All Kinds of Trouble for Trump

As president, Donald Trump has had a lot of bad weeks. So much so that "this is the worst week Trump has had" pieces have become a bit cliché, and most pundits just write "this was definitely one of the bad ones" pieces instead. Anyhow, the week that just ended was definitely way up there (or, depending on your viewpoint, way down there), and the various headaches that presented themselves this week continued to grow more acute for the President on Friday.

To start, the New York Times reported on Thursday that First-Son-in-Law did not qualify for a security clearance, and that Trump ordered that he be given one anyhow. It's not clear what the issue is, exactly, though it likely has something to do with Kushner's financial ties to other countries (particularly Saudi Arabia), which could leave him vulnerable to extortion. In any case, with the President putting his foot down, Kushner got his clearance, though it did not sit well with then-Chief of Staff John Kelly, or with the pooh-bahs at the State Department.

Not surprisingly, now that the cat's out of the bag, Congressional Democrats are very interested in taking a look at the situation. And so, House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Elijah Cummings (D-MD) has demanded information about the process, which may or may not have been legal. Not helping the President is that the two key players in getting the clearance, Kelly and former White House counsel Don McGahn, have both soured on Trump and—as they no longer work for him—will likely be happy to share whatever they know with all 21 House committees if requested to do so.

That was not the only grumbling coming from the direction of Congress on Friday, either. It would seem that at least some members of the blue team are keeping abreast of Sean Hannity's program, and that they were very interested in what he had to say the night of Michael Cohen's appearance before the Oversight Committee. In fact, they think that Hannity's remarks about the advice he gave to Cohen (who was, after all, Hannity's lawyer, too), suggest that the Fox News host has material information relevant to Congress' investigations. So, one or more committees will likely send Hannity a nice subpoena.

And if that's not enough, NBC news reported on Friday that House Democrats' expected request for Donald Trump's tax returns is imminent.

Of course, the folks in Congress aren't the only ones investigating the President. There's special counsel Robert Mueller, as well, and then there's the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). We already knew they were looking into certain Trump-related issues (i.e., Stormy Daniels), but Michael Cohen clued everyone in on Wednesday to the existence of another, as yet unknown investigation that is also underway. The SDNY is famously tenacious and incapable of being cowed; they have been described as the "Navy SEALS of prosecutors."

There was no specific news on the SDNY front Friday, as those folks know how to keep a secret. However, there were all sorts of warnings about how much Trump should be worried, coming from people in the know. For example, before Chris Christie was governor of New Jersey, he was a U.S. Attorney who often worked closely with SDNY (he was part of the District of New Jersey). On Friday, he opined that the investigation coming out of Manhattan is a vastly bigger threat to the President than Robert Mueller, as SDNY's mandate has no limits, and they are free to investigate whatever they think needs to be investigated. Meanwhile, David Kelley, who used to run SDNY, had a talk with MSNBC. He said that, DoJ policy or not, SDNY is absolutely empowered to indict a sitting president.

Meanwhile, as you may have heard, Trump was in business before he got into politics. And when he was elected, he chose not to divest himself of his business interests. That decision may come back to haunt him, in more than one way. And on Friday, a new dimension to that problem was reported by Vanity Fair. It would seem that the President has a rather sizable loan coming due, to the tune of $340 million. The note is held by his bank of choice (well, the only non-Russian bank that will lend to him), namely Deutsche Bank. And the folks at Deutsche Bank suspect that Trump doesn't have the cash to pay up.

This creates something of a dilemma for the bank's management. If they go after the money, say via a lawsuit, Trump could use the powers of the presidency to punish them (there are all manner of things he could do, especially since they are already in some legal hot water, so Deutsche Bank executives are terrified of the possibilities). On the other hand, if they forgive the loan, or they change the terms to make it cheaper and easier to pay off, that could be interpreted as a violation of the emoluments clause, especially since Deutsche Bank (as you might have gathered from its name) is not American. Of course, maybe the matter will escape Congress' attention. Or, maybe not, since House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) announced on Friday that she plans to look into it.

