With Butthead In The White House, EVERYTHING Is Connected

On KABC this morning, Ann Coulter addressed the massive morning drive audience about her former hero, Donald Trump, urging them to "Forget the fact that he's digging his own grave. The only national emergency is that our president is an idiot." We don't all agree why, but I think that a good 70% of the country would agree. So much has happened since she wrote In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! in 2016. Earlier this morning someone asked Trump how much influence she's had over his policy decisions. "Ann Coulter," he babbled, "I don’t know her. I hardly know her. I haven’t spoken to her in way over a year. But the press loves saying, 'Ann Coulter.' Probably if I did speak to her, she’d be very nice. I just don’t have the time to speak to her. I would speak to her. I have nothing against her. In fact, I like her for one reason. When they asked her right at the beginning, 'Who’s going to win the election?' she said, 'Donald Trump.' And the two people that asked her that question smiled. They said, 'You’re kidding, aren’t you?' Nope. Donald Trump. So I like her. But she’s off the reservation. But anybody that knows her understands that. But I haven’t spoken to her. I don’t follow her. I don’t talk to her."

Defeating Trump is the most important priority for the majority of American voters for 2020. But it shouldn't be the only priority. Replacing him with some status quo ante corporatist like Biden or Bloomberg or Gillibrand will simply predict what no one thinks is possible: another Trump down the road. Let's opt for a great president instead of just someone who can beat Trump. They can probably all beat Trump. Think about what will happen after they beat Trump. In the famous words of Chris Hayes: "Who will they fight for? What will they fight for? Who can be trusted to do what they say?" I'd happily vote for Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley or Marianne Williamson. Yesterday Bernie sent a note to his supporters that reminded me why he's on the top of my list.

Let me be very clear. We cannot allow this country to become an oligarchy in which a handful of billionaires control our economic and political life.

At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when the three richest people own more wealth than the bottom half of the country and when 46% of all new income goes to the top 1%, we need a progressive tax system which demands that the very wealthy and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes.

That is what I want, and that is what poll after poll shows the American people want.

We will no longer tolerate huge tax breaks for the one percent while children in this country go hungry.

We will no longer tolerate massive tax loopholes which allow profitable corporations to stash billions in profits in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens, while veterans sleep out on the street.

We will no longer tolerate a disastrous trade policy which allows major corporations to shut down here, send our jobs overseas and then line up for lucrative government contracts.

We will no longer tolerate CEOs of major corporations earning 350 times what their average employee makes.

The insatiable greed of the billionaire class must end. They cannot get it all.

We need an economy and tax system that benefits all of us, not just the few, and we can do that by creating a fair and progressive tax system that demands that wealthy individuals and profitable corporations begin paying their fair share of taxes.

There is a lot of debate in Congress on this issue, but among the people we represent, there is none. Democrats, Republicans and Independents, people of all backgrounds and from all communities believe that it is time for the wealthiest Americans to start paying their fair share.

...Instead of repealing the estate tax and giving a massive tax cut to the richest two-tenths of one percent, as Trump wants, we must substantially increase this tax on multi-millionaires and billionaires to reduce wealth inequality and preserve democracy in America.

Instead of companies like Amazon, that made $16.8 billion in profits over the past two years but have paid ZERO in federal income taxes-- and in fact received a $269 million tax refund-- it’s time to demand corporations pay their fair share in taxes so we can rebuild the disappearing middle class.

Instead of encouraging and rewarding Wall Street speculators who gamble trillions of dollars of others people’s money, it’s time for Congress to pass a financial speculation tax and use the money to ensure kids who study hard and do well in school can go to college, regardless of the income of their family.

Instead of giving $1 trillion in tax breaks to some of the richest people and corporations in the history of the world, Congress should be raising the minimum wage to a living wage for working people, $15 an hour, and nothing less.

Today in America, we have a rigged economy that is held in place by a corrupt campaign finance system-- one that amounts to legalized bribery.

But the good news is that the American people are with us on all of these issues, and have been for some time. They know that at a time of massive wealth and income inequality, the very rich must pay their fair share of taxes.

And much like we have moved the needle on issues like Medicare for All, college for all, jobs for all, and fighting climate change, we can do the same on this issue as well.

Bernie concluded by asking if people agree that instead of cutting taxes for corporations and some of the richest people in the history of the the world, it’s time for a progressive tax system that benefits all of us, not just those at the top. Maybe he slanted the results by adding "The greed of the billionaire class has got to end. And if Congress won’t do it, then we must."

