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WTF Just Happened Today? is a sane, once-a-day newsletter helping normal people make sense of the news. Curated daily by Matt Kiser and delivered to 200,000+ people every afternoon around 3 pm Pacific.
Day 193: Total quitters.
1/ Trump fired Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director 10 days after he was brought in. Scaramucci’s verbal tirade led to the departures of Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus. The change came at the request of new chief of staff John Kelly, who “has the full authority to operate within the White House, and all staff will report to him,” including Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and Steve Bannon. Meanwhile, Scaramucci does not have an administration role “at this time,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. (New York Times / Politico / CNN)
2/ Trump swears in his new chief of staff, saying he has “no doubt” that John Kelly will do a “spectacular job” in his new role. Kelly is a retired four-star Marine general and will take over for Reince Priebus. (Washington Post / CNN)
3/ Kelly called James Comey after Trump fired him to say he was considering resigning from the Department of Homeland Security. Comey told Kelly not to resign. (CNN)
4/ Trump tweeted that Republican Senators look “like fools” and will be “total quitters” if they fail to revive their effort to rollback Obamacare. He threatened to cut lawmakers’ own health insurance plans. Republicans, meanwhile, may have to choose between attempting to repeal Obamacare or tackling tax reform, because they don’t have time to do both. The Senate and House must also pass a spending plan with Democrat cooperation in order to keep the government open past the end of the fiscal year on September 30th. Congress must also raise the debt limit in September or risk defaulting on its debt obligations. (New York Times / Bloomberg)
Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they don't go to a 51 vote majority NOW. They look like fools and are just wasting time......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
Unless the Republican Senators are total quitters, Repeal & Replace is not dead! Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
- The senate is too divided to keep up health care push, Orrin Hatch said. (Reuters)
5/ Trump threatened to end Obamacare payments unless a repeal-and-replace bill is passed. “After seven years of ‘talking’ Repeal & Replace, the people of our great country are still being forced to live with imploding ObamaCare!” Trump tweeted. “If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer responded, saying Trump should “stop playing politics with people’s lives and health care, start leading, and finally begin acting presidential.” (The Hill)
After seven years of "talking" Repeal & Replace, the people of our great country are still being forced to live with imploding ObamaCare!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
.@POTUS ought to stop playing politics with people's lives & #health care, start leading & finally begin acting presidential.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) July 29, 2017
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Kellyanne Conway said Trump would make a decision “this week” on whether to make Obamacare payments. Trump tweeted a warning on Saturday that if Congress didn’t pass a bill to overhaul the Affordable Care Act soon, he would end the “bailouts” for insurance companies as well as for members of Congress. (CNN)
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Susan Collins said Trump’s threats to cut off funding for key Obamacare payments won’t change her vote on the GOP’s plan to repeal it. “It would not affect my vote on healthcare, but it’s an example of why we need to act: to make sure that those payments, which are not an insurance company bailout, but rather help people who are very low-income afford their out-of-pocket costs toward their deductibles and their co-pays,” Collins said. “It really would be detrimental to some of the most vulnerable citizens if those payments were cut off.” (The Hill)
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Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price suggested that he might expand waivers from the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate — a step that health insurers have warned against because it could drive up premiums. (Axios)
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The official White House policy doesn’t want the Senate to vote on another issue unless it’s on health care. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said “You can’t promise folks you’re going to do something for seven years, and then not do it.” (Politico)
6/ A bipartisan group of House members will unveil their plan to fix Obamacare. The plan will focus on stabilizing the insurance market by funding the cost-sharing subsidies and then pushing for Obamacare changes that have received bipartisan backing in the past. (Politico)
7/ After a contentious week in Washington, one GOP senator says Republicans are complicit if they don’t call out Trump. Jeff Flake added that the Republican Party has “lost its way,” and is urging members to turn back to what he calls traditional conservatism. “The last thing you want to do is wake up every morning and see a tweet… You know, it’s tough not to just say, ‘I’m not going to respond,’” Flake said. “And we can’t respond to everything. But there are times when you have to stand up and say, ‘I’m sorry. This is wrong.’” (CBS News)
8/ Trump plans to sign the Russian sanctions bill, which places sanctions on Russia, North Korea, and Iran. It also limits Trump’s ability to lift sanctions unilaterally. It was passed by veto-proof margins in the Senate (98-2) and House (419-3). (NBC News)
- Pence reassured NATO’s Baltic member states that the US stands behind its mutual-defense commitment and will “hold Russia accountable for its actions.” (Politico)
9/ Russia slashed 60% of US embassy and consular staff in response to new American sanctions. The US will need to cut 755 of its roughly 1,200 diplomatic staff in Russia, meant to cause discomfort for Washington and its representatives in Moscow. (New York Times / Reuters)
10/ Democrats have moved to revoke Jared Kushner’s security clearance, introducing the Security Clearance Review Act, which gives the FBI Director the authority to revoke the security clearance of executive branch employees whose actions may pose a threat to national security. At least 20 Democrats have cosigned on the bill. (Salon)
11/ Trump appeared to advocate for rougher treatment of people in police custody. “Don’t be too nice,” Trump told law enforcement officers in Suffolk County, New York. He spoke dismissively of the practice by which arresting officers shield the heads of handcuffed suspects as they are placed in police cars. “I said, ‘You could take the hand away, OK,’” Trump said. (Associated Press)
12/ The Trump administration urged China to confront North Korea over its nuclear ambitions. At the United Nations, US Ambassador Nikki Haley said “the time for talk is over” and that a Security Council resolution that doesn’t “significantly increase the international pressure” on North Korea would be “worse than nothing.” Meanwhile, Trump told reporters that the US will “handle North Korea. We’ll be able to handle North Korea. It will be handled. We handle everything.” (Wall Street Journal / The Hill / CNN)
13/ Trump’s voter fraud commission is divided on whether there was widespread fraud at the ballot box. Trump’s appointees say yes, while others on the commission argue there wasn’t fraud and would rather focus on upgrading the voting systems and encouraging registration. (NBC News)
- At a cybersecurity conference, hackers were able to breach 30 different machines in “only a few minutes.” The DEF CON conference hosted a “Voting Machine Village,” where attendees could try to hack a number of systems to help catch vulnerabilities and raise awareness about election machine security issues. The conferences hopes that the attendees will pressure states to do more to protect those systems. (The Hill)
14/ The Republican National Committee told staff to preserve all documents related to the 2016 campaign. RNC lawyers described it as precautionary, but necessary, as investigations continue into Russia’s meddling in the election. The memo orders employees not to “delete, destroy, modify, or remove from your paper files, laptop computer, desktop computer, tablet, mobile device, e-mail, or any storage system or device, any documents, records, or other materials that relate to the 2016 presidential election or that may relate to any investigation concerning the election.” (BuzzFeed News)
poll/ 64% of Americans want Congress to move on from health care reform by either keeping Obamacare “entirely as is” or fixing “problem areas.” That’s up from 54% in January. (Reuters)
poll/ 47% of Americans prefer the Republicans work with Democrats to improve Obamacare. 21% would rather Republicans try to repeal it outright. 19% want Republicans to replace it with something else. (CBS News)
poll/ 39% of likely US Voters approve of Trump’s job performance, while 61% disapprove. 26% “strongly approve” of the way Trump is performing and 49% “strongly disapprove.” (Rasmussen Reports)
A political newsletter for normal people
WTF Just Happened Today? is a sane, once-a-day newsletter helping normal people make sense of the news. Curated daily by Matt Kiser and delivered to 200,000+ people every afternoon around 3 pm Pacific.
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