’t be done until the end of the year and is yet to result in any improvements.
Jobs and the Economy
- Trump stated that his administration is “spending a lot of money on the inner cities,” although we found that there has been little change in spending so far. His first budget proposed to cut or eliminate funding for programs that benefit cities.
During the campaign, Trump promised he would be “the greatest jobs President that God ever created,” and ridiculed the official unemployment rates (which were steadily declining) as “phony numbers.”
In what has been a running theme since he assumed the presidency, Trump regularly boasts that he has turned the economy around — citing the official job gains and unemployment rates in speeches and tweets.
In Trump’s telling, the economy was in shambles until he won the election, and has dramatically turned around since due to his leadership. As he put it in a speech on Dec. 14, “And you remember how bad we were doing when I first took over — there was a big difference, and we were going down. This country was going economically down.” That’s not true.
Here’s a list of some of his economic boasts that were off base:
- Trump took credit for companies moving to the U.S., claiming that they are “creating job growth the likes of which our country has not seen in a very long time.” In fact, the U.S. has been steadily adding jobs every month since early 2010, and the job gains for the first 11 months of 2017 were slightly smaller than the gains during the first 11 months of each of the four previous years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- Trump repeatedly took credit for investment and job-creation announcements that had nothing to do with him: Ford, GM, and Charter Communications, to name a few. The President, for example, said Toyota’s announcement that it would invest $1.3 billion in an assembly plant in Kentucky “would not have been made if we didn’t win the election.” That’s false. Toyota spokesman Aaron Fowles told us in an interview that the investment “predates the Trump administration” and had been planned “several years ago.”
Immigration, Crime and Terrorism
- Trump also said he is “putting the miners back to work,” citing as evidence a new coal mine in Pennsylvania that was under construction before he won the election.
Trump frequently ties immigrants to crime and terrorism without the benefit of facts.
In December, Trump lobbed the baseless charge that other countries are gaming a lottery-based immigration program known as the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. Trump said foreign countries “take their worst and they put them in the bin” so that when the lottery occurs, “we end up getting them.” That’s not how it works.
Other claims that Trump made on immigration and terrorism:
- Trump drew rebuke from the Netherlands Embassy in the United States and British Prime Minister Theresa May for retweeting an anti-Muslim video that purported to show a “Muslim migrant” beating up “a Dutch boy on crutches.” The tweet was wrong. The attacker was born and raised in the Netherlands and was not an immigrant.
- He also exaggerated when he said Sweden was “having problems like they never thought possible” as a result of accepting refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries. There was an increase in some categories of crime in Sweden since 2015, but government statistics do not corroborate the claim of a major crime wave due to immigrants.
- Trump, who regularly criticizes the media, made the nonsensical claim that “radical Islamic” terrorist attacks are “not even being reported” by the “very, very dishonest press.” The White House later said Trump was talking about terrorist attacks that have gone “underreported,” not unreported. But even that criticism was proved wrong when the White House produced a list of “underreported” terrorist attacks that contained numerous widely covered attacks between September 2014 and December 2016.
- Trump incorrectly tweeted that “122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield,” when the total at the time was really eight former detainees.
Taxes
- Trump falsely claimed that border apprehensions, an indicator of attempts to illegally enter the U.S. through Mexico, “didn’t go down” under “past administrations.” Before Trump took office, there was a 75 percent decrease in apprehensions at the Southwest border from the peak in fiscal year 2000 to fiscal year 2016.
The President made the baffling claim that under his tax overhaul proposal, “the rich will not be gaining at all with this plan.”
That was in September, when Trump had only a one-page outline for a plan. But the general details — abolish the estate tax, cut the corporate rate and abolish the alternative minimum tax — would clearly benefit the rich. And as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin acknowledged the following month, “when you’re cutting taxes across the board, it’s very hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy with tax cuts to the middle class.”
Trump continued the false theme after Republican lawmakers introduced legislation:
- The President claimed in late November that the tax plan would “cost me a fortune.” Unlike past Presidents, Trump hasn’t released his tax returns, so we can’t say exactly how he would be affected. But, again, several provisions would cut taxes for wealthy individuals like Trump. The final legislation cuts the corporate rate, increases exemptions for the AMT and estate tax, and cuts the top individual income tax rate. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found 91 percent of the top 1 percent income earners would get a tax cut in 2018, averaging nearly $62,000.