Yeah, what we must do is present Congress with apathy to follow. Since we first published the list of co-sponsors of Pramila Jayapal's Medicare-For-All act the first week of February tons of more members have rushed to sign on as co-sponsors. No doubt many of them are true believers, like Hank Johnson (D-GA) and Katie Porter (D-CA), but pressure from their constituents may have had more than a little to do with some of the New Dems like Ed Perlmutter(CO) and Katie Hill (CA), as well as Blue Dog Vicente Gonzalez (TX). There's been at least a new co-sponsor per day, every day including weekends!

Timothy Faust did a definitive Guide to Medicare-For-All that should be a must-read for everyone who talks or writes about healthcare. He agrees that Pramila Jayapal's new Medicare-For-All bill-- probably unveiled in another couple of weeks-- "is astonishingly strong, and should become the baseline for federal legislation toward single-payer healthcare." (Democrats have 8 other healthcare bills floating around, some decent, some horrible. Faust's answer: "The relatively simple problems of health finance have been made very complicated by people who make money off of healthcare. So what are all of the issues being discussed and what do they mean? What’s really 'Medicare for All' and what’s not? How do existing bills stack up? And why does this matter?

The problem of American health finance-- not care, but finance-- can be expressed in two complementary points:

• It is extremely profitable to charge a sick person as much as possible, so long as someone is footing the bill.
• It is not profitable to insure people who are sick or who are likely to become sick.

This is the way things work now. Hospitals, manufacturers, and their various middlemen jack up costs, while insurance companies demand massive public subsidies to keep them from jettisoning people who most need insurance. If insurers can’t get those subsidies, they increase your costs of purchasing and using your insurance plan to compensate for the jacked-up costs.

Staring down these problems are the corporate dorks and the feckless policy dweebs whose policy prescriptions, whose wildest visions, continually place corporations in charge of our healthcare, and ensure that American public money subsidizes them for failing at it. If you hear 2020 candidates talk about the rot of American healthcare, look out if they float a “pragmatic policy solution” or talk about plans named something like “Medicare Extra As A Service... For You!” (If they’re polite, perhaps they will at least say they support “Medicare for All” before announcing they’d be open to keeping the feet of private insurance companies on our throats).

These pathetic programs, which usually revolve around a “public option,” are what happens when politicians understand the need for a massive change but lack the moral imagination to do anything but genuflect to existing structures. They are, in reality, corporate bailout packages which do very little for you, but quite a bit for the Aetnas and the Sacklers and the Joe Manchins.

On the other hand, you have federal single-payer, often called “Medicare for All.” Healthcare plans in the single-payer mold pool all the money currently spent on healthcare to insure every person in America. By pooling this buying power into one giant public insurer (the single payer), “Medicare for All” has much more leverage to determine prices through negotiation. It can say, “oh, we’re only going to pay $200 for an MRI instead of $1,000"; or, “our data shows that a knee replacement costs $15,000 to perform even though you bill five times that amount; take it or leave it,” and since it’s the only insurer in town, the hospital has to take it. This isn’t radical-- virtually every other country with universal coverage has a form of aggressive rate-setting. (And it lets the hospital spend a lot less money on massive towers of billing staff.)

You'll have to read his whole long, powerful piece to understand why he believes that Jayapal's bill-- and only Jayapal's bill-- "appears to meet all of the criteria for a proper single-payer plan. It includes long-term care with a preference toward home health. It sets guidelines for care but lets doctors overrule them. It is, by all accounts, the first actual robust single-payer bill of the post-ACA era. If you are looking for a bill to call 'Medicare for All,' this is the one. It must not be permitted to be weakened."

All that said, do not forget-- and I know you won't-- Every Day Is a New Low in Trump's White House. That's also the name of the piece The Atlantic just published by former FBI Director and Trump enemy Andrew McCabe. When someone told Trump about it, he started whining on Twitter as is his wont.

The Atlantic piece is an adaptation from McCabe's soon-to-be-published book, The Threat. McCabe makes you feel you are there as history is being made.

On Wednesday, May 10, 2017, my first full day on the job as acting director of the FBI, I sat down with senior staff involved in the Russia case—the investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. As the meeting began, my secretary relayed a message that the White House was calling. The president himself was on the line. I had spoken with him the night before, in the Oval Office, when he told me he had fired James Comey.

A call like this was highly unusual. Presidents do not, typically, call FBI directors. There should be no direct contact between the president and the director, except for national-security purposes. The reason is simple. Investigations and prosecutions need to be pursued without a hint of suspicion that someone who wields power has put a thumb on the scale.

