Year: 2019

Bolton’s Loss Doesn’t Matter in the ‘Age of Trump’

Buck Banks

“The spectacle of the Trump Presidency often overwhelms our ability to process the stakes of any individual episode. But the firing of John Bolton was not just another Washington farce in what the President himself has now started calling, as he did the other day, on Twitter, ‘the Age of Trump.’ Bolton’s exit serves as a reminder that the intensive national-security decision-making process of previous Presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, has been abandoned by Trump, subverted to the Presidential ego, and will not return for the duration of his tenure.”

— Susan Glasser

Trump’s Trade War Has Killed 300,000 Jobs

Buck Banks

300,000

Yahoo News: “Forecasting firm Moody’s Analytics estimates that Trump’s trade war with China has already reduced U.S. employment by 300,000 jobs, compared with likely employment levels absent the trade war. … That’s a combination of jobs eliminated by firms struggling with tariffs and other elements of the trade war, and jobs that would have been created but haven’t because of reduced economic activity.”

Majority Says Trump Doesn’t Deserve Re-Election

Buck Banks

60%

A new CNN poll finds 60% of Americans say President Trump does not deserve to be reelected. “Overall, the poll paints a picture of a President who has done little to improve negative impressions of him or his work during his time in office. Across several questions asked early in Trump’s time in office and asked again now, the poll finds little positive change and deep partisan polarization.”

Ex FEMA Official Arrested on Bribery Charges

Buck Banks

$1.8 billion

“A former top administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was arrested on Tuesday in a major federal corruption investigation that found that the official took bribes from the president of a company that secured $1.8 billion in federal contracts to repair Puerto Rico’s shredded electrical grid after Hurricane Maria,” the New York Times reports.

Sanders Fading in New Hampshire

Buck Banks

13%

A new Emerson poll in New Hampshire finds Joe Biden leading the Democratic presidential race with 24%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 21%, Bernie Sanders at 13%, Pete Buttigieg at 11%, Kamala Harris at 8%, Tulsi Gabbard at 6%, Cory Booker at 4%, Andrew Yang at 3% and John Delaney at 3%. In February, Sanders led the race with 27%.

Number of Uninsured Increased for the First Time Since 2014

Buck Banks

27.5 million

“The share of Americans with health insurance fell last year, despite a strong economy that lifted families out of poverty,” the New York Times reports. “About 27.5 million people, or 8.5 percent of the population, lacked health insurance for all of 2018, up from 7.9 percent the year before, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. It was the first increase since the Affordable Care Act took full effect in 2014, and experts said it was at least partly the result of the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine that law.”