- He repeatedly and wrongly claimed the plan was “the biggest tax cut in our history.” The final GOP plan will reduce tax revenues by nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years, which still ranks it eighth or fourth place, as measured by a percentage of gross domestic product or in inflation-adjusted dollars, respectively.
- Trump said “more than 30 million” small-business owners would get a marginal tax rate reduction that, in reality, could have affected no more than about 670,000 high-income taxpayers who report business income.
Health Care
- Trump also pushed the popular myth that farm families often have to “sell the farm” in order to pay the estate tax. One expert told us he has never seen such a case in decades of studying the issue.
At a campaign-style rally in Kentucky in March, Trump falsely said that “many of our best and brightest are leaving the medical profession entirely because of Obamacare.” The number of active physicians increased 8 percent from 2010, when the Affordable Care Act became law, to 2015, the most recent data available from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
- Trump also wrongly claimed that “Obamacare covers very few people,” despite the fact that the number of Americans without health insurance had fallen by 20 million since the ACA was enacted. That’s according to the National Health Interview Survey, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
2016 Election
- Trump said, without evidence, that by allowing insurers to sell plans across state lines, “your premiums will be down 60 and 70 percent.” The White House provided no support for those figures. Experts told us they knew of no study to back up the claim, and they disputed the idea that average premiums would drop significantly.
Months after a convincing victory in the Electoral College, the new President continued to insist — without evidence — that millions of illegal votes caused him to lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.
But the “evidence” provided by the White House to substantiate claims about widespread voter fraud — from noncitizens voting, people voting in multiple states and so-called “dead people” voting — did not hold up. Nevertheless, the President formed a commission to investigate voter fraud, which has met twice. In November, one of the members of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, Matthew Dunlap, filed a complaint in district court to find out what exactly the commission is doing. He wrote: “The commission was formed in May to answer monster-under-the-bed questions about ‘voter fraud,’ but the implicit rationale for its creation appears to be to substantiate President Trump’s unfounded claims that up to 5 million people voted illegally in 2016.”
In September, Kris Kobach, vice chairman of the commission, claimed to have “proof” of voter fraud in New Hampshire that was widespread enough to have swung a U.S. Senate election in favor of the Democrats. His evidence? Several thousand people who registered to vote on Election Day with an out-of-state driver’s license had not since registered a car or gotten a driver’s license in New Hampshire. But it is likely that most of those voters were college students who are allowed by state law to vote in New Hampshire even though they only live in the state part of the year.
The President continues to relitigate an election that he won and repeat false claims from a year ago about his defeated opponent. Other election-related whoppers Trump told this year:
- A day after his inauguration, Trump claimed the crowd at the event “looked like a million-and-a-half people,” saying it “went all the way back to the Washington Monument.” He accused the news media of lying about it. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary at the time, read from a statement that said: “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.” Both were wrong.
- Trump claimed his November victory was “the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan.” It wasn’t. Three Presidents since Reagan captured a larger share of electoral votes than Trump did, including Republican George H.W. Bush.
Whoppers from the Rest
- In a blast from the campaign past, Trump repeated his claim that “Hillary Clinton gave away 20 percent of the uranium in the United States” to Russia. He’s wrong on several counts. The deal that allowed Russia to take control of a company with uranium assets in the U.S. was approved by two government bodies, not any one person. As secretary of state, Clinton was one of nine voting members of the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States that approved the deal. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which also approved the deal, told us Russia has not received any U.S. uranium as a result of the transaction. Trump’s use of the 20 percent figure is also wrong.
Beyond Trump and his team, there were certainly others in both parties who spread false and misleading information in 2017.
Consider the statements of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican whose wife is the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, and Rep. Maxine Waters, a Democrat who is perhaps the President’s fiercest critic.
In a Fox News interview, Gingrich claimed “it wasn’t the Russians” that hacked into the DNC computers, but a former DNC staffer “who, I suspect, was disgusted by the corruption of the Democratic National Committee.” He said Seth Rich “apparently was assassinated” after “having given WikiLeaks something like … 53,000 [DNC] emails and 17,000 attachments.”
This fanciful tale has no basis in fact. Gingrich repeated an inaccurate report by the local Fox News affiliate in Washington, D.C., about Rich, who was shot to death in Washington, D.C., in July 2016 in what local police have described as a likely botched robbery. Gingrich spread this widely debunked conspiracy theory even though the Fox affiliate days earlier had largely retracted its report.