The Russia team was in my office. I took the call on an unclassified line. That was another strange thing-- the president was calling on a phone that was not secure. The voice on the other end said, It’s Don Trump calling. I said, Hello, Mr. President, how are you? Apart from my surprise that he was calling at all, I was surprised that he referred to himself as “Don.”

The president said, I’m good. You know-- boy, it’s incredible, it’s such a great thing, people are really happy about the fact that the director’s gone, and it’s just remarkable what people are saying. Have you seen that? Are you seeing that, too?

He went on: I received hundreds of messages from FBI people-- how happy they are that I fired him. There are people saying things on the media, have you seen that? What’s it like there in the building?

This is what it was like: You could go to any floor and you would see small groups gathering in hallways, some people even crying. The overwhelming majority liked and admired Director Comey-- his personal style, the integrity of his conduct. Now we were laboring under the same dank, gray shadow that had been creeping over Washington during the few months Donald Trump had been in office.

I didn’t feel like I could say any of that to the president on the phone. I’m not sure I would have wanted to say it to him in person, either-- or that he would have cared. I told him that people here were very surprised, but that we were trying to get back to work.

The president said he thought most people in the FBI voted for him-- he thought 80 percent. He asked me again, as he had in his office, if I knew that Comey had told him three times that he was not under investigation. Then he got to the reason for his call. He said, I really want to come over there. I want to come to the FBI. I want to show all my FBI people how much I love them, so I think maybe it would be good for me to come over and speak to everybody, like tomorrow or the next day.

That sounded to me like one of the worst possible things that could happen. He was the boss, and had every right to come, but I hoped the idea would dissipate on its own. He said, Why don’t you come down here and talk to me about that later?

After we agreed on a time to meet, the president began to talk about how upset he was that Comey had flown home on his government plane from Los Angeles-- Comey had been giving a speech there when he learned he was fired. The president wanted to know how that had happened.

I told him that bureau lawyers had assured me there was no legal issue with Comey coming home on the plane. I decided that he should do so. The existing threat assessment indicated he was still at risk, so he needed a protection detail. Since the members of the protection detail would all be coming home, it made sense to bring everybody back on the same plane they had used to fly out there. It was coming back anyway. The president flew off the handle: That’s not right! I don’t approve of that! That’s wrong! He reiterated his point five or seven times.

I said, I’m sorry that you disagree, sir. But it was my decision, and that’s how I decided. The president said, I want you to look into that! I thought to myself: What am I going to look into? I just told you I made that decision.

The ranting against Comey spiraled. I waited until he had talked himself out.

Toward the end of the conversation, the president brought up the subject of my wife. Jill had run unsuccessfully for the Virginia state Senate back in 2015, and the president had said false and malicious things about her during his campaign in order to tarnish the FBI. He said, How is your wife? I said, She’s fine. He said, When she lost her election, that must have been very tough to lose. How did she handle losing? Is it tough to lose?

I replied, I guess it’s tough to lose anything. But she’s rededicated herself to her career and her job and taking care of kids in the emergency room. That’s what she does.

He replied in a tone that sounded like a sneer. He said, “Yeah, that must’ve been really tough. To lose. To be a loser.”

I wrote a memo about this conversation that very day. I wrote memos about my interactions with President Trump for the same reason that Comey did: to have a contemporaneous record of conversations with a person who cannot be trusted.

People do not appreciate how far we have fallen from normal standards of presidential accountability. Today we have a president who is willing not only to comment prejudicially on criminal prosecutions but to comment on ones that potentially affect him. He does both of these things almost daily. He is not just sounding a dog whistle. He is lobbying for a result. The president has stepped over bright ethical and moral lines wherever he has encountered them. Every day brings a new low, with the president exposing himself as a deliberate liar who will say whatever he pleases to get whatever he wants. If he were “on the box” at Quantico, he would break the machine.

After Comey’s firing, the core of my concern had to do with what might happen to the Russia case if I were to be removed. I convened a series of meetings about that investigation-- including the one interrupted by the call from the president-- in which I directed an overall review of every aspect. Was the work on solid ground? Were there individuals on whom we should consider opening new cases? I wanted to protect the Russia investigation in such a way that whoever came after me could not just make it go away.

As requested, I went back to the White House that afternoon. The scene was almost identical to the one I had walked into the previous night. Trump was behind the Resolute desk. He lifted one arm and jutted it out, fingers splayed, directing me to take a seat in one of the little wooden chairs in front of him. Reince Priebus, then the chief of staff, and Don McGahn, then the White House counsel, were in the other chairs.

The president launched back into his speech about what a great decision it was to fire Jim Comey, how wonderful it was that the director was gone, because so many people did not like Comey, even hated him-- the president actually used the word hate.

