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Sally Yates gave damning testimony to a Senate panel about Mike Flynn, while Mike Flynn was presumably off somewhere wishing he had been more vigilant about switching cabs. A poll finds the AHCA is roughly as popular as Nickelback, Congress and a bunch of other people we wouldn’t mind seeing lose coverage of their pre-existing conditions. And Bill Clinton is releasing a novel with James Patterson. We’re especially excited for the first paragraph, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of mild budget surpluses, it was the age of Zubaz shorts, it was the epoch of Judy Woodruff on CNN, it was the epoch of the swing revival.” This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, May 8th, 2017:
ANOTHER GREAT NEWS CYCLE FOR THE PRESIDENT - Ryan Reilly and Jessica Schulberg: “Sally Yates, the federal career prosecutor who served as acting attorney general for the first 10 days of Donald Trump’s presidency, told a Senate subcommittee on Monday that she warned a top Trump administration official that appointee Michael Flynn was ‘compromised’ and ‘could essentially be blackmailed’ by the Russians. Flynn, then Trump’s national security adviser, provided information to Vice President Mike Pence that the Justice Department ‘knew to be untrue,’ Yates testified. She described a meeting with White House Counsel Donald McGahn to discuss concerns about Flynn’s relationship with the Russian government. ‘To state the obvious, you don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians,’ Yates testified.” [HuffPost]
Nothing like a little witness discrediting to start your day off right: “President Donald Trump attempted to undermine former acting Attorney General Sally Yates by attacking her in a Monday morning tweet ahead of her Senate testimony on Russian hacking in the 2016 election and the extent of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russian officials. ‘Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel,’ [Trump tweeted].” [HuffPost’s Marina Fang]
HOUSE CONSERVATIVES OPEN TO WATERED-DOWN AHCA - Even though everyone knows the House repealed Obamacare last week, it looks like they’re humoring the Senate. How kind. Matt Fuller: “House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) has already been working with Senate Republicans on what changes House conservatives could live with, knowing that the Senate bill will probably undo some cuts to Medicaid and perhaps a key amendment that brought conservatives onboard in the first place. ‘If it’s moving to the left, we just need to make sure we’re not losing too many conservative votes,’ Meadows told HuffPost on Friday. ‘Obviously it’s going to get more relaxed as it relates to the Medicaid expansion.’ One massive change that House conservatives could accept, perhaps even welcome, is to ditch a dominant feature of the House replacement: the advance refundable tax credits. Instead, conservatives may just take some changes to the Obamacare subsidies. ‘The fundamental question is going to come down to the tax credit subsidy in place, or do they drop back to an Obamacare modified subsidy,’ Meadows said.” [HuffPost]
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OBAMA WARNED TRUMP ABOUT FLYNN - Trump was presumably too worried about asking Obama if all his people would stay on to listen. Paige Lavender and Alana Horowitz Satlin: “Former President Barack Obama warned President Donald Trump about hiring retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn during a meeting in November 2016, NBC and CNN reported Monday. NBC reports the warning came days after Trump defeated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. During a 90-minute discussion in the Oval Office, Obama cautioned Trump about hiring Flynn, who was later brought on as national security adviser. Earlier on Monday, Trump attacked Obama for giving Flynn security clearance. Obama fired Flynn from his position as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in his administration in 2014 over reported leadership clashes.” [HuffPost]
OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE WILL NEVER BE OVER - Burgess Everett and Sarah Ferris “Over the next several months, Republicans will have to figure out how to cut deals with Democrats to avoid a default on the national debt and avert a government shutdown, among several other must-pass items. But the negotiations will unfold against the acrimony of the GOP’s Obamacare repeal effort and a bruising fight over tax reform, none of which are likely to inspire trust between the two sides. Though Congress avoided a government closure this month — a major bipartisan legislative accomplishment for an institution otherwise devoid of any this year — a quintet of critical deadlines in the early fall will force either a furious round of deal-making or brinkmanship that could have dire effects on the economy. It will be a major test of Trump and the all-GOP Congress’ ability to govern, and the Republicans are bound to be blamed for any problems, given their dominant political position.” [Politico]
POLL: WIDESPREAD DEATH NOT POPULAR - Americans, it seems, are not overly keen on having ill friends and family depart this vale of tears. Ariel Edwards-Levy: “Thirty-one percent of Americans favor the American Health Care Act, which narrowly passed the Republican-controlled House last Thursday. Forty-four percent oppose the bill, which would repeal much of the current health care law. Another 25 percent are unsure. As was the case during the GOP’s failed attempt to pass the bill in March, Americans are more likely to be intensely opposed than even modestly supportive. Just 8 percent say they favor the bill strongly, with 34 percent strongly opposed. Americans say, 39 percent to 26 percent, that the AHCA would likely be worse, not better, than the current health care law. Just 14 percent believe the AHCA would make things better for them personally, while 27 percent say it would make things worse. A near-majority, 49 percent, say they don’t expect the bill to affect them very much, or that they aren’t sure what effect it would have.” [HuffPost]
QOTD: “This is a great time to be alive, isn’t it? I still have all my teeth. There is no war.” [New Statesman]
If you read that piece, make sure you read Jason Linkins on that piece.
