As Democrats on stage at the presidential debate took their shots at Donald Trump’s trade strategy with China, it looks as though it has begun producing some results. In a surprise move, Beijing announced that it would roll back tariffs on key agricultural products ahead of next week’s initial trade talks. China had targeted pork

As has been discussed here on multiple occasions, the state of California is in the midst of an epic homelessness crisis. This is particularly true in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas, but it’s gotten bad in other coastal cities as well. There’s been plenty of discussion and media coverage of this debacle, but

The latest general election polling and presidential approval ratings numbers haven’t held a lot of good news for Donald Trump. Some surveys have him back down in the thirties and the head-to-head matchups against the Democratic frontrunners don’t have him being able to beat anyone but Elizabeth Warren. (That doesn’t mean he couldn’t still win

Isn’t he already? For all intents and purposes, you betcha. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has steadily moved closer to Donald Trump over the last two-plus years on the direction of national security and foreign policy as others, such as James Mattis and John Kelly, have hit the exits. Bolton’s bolting leaves Pompeo as Trump’s

John wrote last night about yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on the White House’s new asylum rules. By a seven to two margin, the justices agreed that the rule, which essentially acts as a safe third country agreement (without Mexico’s participation) could remain in effect while the case continued through the appeals process. The two dissenting

Blink, part II? Not only has China decided to send a team of negotiators to Washington to break a vicious cycle on retaliatory tariffs, they have also made the first gesture to reverse the cycle. Through its official ministry, China announced tariff exemptions on sixteen US imports, with more to come soon, the New York

Why not? Having George W. Bush’s nat-sec adviser in Donald Trump’s White House couldn’t be any stranger than hiring John Bolton in the position, and might at least add a little more nuance. Trump himself raised a few eyebrows last night by praising Condoleezza Rice’s “very interesting and secure perspective” in a Fox News interview

“Dramatic announcement,” or restatement of longstanding Israeli policy? Either way, Benjamin Netanyahu’s timing seems calculated for turning out right-leaning voters in the upcoming Israeli elections. The PM pledged to impose “sovereignty” over the entire Jordan Valley in his next term, assuming he gets one: [embedded content] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel in a dramatic

Make that the “total joke” challengers so far. White House reporters asked Donald Trump why he’s shutting down GOP presidential primaries and caucuses in several states, to which Trump responded that he has nothing to do with it. It’s almost certainly true, but it won’t stop the issue from being a Rorschach test of sorts for

The story appeared to confirm the worst fears about Donald Trump and his sometimes reckless public discourse. CNN’s Jim Sciutto reported yesterday that the CIA was forced to exfiltrate a mole deep within the Kremlin after Trump revealed too much intelligence in a one-on-one meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2017. The loss of this asset

For the eighth time in less than three months, North Korea has fired another short-range missile into the sea. Curiously, it happened only hours after Kim Jong-un offered once again to restart negotiations with President Trump. But that offer came with strings attached: no more meetings until Washington shows that it’s ready to give Kim

By this time, Americans have gotten used to the idea of negotiating with the Taliban in an effort to wind down the war in Afghanistan. The outrage over their role as protector of al-Qaeda before and after the 9/11 attacks has given way to a sense of inevitability that the Taliban will not be crushed

The good news: Democrats seem determined to lose the 2020 election by running on an extreme platform of massive government control. The bad news: The same thing … if you’re the New York Times. Op-ed columnist David Leonhardt took a closer look at the internals of last month’s Pew survey and discovered that Democrats have utterly

Not that I ever had much hope for success coming from peace talks with the Taliban, but now it looks as if the process may have completely collapsed. Or at least that’s what the President was saying on Twitter last night. Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan,

We can put the conspiracy theories to rest. After Donald Trump tweeted out “Really Good Jobs Numbers” yesterday, critics accused him of unfairly accessing the official jobs report from the BLS. The actual jobs report for August shows a third straight month of declining job growth, although it does have better news on wages: Total

Before getting to the small amount of meat in this story, let’s ask the obvious question. It’s been almost a week now since the argument began over the President’s warning about Hurricane Dorian possibly hitting Alabama. Is this really still dragging on? Apparently so. After the situation seemed to be settled (at least in the