And finally, there is the realm of foreign affairs, where Trump was hoping to score a great triumph this week, and instead he ended up leaving Kim Jong-Un's party in Hanoi early. On one hand, the President is to be commended for walking away and not making a deal at any cost (as his staff feared he would do). On the other hand, it is he who created the situation, by operating under the belief that negotiating with a rogue state over their nuclear arms is no different than negotiating a long-term lease with a corporate client.

In any event, whether he is to be commended or castigated, the President definitely made the situation worse by excusing Kim for any involvement in the death of Otto Warmbier. This did not go over well with Warmbier's parents, who held a tearful press conference on Friday to express their unhappiness. Being somewhat diplomatic, in the sense that they did not use Trump's name, they said:

We have been respectful during this summit process. Now we must speak out. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuses or lavish praise can change that. Thank you

Trump took to Twitter to defend himself, claiming that he had been misinterpreted:

I never like being misinterpreted, but especially when it comes to Otto Warmbier and his great family. Remember, I got Otto out along with three others. The previous Administration did nothing, and he was taken on their watch. Of course I hold North Korea responsible....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 1, 2019

....for Otto’s mistreatment and death. Most important, Otto Warmbier will not have died in vain. Otto and his family have become a tremendous symbol of strong passion and strength, which will last for many years into the future. I love Otto and think of him often!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 1, 2019

In among the President's praise for himself, there is nothing that appears to make clear what part of, "Kim says he didn't do it, and I believe him" was misinterpreted.

Of course, relative to all the Congressional investigations, and the SDNY, and Deutsche Bank's $340 million, a few poorly chosen words about Otto Warmbier may prove to be small potatoes. On the other hand, for a fellow where few scandals really stick to him, he was haunted for many months by his remarks about another dead American, namely Captain Humayun Khan. So, this may linger. But don't bet the farm on it.

In any event, a very poor week for Trump, overall. Presumably, next week will be better. It pretty much has to be. (Z)

Washington Governor Is In(Slee)

Given the extent to which Donald Trump's troubles were certain to dominate Friday's (and the weekend's) news cycle, it seems an odd time to announce a presidential bid, particularly for a candidate with little national name recognition who can really use all the publicity he can get. Maybe Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) knows something we don't, however, because Friday is the day he picked to throw his (hard) hat into the 2020 presidential ring.

We noted in our profile of him (which you can read here) that he would undoubtedly build his campaign, if he launched one, around global warming. And so he has; in his video announcement on Friday, Inslee declared, "I'm Jay Inslee and I'm running for president because I am the only candidate who will make defeating climate change our nation's number one priority." Here it is, if you care to watch for yourself (it's barely more than a minute):

We have observed, many times, that global warming is going to be a central element of the Democrats' 2020 platform. Can a basically unknown candidate ride that issue to the promised land? We're going to find out. (Z)

Saturday Q&A

An exceedingly rare Saturday edition of this feature; primarily a product of the surfeit of news over the past two days.

I'm really curious about your take on this piece. L.K., Los Angeles

For those who don't have a New York Times subscription, or who don't care to click through, it's an article by White House correspondent Annie Karni about former Bill Clinton advisor and pollster Mark Penn, who has been very critical of the Democratic Party in recent years, has criticized Robert Mueller's investigation as a "partisan, open-ended inquisition," and who took a meeting with Donald Trump this week. Penn says the meeting was no big deal, others think he might be about to take over Trump's polling operation.

In any event, Mark Penn's "conversion" from Clinton insider to Trump lover is a non-story, in our view. Whenever a prominent Democrat moves away from the Party—particularly, for some reason, if that person was a Clinton intimate—it is somehow seen as a deeply meaningful comment on the state of the Democrats. But Mark Penn is just one guy, people change, and it's been a while since the Clinton years. His "apostasy," such as it is, is no more meaningful than that of Dick Morris (another former Clinton insider turned right-wing firebrand), or Steve Schmidt (former McCain campaign manager who is now a Democrat). Actually, Penn's embrace of Trump is probably even less meaningful than most, since Penn has made a fair bit of money consulting for Team Trump.