For her part, Waters spread unsubstantiated rumors about Trump in an MSNBC interview. Asked about an opposition research report compiled by a former British intelligence officer on Trump’s alleged ties with Russia, Waters falsely claimed that the unsubstantiated allegations of “sex actions” made against Trump in the report are “absolutely true.” Those claims haven’t been confirmed.
Here are other notable claims made by members of both parties this year — many of them about the failed Republican attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act:
- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats “don’t get much support from Wall Street.” That’s not so. The party’s congressional candidates got nearly $47 million from bankers, stockbrokers, hedge fund officials, venture capitalists and private equity firms in the 2016 campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That was slightly more than the $44 million that Democratic congressional candidates received during the same period from labor union PACs and officials.
- Republican Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that “Obamacare is discouraging people from going to medical school.” There’s no evidence of that. In fact, the number of medical school applicants and enrollees reached an all-time high this year.
- President Barack Obama, before leaving office, boasted that a treaty he signed in 2011 with Russia “has substantially reduced our nuclear stockpiles, both Russia and the United States.” In fact, the treaty does not require either nation to destroy any nuclear weapons or reduce its nuclear stockpile. The treaty, among other things, limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 for each country, but at the time of Obama’s boast, Russia had actually increased deployed nuclear warheads under the treaty by 17 percent, from 1,537 to 1,796. As of Sept. 1, Russia reported having 1,561 deployed nuclear warheads — still 11 more than the treaty allows, although Russia has until February 2018 to comply with the 1,550 limit.
- House Speaker Paul Ryan said he didn’t think anyone would be hurt by an $800 billion reduction in Medicaid spending over 10 years in the Republican health care bill. But, at the time, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 14 million fewer Americans would have Medicaid coverage by 2026, compared with current law.
- Ryan and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders both distorted the CBO’s analysis of the Republican health care bill. Sanders claimed that the bill “would throw 22 million Americans off of health insurance,” while Ryan said no one would be thrown off insurance. “It’s not that people are getting pushed off our plan,” Ryan said. “It’s that people will choose not to buy something they don’t like or want.” Actually, CBO said the bill would reduce the number of people with health insurance by 22 million through a combination of both: Some would voluntarily choose not to buy health insurance, but others would no longer be eligible for Medicaid or would not be able to afford coverage.
- Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, wrongly claimed that “over 1.2 million Nevadans with preexisting conditions … would be denied coverage or face exorbitant, unaffordable premiums” under the GOP health care bill. The bill would not have allowed insurers to deny coverage. Also, the 1.2 million figure is a high-end estimate for all Nevadans with some preexisting condition — not just those likely to buy plans on the individual market who would be affected by the GOP bill.
- Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican who voted against the health care bill, said subsidies “are actually greater under the Republican bill than they are under the current Obamacare law.” That’s wrong. CBO said the average subsidy under the bill would be “significantly lower than the average subsidy under current law,” and the government would save $424 billion over 10 years — compared with current law — due mainly to reductions in government subsidies.
- Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for failing to disclose that he met twice as a senator with the Russian ambassador during the campaign in 2016. Sessions said he did so as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In a statement and on Twitter, McCaskill falsely claimed that in her 10 years on the Senate Armed Services Committee she had “no call from, or meeting with, the Russian ambassador. Ever.” She did.
- Hillary Clinton falsely claimed that no debate moderator ever asked Donald Trump, “exactly how are you going to create more jobs?” It was asked in two of the three Presidential debates between Clinton and Trump.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks joins Judy Woodruff to analyze the week’s news, including the priorities Republicans are putting forward in their tax overhaul bill, Democrat Doug Jones’ Senate upset in Alabama and what it means for Republicans in elections to come.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And now to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields, and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome, gentlemen.
I guess it’s now all over but the shouting, Mark. The Republicans seem to have the votes on this tax bill. What do you make of it?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Well, Judy, the legendary late conservative columnist Robert Novak was an old friend and a constant frequent debating said the Republican Party stated seriously and approvingly that the Republican Party is put on earth for one reason, that’s to cut taxes, and I think they’ve lived up to the Novak mandate today. I mean, that’s it. I mean, that’s all it’s about.
I mean, think about this — cut the effective corporate tax rate by 46 percent, to 21 percent from 35. And at the same time, 8.9 million American children who get coverage, medical coverage under the children’s health insurance plan go unfunded since September 30th because they can’t somehow, in their feverish pursuit of lowering the top tax rate from 39.6 percent down to 37 percent so Steve Schwarzman can somehow have an easier Christmas, they can’t find the money. These are working poor families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid and not enough to buy their own health insurance.
