Editorial note: Happy New Year everyone! Since we are forward looking rather than backward looking, we have switched to the presidential map in anticipation of 2020. Pieces of the site (like the 2020 Senate page) aren't quite ready yet, but we are working on them. Also, to avoid too much burnout on our part (we haven't missed a single day in years), we are going to go to a five-day posting schedule for a while, unless something really major happens requiring a weekend posting.

Warren Is In

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has formed a committee to explore whether she is interested in running for president. Actually, everyone already knows she is interested in running for president, despite promises to serve out her current term in the Senate. There are also at least three other female Democratic senators, namely Amy Klobuchar (MN), Kamala Harris (CA), and Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) who are interested in running. In view of the sure-to-be-crowded field, Warren decided it was better to be one of the first declared (or, at least, semi-declared) candidates. That means she'll spend some extra time with a big target on her back, and some extra months constrained by federal elections rules, but will get a head start on getting her pitch out there.

And speaking of her pitch, Warren paired her announcement—not coincidentally—with a four-minute video laying out her platform:

For those who don't want to watch, the video spends about a minute on Warren's bio, another minute on her record, and the rest emphasizing her commitment to racial justice, to reversing Americans' declining standard of living, to challenging Wall Street, to health care for all, and to fighting corruption. She is also, you may be surprised to learn, no fan of Donald Trump and his administration. The Washington Post has a more detailed breakdown of her platform here.

Trump is no fan of Warren, either. He sat for an interview with Fox News on Monday, and took a few shots at his potential competition. He offered the requisite slurs on her Native American ancestry and said he'd love to run against her. When asked if Warren has a chance of winning, he replied: "You'd have to ask her psychiatrist." So, it was the usual classy stuff. Of course, Trump only attacks people who he is threatened by, so his remarks effectively translate into: "She makes me very nervous about my chances." Consider that Rep. John Delaney (D-MD) has been a declared candidate for months, and Trump hasn't uttered a peep about him.

Our profile of Warren is here, for those who would care to review it. Meanwhile, the invisible primary has now become visible, just about as early as it ever has. Expect other high-profile candidates to make a move in the next several weeks, now that Warren has opened the floodgates. (Z)

Mattis Is Out

December 31 was not just the first day of Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign, it was also the last day of James Mattis' tenure as Secretary of Defense. On his way out the door, the Secretary sent a brief message to the troops that encouraged them to "keep the faith in our country," and to, "hold fast, alongside our allies, aligned against our foes." This may just have been directed at someone who does not seem to value America's allies, and does not tend to stand firm against her foes, but we're still trying to figure out what person Mattis might have had in mind.

Mattis was not the only notable departure on Monday. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley's resignation quiety took effect:

As we end 2018, I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to rep the country I love so much. Thank you Mr. President for the honor of a lifetime. Tks to all who supported us these past 2 yrs. We are all blessed to live in the best country on earth. Happy New Year! pic.twitter.com/FeFVVVf8MQ

— Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) December 31, 2018

Additionally, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White, who had been a rising star in the administration, abruptly announced her resignation, effectively immediately. She was caught up in some Scott Pruitt-style bad behavior, like using her staffers to run personal errands. And Brett McGurk, who announced his resignation the day after Mattis did, and in response to the same thing (withdrawal from Syria), also concluded his service yesterday:

Today was my last day at the State Department. I wish my former civilian and military colleagues well as they work under extremely difficult circumstances to protect the interests of our great country. It was a privilege to serve alongside them.

— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) December 31, 2018

McGurk, an Obama appointee, was responsible for coordinating with other countries on the handling of ISIS.