To us, the part of this story that deserves the most attention is actually this (partial) sentence:

As Democrats have moved to the left, Mr. Penn, with his centrist politics, has become alienated from a party in which he once reigned as a winning pollster...

The notion that the Democratic Party has moved so far left that centrists like Penn have no option but to become Republicans has become so widely accepted that Karni, who is generally a pretty solid reporter, repeats it uncritically. Penn, who claims he is no longer in politics, and yet cranks out political op-eds by the bushel, has hammered on this theme many times, like this Times piece headlined "Back to the center, Democrats," or this one for Fox headlined, "Socialism is a rising danger in Democratic Party." Other prominent folks, like James Comey, have also repeated this claim.

Now, here is what is true about this particular notion: The Democratic Party has indeed moved leftward in recent years. But what is deeply problematic is the sometimes implied, sometimes overtly declared notion that the GOP has held steady during that time. In fact, the GOP's rightward movement has been far sharper than the Democrats' leftward movement.

Naturally, we would not make such a statement without evidence. And fortunately, there is a well-established measure for this sort of thing, called DW-NOMINATE (Dynamic Weighted NOMINAl Three-step Estimation). It was developed at the University of Georgia, but now the data set is hosted and maintained by the political science department at UCLA. Anyhow, DW-N scores (for short) are calculated on both an individual level and a caucus level; the score indicates how far away the person/caucus is from the political center. A positive score means right of center, a negative score means left of center.

With that explanation out of the way, here is the first of three tables we've put together. It shows the DW-N score of the House Democratic Caucus (HD), the Senate Democratic Caucus (SD), the House Republican Caucus (HR), and the Senate Republican Caucus (SR) for each Congress back to the 1960s. Note that DW-N scores are actually calculated as decimal fractions of 1 (i.e., .0397); we have multiplied them times 1,000 because they are more readable that way:

Congress	HD	SD	HR	SR	Congress	HD	SD	HR	SR
87th (1961-63)	71.5	54.7	20.6	-59.1	102nd (1991-93)	-117.2	-96.8	57.5	6.3
88th (1963-65)	45.9	24.9	20.1	-75.6	103rd (1993-95)	-132.1	-111.2	94.1	34.5
89th (1965-67)	3.0	19.0	18.2	-54.3	104th (1995-97)	-150.4	-146.2	139.2	58.7
90th (1967-69)	11.1	21.3	25.2	-86.9	105th (1997-99)	-169.6	-181.2	163.7	96.6
91st (1969-71)	-10.3	28.5	38.7	-97.7	106th (1999-2001)	-164.5	-179.8	173.5	71.2
92nd (1971-73)	-7.9	34.5	38.8	-112.8	107th (2001-03)	-168.8	-168.1	190.2	85.2
93rd (1973-75)	-43.5	-15.0	55.5	-59.4	108th (2003-05)	-164.6	-166.3	202.8	84.9
94th (1975-77)	-86.7	-25.1	44.9	-53.7	109th (2005-07)	-178.4	-203.0	210.1	106.4
95th (1977-79)	-93.5	-13.1	44.2	-68.3	110th (2007-09)	-161.2	-189.4	232.9	124.9
96th (1979-81)	-95.8	-25.5	57.9	-59.2	111th (2009-11)	-154.3	-188.4	242.4	141.9
97th (1981-83)	-103.9	-19.6	53.7	-3.6	112th (2011-13)	-213.2	-182.0	250.1	178.8
98th (1983-85)	-115.4	-27.6	59.2	1.7	113th (2013-15)	-227.3	-199.7	263.4	214.0
99th (1985-87)	-113.8	-45.5	60.5	14.4	114th (2015-17)	-236.0	-226.8	261.9	211.9
100th (1987-89)	-112.4	-47.3	50.9	-10.5	115th (2017-19)	-223.3	-218.5	267.8	230.3
101st (1989-91)	-116.2	-85.3	45.6	10.3	116th (2019-)	-195.5	-234.5	300.4	259.2

From this first data set, let us make a few observations:

• There was a period, back in the 1960s, when Congressional Democrats were actually further right than Congressional Republicans, and that the Senate Republican caucus, in particular, was positively pinko (like 1971-73). That's a byproduct of all the Southern Democrats of that era, along with the Northeastern progressive Republicans (a.k.a. "Rockefeller Republicans")
  
  
• As late as the 1990s, both parties' caucuses in both chambers hewed pretty close to the political center, on the whole.
  