It is the caricature of the enforcement of the ugliest stereotype of the Republicans as an uncaring party passing a bill that was written by and for the richest and most powerful.
Judy Woodruff: David?
David Brooks, New York Times: I’ll dial it back a few notches when you get to my position. But, you know, I’m not against corporate tax cuts. You know, Barack Obama once proposed cutting the corporate tax rate to 28 percent. So, we got 21 percent, so seven percentage points lower. That doesn’t strike me as a great moral difference. I think cutting the corporate tax rate as Sweden and all these other countries have done is good for the economy and makes us competitive around the world. It follows an international trend of people doing this.
But to me, you’ve got to surround it with other things to help the people that Mark is talking about. And that’s what the Republicans didn’t do, cutting the marginal rates, bad idea. They didn't even simplify rates.
And so, what strikes me is how irrelevant — I went to work at the Wall Street Journal editorial page in 1986. We’ve been talking about — Republicans have been talking about tax reform ever since that last tax reform. And all these ideas have been floated around. Some of them are — reduce the number of rates, of brackets, make a flat tax.
This bill has nothing to do with any of that work. This bill has nothing to do with all the intellectual work that real economists put in who are Republican, who are conservative, who have a vision of improving incentives. What’s big about this is that the Republican Party has become detached from the Republican economic profession. And so, they pass a bill simply as donor maintenance and it’s about hurting their people and helping our people without really an underlying economic philosophy at all.
So, they took an opportunity to do something pretty good, and they have a few good morsels in there, and they ended up doing something pretty bad that will hurt the worst and without helping growth.
Judy Woodruff: Will they at least help themselves politically, Mark?
Mark Shields: No, they won’t. Judy, I mean, it starts with 45 percent support in the country, and the broadly-held perception that it is written by and for the rich, that it’s a payoff, and they are comforting themselves, Republicans, with somehow the secure knowledge that once it passes and people start to see the benefits of it, that they will feel better about it.
I would remind them of 2010, the Affordable Care Act, not in social policy but political implication, once it passed, Democrats were sure that people would feel a lot better about it. And in 2010, of course, the Democrats suffered a stinging rebuke.
The Republicans will be on the defensive about this, as well they should be. The corporations that so desperately need this, there is only $2.3 trillion in offshore money they’re sitting on right now, and there is no provision at all, no requirement that they hire a single worker, retrain a single worker, expand a plant or anything of the sort, and it’s going to go right back to the shareholders, the stockholders and buying back stock.
Judy Woodruff: So, are they taking — David, are they taking — are Republicans taking a risk by what they’ve done?
David Brooks: Yes, I think so. I mean, I take the biggest picture. The big issue facing American domestic politics is widening inequality and the collapse of the working class. And so, the Obama administration, given this big problem, decided to spend their entire administration talking about the health insurance markets, which is really related to but tangential. The Republicans have decided to lose their majority on the corporate tax rates which really has nothing to do with the central problem.
So, what’s mystifying to me is that the two last administration’ and political establishment going on 12 years now is ignoring the big problem and tackling other problems. And so, that is going to mean that the inequality and the white working class and every working class that’s collapsing, that issue which drove the Trump election is going to be worse and worse and worse, and it will have effects we can’t predict right now.
Mark Shields: Not to be prickly, but I just point out that Barack Obama confronted the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. I mean, getting out of that was the prime concern. He brought us back from the precipice. I agree with you on the expanding inequality, but it wasn’t comparable in any way of 105 sustained months of job growth and economic growth under Barack Obama that was inherited by Donald Trump and is about to be squandered in this giveaway.
David Brooks: I’ll give you that, getting over the 2008, 2007 recession was big accomplishment early in the administration, but it still remains the fact that once they got over that, they could then turned to these — the Michigans, the Pennsylvanias, the Ohios, and either done infrastructure. They could have done a bunch of things, which are always on the table and everybody says they’re in favor of, and nobody actually does because it doesn’t go — and the Republicans, the donor base. And the Democrats, they have to have a thing about health insurance.
And the insurance markets, they were right to do that. There was just a small thing they did to help people get a lot more people get insured, but it did not — what mystifies me is our inability to even frontally address the main problem of the day.