Eventually he changed the subject. He said that he wanted to come to FBI headquarters to see people and excite them and show them how much he loves the FBI. He pressed me to answer whether I thought it was a good idea. I said it was always a good idea to visit. I was trying to take some of the immediacy out of his proposal-- to communicate that the door was always open, so that he wouldn’t feel he had to crash through it right away. I knew what a disaster it could turn out to be if he came to the Hoover Building in the near future. He pressed further, asking specifically, Do you think it would be a good idea for me to come down now? I said, Sure.

He looked at Don McGahn. The president said, Don, what do you think? Do you think I should go down to the FBI and speak to the people?

McGahn was sitting in one of the wooden chairs to my right. Making eye contact with Trump, he said, in a very pat and very prepared way, If the acting director of the FBI is telling you he thinks it is a good idea for you to come visit the FBI, then you should do it.

Then McGahn turned and looked at me. And Trump looked at me and asked, Is that what you’re telling me? Do you think it is a good idea?

It was a bizarre performance. I said it would be fine. I had no real choice. This was not worth the ultimate sacrifice.

In this moment, I felt the way I’d felt in 1998, in a case involving the Russian Mafia, when I sent a man I’ll call Big Felix in to meet with a Mafia boss named Dimitri Gufield. The same kind of thing was happening here, in the Oval Office. Dimitri had wanted Felix to endorse his protection scheme. This is a dangerous business, and it’s a bad neighborhood, and you know, if you want, I can protect you from that. If you want my protection. I can protect you. Do you want my protection? The president and his men were trying to work me the way a criminal brigade would operate.

For whatever reason, the visit to the FBI never happened.

One of the regularly scheduled meetings with the attorney general, deputy attorney general, and some of their staff came two days later, on Friday, May 12. After the meeting, I asked the deputy, Rod Rosenstein, if he could stay behind. In part I wanted to talk with him about ground rules governing the separate investigations of the Russia case by the FBI and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Rosenstein had oversight because the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, had had to recuse himself owing to his own interactions with Russians during the campaign. But my main message was this: I need you to protect the process.

After speaking to these points, Rod shifted his gaze. His eyes were focused on a point in space a few yards beyond and behind, toward the door. He started talking about the firing of Jim Comey. He was obviously upset. He said he was shocked that the White House was making it look as if Jim’s firing had been his idea. He was grasping for a way to describe the nature of his situation. One remark stands out. He said, There’s no one that I can talk to about this. There’s no one here that I can trust.

He asked for my thoughts about whether we needed a special counsel to oversee the Russia case. I said I thought it would help the investigation’s credibility. Later that day, I went to see Rosenstein again. This is the gist of what I said: I feel strongly that the investigation would be best served by having a special counsel. I’ve been thinking about the Clinton email case and how we got twisted in knots over how to announce a result that did not include bringing charges against anyone. Had we appointed a special counsel in the Clinton case, we might not be in the present situation. Unless or until you make the decision to appoint a special counsel, the FBI will be subjected to withering criticism that could destroy the credibility of both the Justice Department and the FBI.

Rosenstein was very engaged. He was not yet convinced. I brought the matter up with him again after the weekend. On Wednesday, we would be briefing the Hill. As I saw it, by informing Congress of the bureau’s actions, we would be drawing an indelible line around the cases we had opened—the four cases known publicly and any others that may have gone forward. The four known publicly were those of Carter Page, a foreign-policy adviser to the Trump campaign and a man with many Russian ties; George Papadopoulos, another foreign-policy adviser, who had told a foreign diplomat that the Russians had offered to help Trump’s campaign by providing information on Hillary Clinton; Michael Flynn, for a brief period the president’s national security adviser, who had pursued multiple high-level contacts with the Russian government; and Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, who had shady business dealings with Ukrainians and Russians.

On the afternoon of May 17, Rosenstein and I sat at the end of a long conference table in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol. We were there to brief the so-called Gang of Eight-- the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate and the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Rosenstein had, I knew, made a decision to appoint a special counsel in the Russia case. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senator from New York, was to our right. Mitch McConnell, the Republican senator from Kentucky and the Senate majority leader, was to our left. The mood in the room was sober.

After reminding the committee of how the investigation began, I told them of additional steps we had taken. Then Rod took over and announced that he had appointed a special counsel to pursue the Russia investigation, and that the special counsel was Robert Mueller. The Gang of Eight had questions. What was the scope of the inquiry? Who would oversee the special counsel? How could the special counsel get fired? Rod answered every question. Then it was over.

When I came out of the Capitol, it felt like crossing a finish line. If I got nothing else done as acting director, I had done the one thing I needed to do.