  
• The single biggest change, on a Congress-by-Congress basis, came in the House caucuses between the 103rd and 104th Congresses. That was the "Contract for America" year, when a bunch of centrist Democrats lost their seats to Gingrich Republicans, and most of the remaining Southern Democrats flipped to the GOP. These changes in membership meant that the House Democratic caucus became much more lefty in that year, while the House Republican caucus became much more righty.
  
  
• Both chambers, and both caucuses within each chamber, are distinctly more partisan than they were 50, 40, 30, 20, or even 10 years ago.

Now, here's the second data set. This lists the 10 most extreme caucuses in each chamber since the 1960s:

House Caucus	DW-N Score	Senate Caucus	DW-N Score
Republicans, 116th Congress	300.4	Republicans, 116th Congress	259.2
Republicans, 115th Congress	267.8	Democrats, 116th Congress	-234.5
Republicans, 113th Congress	263.4	Republicans, 115th Congress	230.3
Republicans, 114th Congress	261.9	Democrats, 114th Congress	-226.8
Republicans, 112th Congress	250.1	Democrats, 115th Congress	-218.5
Republicans, 111th Congress	242.4	Republicans, 113th Congress	214.0
Democrats, 114th Congress	-236.0	Republicans, 114th Congress	211.9
Republicans, 110th Congress	232.9	Democrats, 109th Congress	-203.0
Democrats, 113th Congress	-227.3	Democrats, 113th Congress	-199.7
Republicans, 115th Congress	223.3	Democrats, 110th Congress	-189.4

Again, a few observations:

• The drift toward greater extremism, on both sides, is evident. There isn't a single entry here that predates the Obama administration.
  
  
• The five highest scores on the list all belong to Republican caucuses, four in the House, and one in the Senate.
  
  
• And indeed, the House is really the big story here. While the Senate side of the table is pretty evenly divided between parties (i.e., six Democratic caucuses, four Republican), and the distance from center is pretty even between the two sides (i.e., Senate Democrats are about as far left as Senate Republicans are right), the House Republican Congress has veered especially sharply away from the center. In fact, the DW-N numbers they are putting up have only one real analogue in U.S. history: Southern Democrats in the Senate, right before the Civil War.

Of course, partisanship doesn't just emanate from Congress. The individual in the Oval Office plays a big role, too. So, here's our third data set, which lists the presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt by DW-N score, from most extreme to least:

President	DW-N Score
George W. Bush	72.3
Ronald Reagan	70.3
George H. W. Bush	58.0
Richard M. Nixon	56.3
Jimmy Carter	-53.9
Gerard R. Ford	53.8
John F. Kennedy	-49.5
Bill Clinton	-48.2
Barack Obama	-39.9
Harry S. Truman	-37.0
Franklin D. Roosevelt	-36.5
Lyndon B. Johnson	-33.5
Dwight D. Eisenhower	30.2

Undoubtedly, you're wondering where Donald Trump is. DW-N scores require a president to sign a certain number of substantive bills (i.e., not bills that rename post offices), and Trump has signed so few substantive pieces of legislation relative to his predecessors, both Democratic and Republican, that his score cannot be calculated yet.

Anyhow, one more set of observations:

• Here, the story is even more stark. Only one Democrat makes the top five, and that is by a fraction of a point.
  
  
• Once again, we see a sharp veer rightward in recent years, with the three most recent Republicans (besides Trump) also being the most extreme presidents since the 1930s (and, in fact, Bush and Reagan are the two most extreme presidents of any party in U.S. history). Once Trump's score can be calculated, it is unlikely that he bucks that trend.
  
  
• On the other hand, the leftward veer we see in Congress, particularly the House, does not have a corollary among Democratic Presidents. The most liberal Democratic presidents served long before the modern era of Congressional polarization.
  