In an...interesting development, given the turnover in leadership, U.S. Strategic Command made a bit of a gaffe on Monday, issuing forth with this tweet:

Whether this was meant as a joke about bombing people, or a brag about bombing people, quite a few folks found it to be in poor taste, such that the tweet was eventually deleted. One can only hope that this was a hiccup, and not a sign of things to come with Mattis no longer running the show. (Z)

House Democrats Have Their Plan in Place

This was entirely foreseeable, and now it is official: As soon as House Democrats get the gavel on Thursday, they will pass measures meant to re-open the federal government. The plan is to approve six spending bills that had already passed the Senate, along with a bill that will fund the Dept. of Homeland Security through February 8, and that would include the $1.3 billion in general "border security" money that has been on the table all along.

The tactics of Pelosi & Co. are as clear as they can be. First, they are going to put Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in a bind. For the first six bills, he can either bring them up for a vote, or he can explain to everyone why they were ok three weeks ago, but aren't ok now. And for the seventh, he can either move it forward, or he can explain why he's willing to gamble with the overall security of the U.S. in hopes of getting partial funding for a wall that he does not want, and that much of his caucus does not want. What it amounts to is that McConnell can: (1) pass the buck entirely to the President, or (2) can pass the buck partly and take partial ownership of the shutdown, or (3) can take total ownership of the shutdown.

Actually, the odds are that the Senate Majority Leader will try to massage it, and will announce that he's not going to bring up the bills because he knows Trump won't sign them. If so, that may be the messiest option of all for the GOP, since it means both Trump and the Senate Republicans will get lots and lots of blame for the shutdown. McConnell is a shrewd operator from a parliamentary standpoint, but his consistent sub-35% approval rating with the voters in Kentucky suggests that he's not so great from a PR standpoint. This approach, which he's been threatening for weeks, certainly appears to be a huge PR blunder.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump could end up in an even worse position than McConnell, depending on what the Senate does. Assuming all seven bills pass the upper chamber, Trump would effectively be left with three options: (1) He can back down, and give in; (2) He can sign the six bills and not the seventh, thus making crystal clear that he's trading overall national security for nebulous border security; or (3) He can refuse to sign all seven bills, giving him total ownership of the shutdown. And if the Senate doesn't vote at all, then that's still not much better for Trump since, as noted, McConnell is likely to (implicitly) blame the President for the lack of action.

In short, given that the polling on the shutdown and the wall is already against them, the GOP is soon going to be left with a lot of bad options. Like her or not, nobody can deny that Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is a shrewd operator. (Z)

Federal Employees Sue

It happened during the last prolonged shutdown (2013), and now it's happened again: The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is suing the federal government, claiming that forcing people to work without pay is a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Since the previous lawsuit was successful, there is no reason to think this one won't be, as well. And the very fact of the suit suggests that the AFGE is expecting the shutdown to linger for a good while.

Donald Trump has claimed that federal employees support him, but the lawsuit strongly suggests otherwise. So too does the venting being done by folks who have been forced to work without pay. The Huffington Post spoke to a number of TSA employees, for example, who endured the triple-whammy of holiday travel (always extra difficult for TSA employees to handle), no pay, and missing holidays with their own families. "While Congress and Mr. Trump get to stay home, enjoy their personal time with their families, and still get paid, we have to struggle and suffer," said one. "To say morale is low is an understatement. People on both sides of the political argument are infuriated at this," commented another.

A new poll also makes clear that federal employees are broadly opposed to what's happening. Nearly 80% oppose the shutdown. Only 30% think a wall is a good idea, and among those, more than a third think that the wall is not important enough to justify closing down the government. The poll also broke things down by agency:

Note that there is no agency where a majority is pro-shutdown, and the ones where shutdown support is the highest are, not coincidentally, the ones where employees are not currently missing paychecks. In any case, the next time Trump claims federal employees are behind him, you'll know for sure he's lying, as opposed to merely strongly suspecting he's lying. (Z)

Trump's 2018 in Review: The Highs and Lows

Donald Trump, reality star that he is, manages to squeeze about 10 years' worth of headlines into each year that he's president. So much so, that it's worth pausing on the first day of 2019 just to recall how much stuff went down in 2018.

