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For the community of conservative thinkers and experts, and more importantly, conservative politicians, this is a testing time. Either you stand up for your principles and for what you know is decent behavior, or you go down, if not now, then years from now, as a coward or opportunist. Your reputation will never recover, nor should it.
No matter what you think about this policy, it’s going to make life harder for Trump. First, it’s Trump’s biggest political blow since taking office. There are already a spate of legal challenges that will grab headlines for weeks. It’s splitting his party — only a handful of Republicans have spoken out against him but privately, a large number of GOP lawmakers are grumbling. If congressional Republicans were for this policy, they could pass legislation to codify it into law. They haven’t and probably won’t. They had no heads up from their president this was coming, and now they’re under pressure to defend this.
42% to 51%
According to Gallup’s daily tracking poll, President Trump’s approval rate is now 42% to 51%, which means it only took eight days for the majority of Americans to disapprove of Trump’s performance as president.
We can’t stress this enough: Watch closely the specific, substantive moves of the Trump White House. Try to block out the white noise of outlandish statements and unforced errors, and the hyperventilating they provoke. … Otherwise, you miss the big — and in some cases, radical — changes coming our way. In fact, White House officials tell us they welcome what seem like needless distractions, because it allows them to jam through transformative, disruptive ideas and orders without focused public scrutiny of any particular item.
$200,000
The new initiation fee to join the Mar-a-Lago resort owned by Donald Trump and designated the “Winter White House.” The fee, which is double the pre-presidency rate, was announced shortly after Trump’s election in November and took effect Jan. 1. It includes the chance to mingle with president, and Trump advertised the resort by tweeting a photograph of himself seated at a desk there which he claimed depicted him writing his inauguratory address.
15%
A new survey from Penn shows what primary care physicians think of Obamacare: 15% support complete repeal (38% of Trump voters; 0% of Clinton voters).Other findings:
There is agreement among respondents that specific ACA provisions are important for U.S. health: 95% for covering preexisting conditions, 91% for tax credits for small businesses, 88% for family coverage through age 26, 73% for Medicaid expansion, 50% for the individual mandate.
Edward Alden: “… Trump showed he does not understand the first thing about trade negotiations. In announcing the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, Mr. Trump has just unilaterally given away the biggest piece of leverage he had to deal with the biggest challenge in the world of trade, which is the increasingly troubling behavior by the world’s second largest economy, China. It is the first rule of any negotiation that you don’t give away something for nothing. Mr. Trump just did. And as foreign policy analyst Dan Drezner tweeted: ‘That sound you hear is the clinking of champagne glasses in Beijing.’”
$2 million
“Electricians who rushed work on President Trump’s newly opened hotel in Washington, D.C., say they are owed more than $2 million, and the contractor has filed a lawsuit to force payment,” USA Today reports.
So I am begging the president, share with us the information you have about this or please stop saying it. As a matter of fact, I’d like you do more than stop saying it, I’d like you to come forward and say, ‘Having looked at it, I am confident the election was fair and accurate and people who voted voted legally.’ ‘Cause if he doesn’t do that, this is going to undermine his ability to govern this country.
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by The Hill.
$200,000
Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort owned by the Trump Organization, doubled its initiation fee to $200,000 following the election of Donald Trump as president, CNBC reports.