  
• The notion that Bill Clinton was unusually centrist is not borne out by the data.
  
  
• The notion that Barack Obama was unusually leftist is not borne out by the data, either. In fact, the centrist Penn should theoretically have liked Obama more than he liked Clinton, but he did not.

To conclude, then, it is absolutely true that the Democratic Party of 2019 is further left than the Democratic Party of 2009 or 1999 or 1989. But their shift leftward has been nowhere near as dramatic as the GOP's shift rightward in the House and in the Oval Office. That thoughtful people like James Comey and Annie Karni reflexively believe otherwise is likely the product of a sustained propaganda campaign from right-wing media, which has endeavored to convince Americans that the modern Democratic Party is about four degrees to the left of Joseph Stalin. As to Mark Penn, there could be any number of reasons why he thinks what he thinks, and says what he says. He's entitled to his opinions, of course, but that doesn't make them right.

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Given his disdain for books (or, it could be argued, any knowledge) is it possible Donald Trump will skip creating a presidential library? I'm well aware that he would love any monument to honor him, so are there any rules as to what can be set up? Or can any group raise money to create a presidential monument? I'm assuming the "tradition" of libraries is fairly recent, and that they are supposed to house the presidents personal papers etc? Perhaps he'll go for a presidential backup server to store his tweets? A.B., Aberdeen, Scotland

Let's start with the more broad/historical parts of your question first. Presidential libraries are indeed a (somewhat) new phenomenon. The first was FDR's and every president who was alive when his was built, or who was born thereafter, has gotten one (that covers the span from Herbert Hoover to Barack Obama). In addition, about a dozen presidents have retroactively had libraries opened in their names, though the list is at least a little wonky (Rutherford Hayes has one, but Andrew Jackson does not), and the pre-Hoover libraries are not run by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

Customarily, the ex-president raises funds for his library, decides on a site, and aids in the design. Then, at some point, it is gifted to NARA. Sometimes the government pitches in some money before they take possession, sometimes they don't. The library is indeed meant to hold the papers of the president in question; for many years those were regarded as the president's personal possession, but now they are by law the property of the United States government.

As to Trump, one of the very interesting parts of his post-presidency will be seeing what happens in terms of the normal behavior of a past president. Will he avoid cashing in on the presidency, or will he sell Trump-branded presidential steaks and vodka? Will he attend the funeral of, say, Jimmy Carter? Will he refrain from commenting on his successor, or will he be on Twitter daily excoriating her?

The existence of a presidential library, or lack thereof, will be one of the first and most interesting questions in terms of ex-presidential norms. If Trump and his supporters want to raise the money to build a 200-foot-tall Colossus of Donald, there's nothing stopping them, though NARA probably won't want it. But odds are he will want a library, even if it's just to hold hard drives full of tweets (and, in fairness, Obama's library is going to be mostly digital). But where will that library be? It has to be somewhere that it's wanted, where it would be protected from vandalism, and that would be acceptable to NARA (so, no golf courses). Some presidential libraries, including both of the Bushes' libraries, are located on college campuses. So, our best guess is that a conservative college, one that would like to increase its national profile, volunteers to host. Perhaps Liberty University, or Bob Jones University. Of course, that would leave us with the irony that an evangelical college's most prominent monument would be to a man who is not exactly known for living Biblically.

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As I understand it, Hillary Clinton has been called America's most admired woman for more than 20 years, including in 2017. Yet, you said she is"disliked by a sizable portion of the party's voters." I don't understand this apparent contradiction. Can you please explain how/when/why she made that transition? Was it caused by misinformation? G.T., Oklahoma City, OK

We are going to start this with something that seems like a non sequitur, namely the famous (and now deceased) sportscaster Howard Cosell. In 1978, TV Guide did two polls, asking respondents to name their favorite sportscaster and their least favorite sportscaster. Cosell won both polls.