To start, The Guardian has a good piece running down the President's worst weeks this year, presented in chronological order. It's a good reminder of how often he manages to squeeze multiple disasters into a short timespan. Here's an executive summary (note that the authors only considered the regular workweek, and not the weekends):

• February 12-16: Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals, Michael Cohen admitted to paying Stormy Daniels, the New Yorker revealed Trump's affair with Playboy playmate Karen McDougal, domestic abuse claims lodged against White House staffer Rob Parker were made public, and then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's habit of traveling first class on the taxpayers' dime was first reported.
  
  
• July 16-20: Trump met with Vlad Putin in Helsinki and then told the press he believed Putin's claims of non-interference in the 2016 elections; the President spent the rest of the week being raked over the coals by people on the right and the left, most notably then-Sen. John McCain.
  
  
• August 20-24: In the span of an hour, Trump's then-fixer Michael Cohen admitted to paying Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal for their silence, and former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort was convicted on eight charges of bank and tax fraud; later in the week, the CFO of the Trump Organization (Allen Weisselberg) and the publisher of the National Enquirer (David Pecker) both traded immunity in exchange for telling the feds everything they know.
  
  
• September 3-7: Bob Woodward's book Fear came out, and a (still) anonymous "senior official" in the administration wrote an op-ed for the New York Times detailing the Trump resistance within the White House and effectively confirming the main claims of the book.
  
  
• December 10-14: Would-be Chiefs of Staff said "no, thanks!" left and right, Trump blundered through a televised meeting with Democratic leaders while a cardboard cutout of VP Mike Pence looked on, Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison, and federal authorities announced they have gotten all the information they wanted from the owners of the National Enquirer.
  
  
• December 17-21: Trump flipped and flopped on shutting the government down before eventually doing so (primarily at the prompting of Fox News); the President unexpectedly announced plans to withdraw from Syria, which led to criticism from all sides and the resignation of James Mattis; the stock market had its worst week in a decade.

That means that Trump effectively ended the year with consecutive contenders for the title of "worst week." Merry Christmas!

Now, let's look at the same basic question in a slightly different way. Here's our (necessarily subjective) list of the dozen most damaging things that happened to Trump this year. To avoid comparing apples to oranges, we will limit ourselves to events that unfolded over 48 hours or less. This list necessarily involves some amount of predicting the future, and is based on our assessment of the things most likely to affect Trump going forward:

1. October 2; Jamal Khashoggi murdered by the Saudis: This was one of many situations in 2018 that pitted Trump against his own security apparatus. Trump's unwillingness to punish the Saudis for their misdeeds made him look immoral and corrupt, and his constant flip-flopping on the situation made him look weak and indecisive.
   
   
2. January 11; Trump describes Haiti and the nations of Africa as "shitholes": Trump think's he's the "least racist person" on Earth. Many people, particularly those under the age of 50, think that while he's less racist than the average American was in the President's youth, he's still pretty racist by the standards of 2018. This incident, particularly given that Trump also wished for more immigrants from Norway (i.e., white people) did much to convince the "Trump is racist" crowd that they have the right of it.
   
   
3. May 8; Trump Withdraws from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (a.k.a., the Iran nuclear deal): This does not seem to be hurting the President much in terms of domestic politics, but there is probably nothing he did in 2018 that hurt him abroad more than this (note that he withdrew from the Paris Accord in 2017, not 2018).
   
   
4. August 21; Manafort convicted: Trump, of course, would like nothing more than to fire Robert Mueller. And none of the special counsel's many successes this year did more to justify the continuance of his investigation than the conviction of Trump's former campaign chair (note that Michael Flynn flipped in late 2017).
   