SEAN SPICER’S CONNECTION TO REALITY STILL REALLY SOMETHING - In terms of dilution-level, it falls somewhere between “your mother after learning you’re gay” and “Toronto Raptors fan.” Marina Fang: “White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday defended President Donald Trump’s executive order halting travel and immigration from six majority-Muslim countries by claiming that the administration has been ‘consistent’ on referring to it as a ban. ‘I know how we talked about this from the first day of this administration: as a travel ban,” he said. ‘We’ve been very consistent since the first day of this administration on this.’...However, when the executive order was first unveiled in January, Spicer denied that it constituted a ban and blamed reporters for calling it one. ‘He’s using the words that the media is using,’ a frustrated Spicer said, in response to reporters’ questions at the time.” [HuffPost]
KNOWLEDGE HAVING THE WORST WEEK IN WASHINGTON - Man, if only knowledge had a better comms team, y’know? Nick Visser: “The Environmental Protection Agency has removed several members from an internal review board meant to provide scientific advice to the agency, a move some say could impair future research into climate change and provide sweeping benefits to polluting industries. The news, quietly announced on Friday, affects the EPA’s 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors, which reviews the agency’s own research in an effort to ‘sustain and enhancethe quality of science.’ The New York Times reports at least five members have been dismissed from their roles after serving a three-year term, and E&E News said up to a dozen could eventually be let go.” [HuffPost]
RAUL LABRADOR TOTALLY BOOFED IT - Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) told his constituents on Friday that “nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care,” in what may have been one of the least true political statements of all time. [HuffPost]
BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here’s what it’s like being a bucket of water that cows drink out of. Feel your empathy grow.
BILL CLINTON AND JAMES PATTERSON RELEASING NOVEL - Considering the bar Bubba has to clear is that terrible collection of poetry Jimmy Carter released, we’re sure this will be a smashing editorial success. Andrew Rafferty: “[Bill]Clinton and famed author James Patterson are working on a suspense-filled new novel, titled ‘The President is Missing,’ that aims at providing readers ‘behind-the-scenes global drama from the highest corridors of power,’ according to a release from publishers Alfred A. Knopf and Little, Brown and Company. ‘Working on a book about a sitting President - drawing on what I know about the job, life in the White House, and the way Washington works - has been a lot of fun,’ Clinton said in the release. The book will be released in June of 2018 and will be the 42nd president’s first novel. The pair will also go on a book tour around the novel’s release.” [NBC News]
DELANEY DOWNER - Former President Barack Obama is to blame for layoffs currently happening at a factory in Indiana, President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday evening. “Rexnord of Indiana made a deal during the Obama Administration to move to Mexico,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Fired their employees. Tax product big that’s sold in U.S.” Rexnord announced in October that it would close the plant and replace it with one in Mexico. Sunday night’s tweet is Trump’s second public comment on the company’s plans; he said in December that the layoffs were vicious. “He made the tweet back in whenever he made the tweet and he did nothing until now,” Don Zering, president of the United Steelworkers union at Rexnord. “That wasn’t nothing but him just blaming it on Obama,” Zering said. “Obama’s not in there anymore.” [HuffPost]
COMFORT FOOD
- A monument to runaway capitalism is being transformed into a monument to runaway capitalism: Apple is offering the first details of its renovation of Washington’s Carnegie Library.
- Stevie Nicks once appeared in a self-defense book put out by her bodyguard.
- We desperately want to ride this new Japanese luxury high-speed train.
TWITTERAMA
@lizzieohreally: Holly Hunter as Yates.
Jonathan Banks as Clapper.
@BenDWalsh: not sure where you work out, but “you’re hiring a foreign agent as a national security advisor” is classic locker room talk
@HayesBrown: Free headline for your curtain raiser on today’s testimony:
YATES EXPECTATIONS
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