ON TAP

For the most part, Republicans have been far too willing to enable Trump’s personal corruption, his sellouts of the national interest for personal gain, and a broad array of impulsive and incoherent policies. But even Republicans have their limits. The big red line is still firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller. It would provoke an open […]

It is almost reassuring to learn that Trump truly believes he is above the law. Arguing that the law does not apply to the president is the essence of dictatorship. It’s good to have that claim in black and white—reaffirmed by the even more bizarre claim by Rudy Giuliani that Trump could not merely fire […]

All the recent problems with California’s jungle primary were apparent from the start. As Tuesday’s California primary approaches, both parties are filled with a specifically jungle kind of dread. Democrats fear that their overflow of candidates who are seeking to turn red congressional districts blue will split the vote so many ways that Republicans—fewer of […]

It’s too early to proclaim this the year of the women at the polls, but it’s most certainly the year of the Democratic women candidates. According to the Cook Political Report, 65 House primary elections have been held thus far that have featured at least one Democratic woman candidate, and women have won 45 of […]

After Donald Trump was elected, some progressives harbored the hope that he might make a partial constructive difference on trade. At least he recognized that China’s state capitalism was predatory on the system and on American industry and jobs. At least he recognized that NAFTA hadn’t lived up to billing, and that it mattered whether […]

We may never know. The Kim-Trump Singapore Summit has been called off. To any dispassionate observer, the summit’s cancellation should come as no surprise. With John Bolton now guiding what passes for Trump’s foreign and military policy, the prospect of Trump sitting down with Kim was never any better than remote. My own pet theory […]

Rudy Giuliani, in his role as Trump’s lawyer, has been crowing about an unconfirmed conversation in which Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team supposedly said that an impeachment would have to come before any indictment of the president. In the upside-down world of the Trump defense, this is presented as a victory. To paraphrase the Greek […]

In his inimitable fashion—that of a bigoted ignoramus—President Trump referred to undocumented immigrants as “animals” in a meeting with similarly anti-immigrant officials on Wednesday. “Animals” is probably not a term that more politic Republicans would use; it suggests a sensibility too crude for a proper elected official to put on display. But based on their […]