That’s actually not a bad question, and one of the better topics on Donald Trump’s Twitter feed this morning. However, it’s a question that the Supreme Court has already said it would address in arguments this fall, so why is Trump bringing it up now? Here’s a hint — who came back to work this

Sarah Huckabee Sanders made her debut as a Fox News contributor today, but it could hardly have been more seamless. “You went from press secretary to confidante,” Brian Kilmeade observed, and Huckabee Sanders made it clear that she intends to keep that status. “My experience was positive,” she replies, “and my book will be extremely positive,”

If Donald Trump faced any serious primary challengers, this would be an outrage, as Politico reports. A breakdown of norms! Signs of the apocalypse! That’s a mighty big if, however: Four states are poised to cancel their 2020 GOP presidential primaries and caucuses, a move that would cut off oxygen to Donald Trump’s long-shot primary challengers. Republican parties

Alva Johnson, a former Trump campaign staffer, has decided to drop her lawsuit against President Trump. Back in February, Johnson claimed Trump forcibly kissed her against her will during a 2016 campaign stop in Alabama. Her lawsuit was tossed out in June by a judge who called it a “political statement.” However, the judge suggested

Did Beijing blink? Just days after massive new tariffs went into effect on both sides of the US-China bilateral trade relationship, China announced it would send a team of negotiators to Washington next month. “Serious” mid-level talks would begin almost immediately in an effort to wind down the trade war, China also announced: China said

Did anyone have any doubt at all of this? Cocaine Mitch ain’t no fool. Besides, as Mitch McConnell has said several times previously, the precedent under which he blocked Merrick Garland in 2016 had to do with split control as much as it had to do with an election year. McConnell reiterated that position earlier today

Now that Robert Mueller’s report turned into a legal and popular dud, what will House Judiciary chair Jerrold Nadler do to push Donald Trump out of office? Nadler needs an investigation that will grab voters’ attention — and nothing sells like sex, baby. Even if it’s just the stale aftertaste of a scandal that didn’t produce

Soon to be a major motion picture, or three, one supposes — and one of them already has a major Hollywood star “attached,” so to speak. Politico’s Virginia Heffernan brings readers up to speed on a burgeoning literary genre in 2020, where Barack Obama and Joe Biden save the universe in one way or another.

MSNBC called it a retraction. Lawrence O’Donnell called it a retraction too. Yet nowhere in this apology does O’Donnell actually retract his claim that Russian oligarchs co-signed Donald Trump’s loans from Deutsche Bank. Instead, O’Donnell apologizes for not vetting the story more thoroughly before it went on the air (via Twitchy): WATCH: Lawrence O’Donnell retracts his

Hurricane Dorian has slowed its approach to south Florida, but that’s not necessarily a good sign. The storm has gathered strength in the Caribbean, increasing to a Category 2 hurricane overnight and close to becoming Category 3. As Florida and now Georgia batten down the hatches, forecasters predict Dorian will make landfall over the holiday

Was this a gracious attagirl for Madeleine Westerhout after getting fired for sharing personal family matters with reporters? Or was it a warning to the former secretary to keep her mouth shut? In a brief Q&A as he left the White House for Camp David, Trump told the press yesterday that Westerhout had done a

In any White House, discretion is a prized value in staffers, and perhaps even more so in the Donald Trump era. As Trump’s personal assistant in the Oval Office, Madeleine Westerhout should have known that better than most. Yet Westerhout has been shown the door, as multiple news organizations reported overnight, for sharing personal information

Are House Democrats feeling pressure to speed up their attempts to find dirt on Donald Trump? If so, the federal court most certainly is not. Judge Trevor McFadden shot down attempts by the House Ways and Means Committee in its lawsuit over Trump’s tax returns  to both get a summary judgment against the president and

It took a while, but Donald Trump finally uncorked a Twitter rant against his nemesis James Comey. The day after the release of Michael Horowitz’s damning inspector general report on the former FBI director, Trump blasted Comey for attempting a “coup” against his administration. Trump helpfully ended his tweetstorm with the Fox & Friends clip that apparently