   
5. December 20; James Mattis resigns: It's hard to limit ourselves to just one resignation on the list, because there were so many high-profile ones. The resignation of White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, one of the only people Trump actually likes and trusts, was the most damaging to him on a personal level. But the resignation of Mattis was almost certainly the most damaging, politically. The general's departure means that the last of the so-called "grown-ups" has now left the administration. Further, it is sure to hurt Trump with the troops, one of his core constituencies.
   
   
6. July 16: Trump Meets with Putin in Helsinki: As with the Khashoggi situation, this put Trump at odds with his own security apparatus, and served to make him look like a weakling who kowtows to international strongmen. Despite his protestations otherwise, even the President knows it was an utter disaster. Note how he's avoided the Russian leader like the plague since July.
   
   
7. December 22; The federal government shuts down: Since we don't know yet how long the shutdown will last, it's hard to judge exactly what the impact will be. But even if it ends this week, Trump is going to be left with ownership of the mess, as everyone in the country has been given a clear reminder that he cares deeply about the needs of his base, and is indifferent to the remaining 60% of Americans. Meanwhile, the folks who lost paychecks and/or who are working without pay are not likely to forget this, come election time.
   
   
8. September 17; Trump imposes tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods: This is another story that is still being written. However, it certainly appears that Trump's trade war has helped to send the U.S. economy off the rails, with the effects weighing most heavily on the folks who voted for him, particularly in the Midwest.
   
   
9. September 12; Sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh first made public: Quite a few of these setbacks involve Trump losing support from various political factions, whether the military, or government employees, or farmers. However, it may well be that the most troubling trend in political demographics, for both Trump and the GOP, is the move of suburban women toward the Democrats. Nothing did more to help that along than Trump & Co. going all-in on Kavanaugh, given the Judge's very questionable past, and Christine Blasey Ford's very credible allegations. Expect footage of Ford to appear in a Democratic commercial or twenty in 2020.
   
   
10. April 6; "Zero Tolerance" border policy announced: Few presidents, certainly in recent memory, have allowed themselves to look as cruel and heartless as Trump did when he allowed then-AG Jeff Sessions to crack down on immigrants and asylum-seekers, including separating children from their families. Several images from that time will linger for years and years. And not only did Trump likely cost himself some voters, he also energized quite a few folks who don't always make it to the polls, but made sure to get there to pull the Democratic lever in 2018 (and will likely be back in 2020 to do the same).
    
    
11. August 24; Allen Weisselberg flips: This story has somewhat flown under the radar, because it's not sexy. But Weisselberg knows everything. And even if Trump skates on all the stuff he's done as a politician, from collusion to obstruction, Weisselberg is the reason that he's still going to be in deep doo-doo once he's out of office. Remember, Al Capone didn't go to prison for racketeering, or murder, or any of that stuff; he went for tax evasion.
    
    
12. November 6; The midterm elections: Some of the items on this list have to do with political reverses for Trump, others with his legal woes, and still others with harm to his image. The blue wave that returned the House to Democratic control combines all of the above. Regardless of his pretensions otherwise, and his focus on having successfully flipped a few Senate seats, it was a huge PR blow to Trump. And once the Democrats start using their investigative and subpoena powers, the sky is the limit in terms of what kinds of dirt they manage to dig up about Trump's political and personal dealings. Meanwhile, expect a steady stream of legislation that backs the President into a corner, starting on day one (see above). Also, if Trump manages to get special counsel Robert Mueller fired, in principle, incoming House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler could hire his entire team as part of his staff.

Note that the headline mentions Trump's highs and lows, and we've only talked about lows so far. Now, let's move on to the highs. Ideally, this list would be equal in length to the previous list, in the interest of fairness and balance. The problem is that nearly everything that Trump does is designed to please the base at the expense of everyone else. We could easily list thirty things like that, but it wouldn't be terribly instructive, since it does not particularly shed light on how his re-election situation has changed. More useful are things that have some chance of being a net positive for him, electorally. The problem is that there are relatively few of those things. So, this list is only half as long as the previous one.