Mark Shields: You’re right, but I just point out one thing, and that is saving the United States automobile industry, Ohio and Michigan, were not minor accomplishments and they were opposed by the Republicans and the Republican standard bearer.
David Brooks: Fair point.
SUMMARY: The Deputy Attorney General defended Robert Mueller's Russia investigation on Wednesday against GOP charges that the probe is a partisan "witch hunt" against President Trump. [U.S.] House members pointed to text messages by a top FBI official about Trump as a candidate. Hari Sreenivasan talks with former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff the discuss the week’s news, including the last days of the Alabama Senate race, the resignation of Sen. Al Franken over sexual misconduct allegations, and the politics behind President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And now that leads us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome, gentlemen.
So, we just heard from Robert Costa, David, about the Alabama race. It is on everybody’s lips, as he said, not only in Alabama, but in much of Washington.
But how — what do we make of it right now? There is so much attention on these women’s accusations, but, as Robert said, it’s gotten much bigger than that down there.
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes, but what I hear is a lot of Republicans looking at the Roy Moore case and it seems to have just flipped a switch, a lot of Republicans disgusted by Trump, not liking Trump, conservatives, and then, suddenly, Roy Moore, you enter a whole new realm of depravity, to be honest.
How are people not nauseated with a guy hitting on 14-year-old girls, and then, suddenly, that guy becomes a U.S.Senator, and people are not minding this?
And so how many Republicans have I talked to who have said, I guess I’m not a Republican anymore? And these are lifelong Republicans. Evangelicals saying, hey, I’m a Christian, but I’m not an evangelical. If that is what being an evangelical is, that I don’t have to care about character, that’s not what I believe.
And so, to me, the big test of this is that, sure, if he wins, the Republicans will have one more vote for a couple of years, but they will have a generation who find the Republican Party something they can’t relate to. And they will find the pro-life movement as something that’s a movement of epic hypocrisy.
So they may get a short-term gain if he wins, but I think there will be a long-term generational setback for the Republican Party, for evangelical Christianity, for the pro-life movement, for all of the things that Donald Trump and Roy Moore purport to be for.
Judy Woodruff: Serious consequences if he wins?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Serious consequences, Judy, either way.
If you’re an Alabaman who loves your state, who cares about your state, wants your children to grow up there and come back, and your grandchildren not to move away, you’re thinking about the fact that you have already had your overtly religious governor, Republican, resign with an adulterous relationship with a woman staff member.
You have had the speaker of the House indicted, convicted on 12 counts of corruption and felony convictions. And you know that your state’s been a punching bag. It’s been a one-line joke. If it weren’t for Mississippi, Alabama would be 50th in everything.
And so you want pride in your state. You want a sense of self-respect. And Roy Moore is not going to help in any way. It’s going to reinforce that negative stereotype.
I think Robert Costa is second to none as a reporter, but I think one of the problems with the polling, which has, quite frankly, shown the race very, very close is this- If you’re a churchgoing Alabaman who is a Republican, you face economic and maybe social pressure if you admit you’re voting for Doug Jones, the Democrat.
But, at the same time, if you’re a churchgoing, serious Alabaman and you’re going to vote for Roy Moore, you face moral criticism. So, I don’t — the candor level in polling is pretty difficult.
Right now, from everything I have been able to find out, I would say that Roy Moore will lose on Tuesday.
Judy Woodruff: Really?
Mark Shields: I really do.
Now, it’s 96 hours to go. The President is going down tonight, but I think that Roy — Doug Jones will spring an upset. And I think it will be a political earthquake.
Judy Woodruff: But, meantime, in Washington, and, David, which you were just talking about, you have got the Republicans torn asunder, if you will, by what’s happened to Roy Moore.
But Democrats came together this week, and basically drummed Al Franken out of the Senate, a bunch of — led by Republican — I mean, by Democratic women senators.
David Brooks: Yes.
Judy Woodruff: So, do we now have some sort of moral separation between the two parties? How do you read this?
David Brooks: Well, it’s indisputable that the Democrats have kicked Al Franken, pushed him out of the Senate for things which are much less egregious than anything Roy Moore is accused of, or anything Donald Trump is accused of.
So, there’s that fact. I would associate myself a little bit with a column Ruth Marcus, our friend Ruth Marcus, wrote today, which said, it feels — for the Al Franken case, it should be judged on the basis of Al Franken and what Al Franken did or didn’t do.
