Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: The Oval Office meeting this past March began, as so many had, with President Trump fuming about migrants. But this time he had a solution. As White House advisers listened astonished, he ordered them to shut down the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico — by noon the next day. The advisers feared the president’s edict would trap American tourists in Mexico, strand children at schools on both sides of the border and create an economic…

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Politico reports: One element of Elizabeth Warren’s surge in the polls is likely to strike fear in her top Democratic rivals — her rising support among African-Americans. After struggling to win over black voters in the early stages of the primary, the Massachusetts senator appears to be gaining ground with a demographic that will play a pivotal role in determining the nomination. A Quinnipiac University national poll last week showed Warren winning 19 percent of the African-American vote — a…

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Politico reports: House investigators are looking into an allegation that groups — including at least one foreign government — tried to ingratiate themselves to President Donald Trump by booking rooms at his hotels but never staying in them. It’s a previously unreported part of a broad examination by the House Oversight Committee, included in Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, into whether Trump broke the law by accepting money from U.S. or foreign governments at his properties. “Now we’re looking at near raw…

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The New York Times reports: The Democratic head of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, learned about the outlines of a C.I.A. officer’s concerns that President Trump had abused his power days before the officer filed a whistle-blower complaint, according to a spokesman and current and former American officials. The early account by the future whistle-blower shows how determined he was to make known his allegations that Mr. Trump asked Ukraine’s government to interfere on his…

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David Daley writes: Luxury cabanas atop Austin’s JW Marriott kept state legislators cool poolside as August-in-Texas temperatures soared above 103 degrees during each day of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s 2019 annual meeting. The gathered Republican officials could enjoy a $14 rooftop Peppered Paloma cocktail with Patrón silver, housemade grapefruit poblano soda, and Chilean salt, all while gazing over Lady Bird Lake and the nearby state Capitol, or catching a ballgame on the cabana’s 55-inch private TV. Downstairs, meanwhile, five…

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Michelle Goldberg writes: On Sept. 24, 2015, Geoffrey Pyatt, then the American ambassador to Ukraine, spoke in Odessa about the scourge of corruption. It was about a year and a half after what is sometimes called the Revolution of Dignity, when Ukrainians overthrew the kleptocratic, Russian-aligned regime of Viktor Yanukovych. The country was trying to move in a more liberal, European direction. Corruption, said Pyatt, threatened to hold the new Ukraine back. Pyatt called out the office of Viktor Shokin,…

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Rafael Behr writes In a normal game of poker, a bluff cannot continue once it is called. But for Boris Johnson an exposed bluff can just be re-bluffed. The stakes get higher even when the poor hand lies open on the table. Before entering Downing Street, Johnson claimed that deficiencies in Theresa May’s Brexit deal were caused by failure of nerve, not weakness in the UK’s position. The theory was that Brussels needed to see kamikaze intent in British eyes:…

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Peter Beinart writes: Last week, Bret Stephens penned a New York Times column entitled, “Israel’s democracy is doing just fine.” With their “rebuke” of Benjamin Netanyahu at the polls, Stephens declared, “Israelis showed that demagogy doesn’t work.” This week, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin gave Netanyahu the opportunity to form Israel’s next government. Netanyahu could fail to do so, in which case his center-right rival, Benny Gantz, would likely get the chance. But there’s a real possibility that Netanyahu — a…

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The Washington Post reports: As Democrats begin an impeachment inquiry, President Trump spent Sunday vigorously defending himself on Twitter and sharing cable news clips of his most ardent devotees insisting that he did nothing wrong in asking the Ukrainian president to investigate his political rival, former vice president Joe Biden. Trump highlighted one quote from a longtime evangelical pastor warning of particularly dire consequences if the Democrats follow through. “If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office…

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