The point is that people who inspire strong opinions, as Hillary Clinton does (and as Howard Cosell did), tend to inspire them in both directions. In terms of winning that poll, part of it is that she is legitimately an admirable person in terms of her very successful career, her intellectual heft, and her commitment to making the world a better place. However, she was also aided by the fact that it only takes about 15% of the vote to win first place, and that name recognition is a big part of the game (as indicated by the fact that Barbara Bush won immediately before Clinton began her streak, and it was Michelle Obama who eventually unseated her). Meanwhile, there are some definite black marks on Clinton's record, and some aspects of her personality that turn some people off. But that dislike was also aided by a decades-long campaign waged by her enemies in Washington and the media, designed to persuade Americans that you can't spell "Daughter of Mephistopheles" without H-I-L-L-A-R-Y.

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I was reading about the latest gun control bill the House just passed, and most reporting indicated that the Senate doesn't seem like it will take up the bill for a vote at all. However, the House resolution about President Trump's emergency declaration has to be voted on within 18 days. Why are some bills a required vote but not others? N.W., Atlanta, GA

The rules and regulations of Congress recognize four different kinds of legislation that may come up for consideration: bills, simple resolutions, joint resolutions, and concurrent resolutions. And then, among the resolutions, there are different levels of significance, of which the highest is "privileged."

The gun control measure is just a bill, which means it basically has the lowest priority of any legislation, and can be tabled by the leader of either chamber. The legislation that would kill the national emergency, by contrast, is a joint resolution, and is privileged. This gives it the highest status available, and means that it supersedes all regular business. Technically, that could mean that the Senate has to take the matter up before they do anything else, but they are granted 18 days to allow for the possibility that they may be out of session (the two chambers follow slightly different calendars) or that they might want to discuss and debate the measure.

You might ask: Why doesn't Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) make everything a privileged resolution? The answer is that "privileged" status is granted by statute. Some things are always privileged, like reports from the Committee on Rules and the Committee on Appropriations, or committee funding resolutions. Other things are granted privileged status by a specific statute. And the bill that codified the national emergency authority, namely the National Emergencies Act of 1976, did exactly that for emergency-ending resolutions.

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I've been wondering if executive privilege outlasts an executive. Specifically: if a member of the administration, or the President, were to claim executive privilege, or more informally just assert that "conversations with the President are confidential," could a future President revoke that status? In other words, could the next President declare "no such privilege exists anymore in this instance" and thus subject the individuals to subpoena and possible contempt charges for non-compliance? D.M., Deerfield Beach, FL

Executive privilege, in brief, is the argument that certain communications must be confidential so that the folks in the White House can do their jobs properly.

The implication of this is that privilege is entirely the prerogative of the sitting administration, and they alone, since they are the ones doing the job. So, if Donald Trump says that Brett Kavanaugh's memos from his time in the Bush White House must remain privileged (which is exactly what he did say), then he gets to make that call (subject to court review). If Bush says it, from his retirement ranch in Texas, it matters not one whit. Put more simply, a president's decisions about privilege do not survive his presidency unless his successors concur.

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In all the talk about the NC-09 election, it seems to me the most important question, as far as the future of our country is concerned, is not being talked about. Namely, is someone likely to go to jail for this, and for how long? Any thoughts on this? R.C., Louisville, CO

You're right that if people can engage in this sort of fraud with no fear of consequences, it makes such behavior much more likely. The good news in NC-09 is that McCrae Dowless, who ran the whole scam, has been indicted: three felony charges of obstruction of justice, two charges of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice, and two charges of possession of absentee ballots. He is almost certainly looking at prison time. The DA that charged him hasn't announced how much prison time is on the table, but as someone who already has a criminal record, Dowless could be in for a long stint in the joint.

Meanwhile, your question also brings up an issue that is being discussed in relation to Donald Trump. The argument that some are making is that because Richard Nixon never suffered any punishment for his misdeeds (short of having to resign), it has opened the doors for other presidents (e.g. Trump) to feel they can violate the law with impunity. The upshot is that even if Trump tries to trade the presidency for a get out of jail card, should it come to that, it may be that the deal is not available (because Mike Pence understands that Jerry Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon cost him the 1976 election), and that the powers that be (SDNY? See above, or NY AG Letitia James) conclude that it's important to make a statement that even the President is not above the law. Of course, this is all very speculative at this point.

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