And it feels like we don’t totally know. And it feels like he was pushed out of the Senate not just because of what Al Franken did, but because for the political opportunism of the Democratic Party to say, hey, we’re not the Republicans.
And so it felt like a lot of the pressure against Franken was not about Franken. It was just for political expedience, so we could have the contrast with Roy Moore. And whatever Al Franken did and didn’t do — and I bear, I carry no water for him — it seemed a little unfair that his case had to be so much influenced by political expediency and Roy Moore.
Judy Woodruff: Unfair, Mark?
Mark Shields: Well, we’re in uncharted waters here.
Yes, I think capital punishment is not the answer for everything from winking at an office Christmas party or to what Harvey Weinstein did.
And, by the way, Judy, I just have to digress for a second and say, if you want to see newspapering at its best, this past Thursday’s New York Times, with Megan Twohey, and Jodi Kantor, and Susan Dominus, and Jim Rutenberg, and four pages, and this is what — this is really the crime involved.
This is a consortium of applying economic, social, personal, emotional and physical pressure, and threats to anybody, a witness, a woman who wanted to confess, or anything of the sort. And so…
Judy Woodruff: This was around supporting Harvey Weinstein.
David Brooks: Yes, Harvey…
Mark Shields: It was about Harvey Weinstein. That’s right, exactly.
And everybody — it was like Donald Trump. Everybody who got near him is stained, sullied and diminished by it. But this was a terror — really, a terror organization.
This is not Al Franken. This is what Al Franken did. But there’s no question that the serial nature of it, the picture, the photographic evidence, was damning.
Judy Woodruff: Putting his hands on a woman’s chest, yes.
Mark Shields: The hands, and the fact, Judy, quite honestly, that women led the march.
I mean, it wasn’t just Kirsten Gillibrand, but the other women in the Senate. That was it.
When John Conyers fell, one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus, there was a question of double standard. There is no question that Democrats are trying to make this — draw a line between themselves.
If, in fact, Roy Moore wins or loses on Tuesday, if he wins, then he becomes the face, along with Donald Trump, of the Republican Party going into 2018, which is not good for the Republicans.
If he loses, then there’s only one person who hasn’t paid some price for this charge, and that’s Donald Trump. So, either way, Republicans are facing a very bleak Wednesday.
David Brooks: Yes.
And, you know, the Republicans, all the honorable Republicans, thought, oh, this guy Trump will win. We will give him a little. We will sort of tolerate him, but I can still go ahead and have my honorable career.
But the point I tried to make in the column today is, he — Trump always asks something more. First, he asks you to tolerate his tweets, then his sexual harassment. Now you have to tolerate Roy Moore.
The next question is going to be, oh, I’m going to fire Bob Mueller. You got to tolerate that.
And at every step along the way, the Republicans just say we’re not standing up to you, you own a little more of our soul.
And, finally, he owns all of the soul. And that’s the case whether you’re working around Harvey Weinstein or you’re working around Donald Trump. You make a deal with the devil, he takes over everything. And that’s what’s happening in the Republican Party. They don’t know where to draw the line.
SUMMARY: During the rule of Saddam Hussein, few Iranians dared to make the religious pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala in Iraq. But the toppling of Saddam has drawn millions of worshippers back, revealing Iran's powerful influence there. In the first of three reports, special correspondent Reza Sayah explores the scope of and limits on that influence, in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
SUMMARY: In 2014, when most U.S. ground forces were gone and Iraqi forces were too weak, the threat of ISIS in Iraq spawned the PMF, a government-sanctioned militia that was armed, funded and trained by Iran, America's long-time foe. In the second installment of our series “Iran Rising in Iraq,” special correspondent Reza Sayah reports in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
SUMMARY: In a 2016 offensive to take Mosul back from ISIS, the U.S. and Iran fought on the same side without ever publicly acknowledging it. The militant group defeated, both countries still have a stake in Iraq and tensions have been rising. Special correspondent Reza Sayah has the final installment of our series Iran Rising in Iraq, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including Michael Flynn’s guilty plea in connection with the Russia probe, the Senate GOP’s push for its tax reform bill, and what’s next for lawmakers including Rep. John Conyers who have been accused of sexual misconduct.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): From courthouses to Congress, it has been a week crammed full of news, the Michael Flynn guilty plea today, momentum for the Republican tax plan, and increased calls for Congressman John Conyers to resign amid charges of sexual misconduct.
All that brings us to the analysis of Shields and Gerson. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson. David Brooks is away.