1. January 30; State of the Union: The very nature of the State of the Union, with all the pomp and circumstance, makes it hard for someone to look unpresidential on that evening. Trump tried his best, spending most of the address bragging about past accomplishments, as opposed to focusing on future goals (as most other presidents do). Still, it was strong enough to be one of his best nights of the year.
   
   
2. October 5; Brett Kavanaugh confirmed: We are persuaded that Kavanaugh is going to haunt the GOP for a long time. In the short term, however, his appointment will please a lot of working-class white men and evangelical voters. So, it could possibly prove a net positive for Trump in 2020. Certainly, there is going to be a lot of bragging about the Judge during Trump rallies.
   
   
3. June 12; Trump meets with Kim Jong-Un in Singapore: The photo-ops from the summit, and the (accurate) claim that he was the first president to meet with Kim will be gold for Trump, even though relatively little came out of the meeting, and it turns out that the North Korean leader was lying through his teeth about his intentions. If you believe nothing else, believe this: He's never, ever giving up his nukes.
   
   
4. October 1; Trump announces NAFTA replacement: Trump promised to get rid of NAFTA, and after many months, his team came up with...a slightly different version of NAFTA. One that may never become law, given opposition to the new pact in three different countries. Still, Team Trump did enough here that he can claim this as a "promise made, promise kept."
   
   
5. December 13; Trump signs farm bill: This is surely the President's preeminent legislative accomplishment of the year, and may very well counteract much of the political damage done by the trade war. Assuming the government eventually reopens and the farmers can get their money, that is.
   
   
6. September 1; Unemployment hits 3.7%: Trump loves factoids like this, and this is a very, very good one for him. Of course, if the economy tanks, unemployment will rise, and this won't do him much good in 2020. But if things hold, then Team Trump should be putting "3.7%" on buttons, and signs, and banners, and everywhere else they can print it.

The first list considered Trump's personal and legal setbacks in addition to his political setbacks. This list is pretty much exclusively made up of political triumphs. That is because we struggle to see anything good that happened for Trump on the personal/legal front this year.

Anyhow, that is the rundown, as we (and others) see it. (Z)

Trump's 2018 in Review: By the Numbers

Let us now look at the year Donald Trump had in 2018 through the lens of cold, hard numbers. First, some straight-up totals:

Daily Life
• Total lies told, per WaPo fact checker: 5,656
• Average lies per day: 15.5
• Tweets: 2,843 (more on this below)
• Interviews with Fox News: 41
• Campaign rallies: 44
• Pro-Trump bestselling books: 10
• Anti-Trump bestselling books: 15
• Days spent at Trump golf resorts: 67
• Rounds of golf: Approximately 51

Staffing
• Cabinet and cabinet-Level staffers who departed or announced their departure: 10
• High-level posts that remain unfilled: 330 (46%)
• High-level posts that don't even have a nominee: 126 (18%)
• Judges confirmed: 77

Mueller Investigation
• People charged by Robert Mueller: 36
• Trump associates who were convicted, pled guilty, or turned state's evidence: 10
• Approximate cost so far: $25 million
• Cost claimed by Trump in a tweet on Nov. 29: $40 million

Politics
• Bills signed into law: 241
• Bills signed into law in Barack Obama's second year: 258
• Bills signed into law in George W. Bush's second year: 269
• Bills signed into law in Bill Clinton's second year: 255
• Bills signed into law in George H. W. Bush's second year: 410
• Bills signed into law in Ronald Reagan's second year: 328
• Number of candidates endorsed by Trump during this election cycle: 90
• Number of candidates endorsed by Trump during this election cycle who won: 50 (55%)
• Number of new jobs added: 2.28 million
• Number of those jobs that are in coal mining: 1,100 (.04%)

And now, some comparative numbers:

Measurement	January 1, 2018	January 1, 2019
Unemployment	4.1%	3.7%
Dow Jones Industrial Average	24,809.35	23,327.46
S&P 500	2,683.73	2,506.85
NASDAQ	6,937.65	6,635.28
Russell 2000 Index	1,536.12	1,348.56
U.S. Trade Deficit	$52 billion	$76 billion
National Debt	$20.5 trillion	$21.9 trillion
Trump Approval, Rasmussen Reports	44%	47%
Trump Approval, Gallup	40%	39%
Trump Approval, YouGov	38%	42%
Trump Approval, Quinnipiac	36%	39%
Trump Approval, Fox News	45%	46%

While there are definitely some bright spots, on the whole it's not too pretty a picture, although Trump doesn't seem to be paying a political price for it. His base is with him no matter what. (Z)

Trump's 2018 in Review: Twitter

And finally, given that Trump is the Twitter president, we would feel remiss if we did not take a look at his utilization of the social media platform this year. First, some more numbers for your perusal:

Overview
• Total number of tweets in 2018: 2,843 (2,227 in 2017)
• Tweets that attacked someone or something: 1,162
• Tweets per day: 7.8
• Most "productive" day: August 29, with 22 tweets
• Number of days with zero tweets: 16
• Total number of times a Trump tweet was viewed (a.k.a. 'impressions'): 178,229,924,923

Subject Matter
• Most common subject of presidential tweets: The economy (360, mostly early in the year)
• Second most common subject of presidential tweets: The wall (336, mostly late in the year)
• Third most common subject of presidential tweets: Russia investigation (310)
• Fourth most common subject of presidential tweets: Fake news (225)
• Ten most common words in presidential tweets, in order (besides function words like 'the' and 'is'): great, people, president, Trump, country, big, Democrats, thank, news, border
• Ten most common hashtags in presidential tweets, in order: #maga, #florence, #magarally, #hurricaneflorence, #hurricanemichael, #jobsnotmobs, #unga, #michael, #scotus, #florencenc

Mentions
• Number of mentions of Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama: 200
• Number of mentions of Fox News: 129
• Number of positive tweets about Kim Jong-Un: 75
• Number of positive tweets about Republicans who are not Donald Trump: Less than 50
• Number of positive tweets about Democrats: Less than 10

And here are his five most popular tweets of the year, from fifth to first place, based on number of likes:

Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him. His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting. Democrats’ search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist. The Senate must vote!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2018

To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2018

Had a very good conversation with the newly elected President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who won his race by a substantial margin. We agreed that Brazil and the United States will work closely together on Trade, Military and everything else! Excellent call, wished him congrats!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2018

Thank you Kanye, very cool! https://t.co/vRIC87M21X

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 25, 2018

Merry Christmas!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 25, 2018

It certainly gives a picture of what Trump and his base care most about. As you can see, 300,000 likes is very good for the President, and 500,000 likes is "tweet of the year" territory. Hopefully nobody will tell him that Barack Obama's most popular tweet of the year tripled that (and then some):

Young people have helped lead all our great movements. How inspiring to see it again in so many smart, fearless students standing up for their right to be safe; marching and organizing to remake the world as it should be. We've been waiting for you. And we've got your backs.

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 22, 2018

Or, if you prefer to compare apples to apples, here's Obama's Christmas tweet from this year, which did close to double the business of Trump's

Enjoy the holiday season with the ones you love. Michelle and I wish you a very Merry Christmas! pic.twitter.com/LKLqlYfFUw

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 25, 2018

And finally, here's a chart of Trump's overall Twitter usage:

When John Kelly was hired as chief of staff in July 2017, one of his main goals was to rein the tweeting in. And it would seem he had some success, for a while. But now that Trump is unfettered, and is going to choose only yes-men as staff from here on out, well...you can see where the trendline is headed.

And now you have a pretty good overview of the kind of year the President had in 2018. Buckle up, because the third season of this reality show figures to be even wilder. (Z)

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