Welcome to both of you.
So, Mark Shields, what a day here in Washington. The special counsel, Robert Mueller, made news early today with this guilty plea from retired General Michael Flynn, the President’s former national security adviser. What do you make of it?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Well, Judy, one former federal prosecutor said that Michael Flynn was looking at several score years, potentially, behind bars for the offenses that were listed against him.
And for Robert Mueller to accept his plea of guilty for this one charge of lying to the FBI, which is a very serious charge, led him and all of his colleagues to conclude that this is big, that what he is delivering (he, Michael Flynn) to Robert Mueller and his office is significant, so significant that they would let his son off and apparently not proceed on the charges that Carrie mentioned in the earlier segment about his not registering work with Turkey and the other charges against him.
Judy Woodruff: And, again, Michael Gerson, the White House is saying, that’s all well and good, but that’s just what Michael Flynn did and it had nothing to do with anybody in this White House.
Michael Gerson, Washington Post: It’s not a particularly credible response at this point, I think.
I mean, it did feel like an historic day. This — when the history of the Trump administration is written, I think Russia will be in the first paragraph. And the reason is exactly what Mark was talking about, is that Mueller got something in order to give a considerable amount here.
We don’t really know what it is that he got. It’s still, you know, undetermined. But he got something that he felt that he could bring to a grand jury and that would forward a case towards people who are higher.
And there aren’t too many other people who are higher. The group is small. And many of them have the Trump family connection. And so I think you can’t argue that this is just restricted to him. He was turned in order to turn against others. And I think that Mueller has a good idea of what that testimony will look like.
Judy Woodruff: And, Mark, there is, though, this drumbeat out there from people who say, wait a minute, there is just too much focus on this Russia investigation, we don’t know where it’s heading, it’s taking up a lot of time and energy, and what does it add up to?
Mark Shields: Well, I think what it adds up to, Judy, is that when — it’s been compared, Michael Flynn today, to John Dean at time of Watergate who — and Richard Nixon — he had been White House counsel.
And when John Dean came clean, it wasn’t Bob Haldeman, the Chief of Staff in the White House, or John Ehrlichman, who was Domestic Policy Adviser, the two people closest to President Nixon, they had in sight.
And I think — I don’t think there’s any question that unspoken is that the President’s in sight. And the speculation all day today in Washington is, what will President Trump do? Will he in fact, as the walls start to close in, or apparently seem to close in on him, will he fire Robert Mueller?
Lindsey Graham, in anticipation of that, the senator from South Carolina, urged him not to do it, warned him not to do it. What will the Republicans do?
Paul Ryan has praised him, the speaker of the House, recently as stronger than any President since Ronald Reagan, and realizing that flattery gets you everywhere with this President.
I don’t know. But that is, quite frankly, where it is. It’s serious, it is real, it’s genuine. And Bob Mueller is not playing games. He’s not a partisan. He was appointed by President George W. Bush at the FBI. And, you know, he’s a guy who’s way above any kind of cheap party politics.
Judy Woodruff: Michael, does it inexorably lead to the President?
Michael Gerson: Well, it leads to a very basic question, is, why has everyone that touched this issue lied, lied to the FBI, lied to the American public?
You know, if they were just having normal contacts with a normal power — with another power, that’s what transitions do. But when it came down to it — and this is advice for our viewers at home — you don’t lie to the FBI. And that is a dangerous thing, because every lie is leverage for them.
They use it in order to get more information to make progress in their investigation. And so they are attracting attention to the mystery at the center of this matter by their deceptions. And that — it seems like we’re dealing with something very major.
Mark Shields: Judy, if I could just pick up on Michael’s point, actually, which I think is a good one; what we do know is this, that after the election, during the interregnum, the transition, when Michael Flynn was out of government, but working in the transition, about to be named national security adviser, he, to really frustrate and overcome, veto American foreign policy legitimately and legally made by the sitting President of the United States, Barack Obama, to impose sanctions upon Russia for Russia’s meddling and sabotaging the American election, got in touch with Ambassador Kislyak, the former — then Ambassador to — from Russia, and urged him not to retaliate and not to overreact or whatever to these sanctions.
And we know that, the next day, Russia didn’t, and the day following that, Donald Trump praised Russia for its restraint in not retaliating.
-----
Judy Woodruff: The other big story today, Michael Gerson, is what we talked to Lisa Desjardins about, is the — speaking of inexorable, this tax plan is — it moved through the House. It was passed. It’s now about to be passed by every good reporter’s reporting, it’s going to pass the Senate tonight.
Michael Gerson: Right.
Judy Woodruff: What does this say about the Republican Party and how it wants to change this economy?
Michael Gerson: Well, there is some drama to this.
Last night, when the Joint Tax Committee report came out saying that this would add a trillion dollars to the debt, and Corker essentially said, I can’t support this thing, it looked like it might be a near-run thing.
But McConnell gave a lot of people what they wanted, like Senator Collins and others, in this process. Ultimately, there weren’t even three true deficit hawks in the entire Republican Caucus. There was one, which was Corker.
(LAUGHTER)
Michael Gerson: All this talk about deficits really was undermined.
But the ultimate calculation here that Republicans have made broadly on the Hill is that if they do end up the year with nothing, that they will be politically punished. And their argument is that something is better than nothing, even a flawed product like this one.
And I don’t know if that’s a correct argument, but that is generally believed on Capitol Hill among Republicans.
Judy Woodruff: Are they taking a risk by doing this?
Mark Shields: They’re taking a risk, Judy, that they’re losing any sense of integrity.
This is a tax bill that is written solely for the deserving rich. And it also, at the same time, manages to soak the poor. Just the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office indicates that, by 2027, by 2027, Americans earning the princely sum of between $40,000 and $50,000 will, collectively combined, pay $5.3 trillion — trillion — more in taxes. Americans earning over $1 million, by the same study, will receive $5.7 trillion in tax cuts.
I mean, the Republican Party, for the longest time — and Michael is a card — was a card-carrying member of it — believed in small government, limited government, in balanced budgets.
And then they drank the Kool-Aid of supply side. And no Republican on Capitol Hill since 1991 has voted, since George W. Bush — H.W. Bush was President, has voted to increase taxes. That is the Holy Grail. That’s the one unifying, galvanizing principle of Republicans.
It’s not civil rights, as it once in the time of Abraham Lincoln. It’s not even small government. And it’s not certainly balanced budgets. It’s tax cuts. And it’s tax cuts for those best off among us.
Judy Woodruff: But to get back to your point, and to build on what Mark just said, Michael, this says that Republicans are not — either they don’t believe the deficits are going to grow or they don’t think it’s going to be the political liability or the liability to the economy.
Michael Gerson: Yes.
And they don’t think that it’s a risk to be seen as the plutocratic party going into these elections. That may well be a risk here.
I mean, one of the examples is that Senator Rubio and Senator Lee had a very good proposal here to allow the child tax credit to be deductible against withholding, not just income taxes, which would really help blue-collar, working-class families in America.
It was deeply controversial. It’s still up in the air, what’s going to happen. But that’s not where Republicans were. They’re supposed to be now the populist party, the party of blue-collar workers.
And they were not, at least as of the moment, willing to do something like this. And that, I think, is a test that Republicans are failing. If they want to be seen as populists, in the mode that Trump wants the party to be seen, they need to act like it.
Judy Woodruff: And it looks, Mark, as if there is no question that the House is going to go along with something. There will be changes, but, in the end, there will be a tax bill.
Mark Shields: I think there will.
And I don’t think Democrats ought to skate on this, Judy, because the Democrats have let the debate become about the deficit, which means this. If the Republicans do lose the House in 2018, and if the calculations and calibrations are accurate, then, when the Democrats get back in, they are going to be beset with enormous deficits, and their responsibility is going to cut — do the cuts or raise — and raise taxes.
And let’s be very honest about this. There is — part of this is the Grover Norquist ideal, the Republican strategist, conservative strategist, and that is, you have to shrink the government. Kevin Brady, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has already said that the next move is on welfare, we have to cut welfare.
Welfare means one thing. It means three things. It means Medicaid, it means Medicare and it means disabilities, and Social Security. And the Democrats — like the Republicans on health care never had a plan, the Democrats do not have a single organizing principle that they advanced instead of. And I think that was the failure of Democratic leadership.
Judy Woodruff: But it sounds, Michael, as if Republicans are prepared to make that argument.
Michael Gerson: Yes. No, I agree with that.
They could even — there’s a possibility that the House might vote on the Senate bill and avoid conference here, which I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not, because some members of the House might not want it to happen.
Judy Woodruff: Right.
Michael Gerson: But I think that they want to move in this direction as fast as they can. And they’re going to tag the Democrats with that type of argument.
