The Hair

Donald's weird hair is only about the 1,000th or so most awful thing about him, so much so that, just like the typos, posting pictures of bad hair days almost isn't even fun anymore. Still, this one, taken yesterday, caught my eye. The wind has done a nice creative swirly thing with the longer hair on top, leaving the highly gelled and slicked back parts near his ears untouched. I actually kind of like it.


photo credit: Evan Vucci/AP

Click here to see all the previous "Trump's Hair" posts; here are more examples of what can happen when Mother Nature has her wicked way with Donald's hair:


photo credit: theodysseyonline.com

photo credit: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

photo credit: Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images

The one below, which I think of as the "barrel roll," may be my personal favorite. It's all over the internet but so far I haven't been able to find the name of the original photographer. If I do find it I'll update this post. 

And one more thing. The FLOTUS and SLOTUS, also known as First Lady Melania Trump and Second Lady Karen Pence, have also had their hair messed with by the wind. This picture is from a story at the Daily Mail back in April, you can read it here.  

photo credit: AFP/Getty Images

Would-Be Presidents Are All Around

Writing at The Atlantic, Sarah Longwell, executive director of Republicans for the Rule of Law and publisher of The Bulwark, says that Mitt Romney is "laying the groundwork for an eventual challenge to Trump." At first, I thought she was talking about the same thing I've been saying here in the blog: that Romney is positioning himself to slide into the presidency (or at least, into the 2020 Republican nomination) if Donald flames out. In fact, Longwell doesn't actually say that directly, but the implication is there.

On the surface she's just encouraging Romney to provide political cover for his Republican colleagues to vote Donald out of office, but let's assume that happens. What happens next? Mike Pence gets the immediate promotion, of course, but if the Republicans want a "fresh start" after the disaster of the Trump era, and I believe they will, they probably won't want Donald's charisma-challenged VP as their standard-bearer for 2020. Who would they want? There are many, many Republicans out there who see a president in the mirror every morning, from Donald's opponents in 2016:

Ted Cruz
Rand Paul
Marco Rubio
Dr. Ben Carson
Carly Fiorina
Mike Huckabee
Rick Santorum
George Pataki
Lindsey Graham
Rick Perry
Jeb Bush
Bobby Jindal
Chris Christie
Scott Walker
John Kasich
Jim Gilmore

... to the declared 2020 candidates, Joe Walsh, Bill Weld and Mark Sanford, to the names in an October 11 Washington Post article titled "So if Trump gets removed, who's the GOP nominee?" including Pence, Romney and Walsh, plus Nikki Haley, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, Jeff Flake, Ben Sasse, John Kasich and Mike Pompeo. (Read that article here.)

Would Mitt Romney really be the best post-Trump Republican candidate? On one hand, he's the most recent Republican nominee before Donald and the only one of all these names who has been a general election candidate at the presidential level. On the other hand, Mitt lost that race and the things that were problematic for him in 2012 haven't just gone away, as he learned when he pondered running in 2016. Still, if Mitt is seen as the brave and principled warrior who saved the country from Donald Trump, he may also be seen as the last best hope for Republicans in 2020.

For a different perspective about Romney, click here to read another article at The Atlantic, titled The Liberation of Mitt Romney, dated October 20 and written by McKay Coppins. It includes a statement from Mitt that he's not planning to run again, but I would take that as pro forma and not binding.

As I'm thinking about all this, a song from the musical Evita is running through my head. It comes at the end of Act One. Juan Peron is out of power in Argentina, contemplating the wrath of his political opponents. His ambitious wife Evita encourages him to stay the course:

It doesn't matter what those morons say
Our nation's leaders are a feeble crew
There's only twenty of them anyway
What is twenty next to millions who
Are looking to you? 

All you have to do is sit and wait
Keeping out of everybody's way
We'll ... you'll be handed power on a plate
When the ones who matter have their say
And with chaos installed
You can reluctantly agree to be called

Watch it here:

Would Pierre Delecto, oops, I mean Mitt Romney, "reluctantly" agree to be called? I'd bet Rafalca on it.

In the meantime, this is Longwell's article in its entirety:

Donald Trump has never feared another elected Republican. Over the course of five years, he has bullied and insulted, mocked and complained about nearly every GOP officeholder past and present, including George W. Bush and Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Jeff Flake. He knew that the Republicans who dared to stand up to him couldn’t hurt him (Bob Corker), and that the Republicans who could have hurt him wouldn’t dare stand up to him (Paul Ryan).

All of which has led Trump to believe that there is no possible danger of the Republican Party being pried from his grasp. But Trump may at last need to rethink that calculus.

Mitt Romney’s attempt to excise Trump from his party started early. In March 2016, he became the only former Republican presidential nominee to take a public position against Trump’s candidacy. This act of resistance didn’t work, however, because while Romney had moral authority, he had no real power.

That situation changed this year, when Romney again became an elected official. On January 1, 2019, the newly minted Senator Romney announced his arrival in Washington with an op-ed in The Washington Post titled, “The President Shapes the Public Character of the Nation. Trump’s Character Falls Short.”

After having softened his criticism of the president and even tacitly accepting his endorsement during his Senate campaign in Utah, Romney wrote:

To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should unite us and inspire us to follow “our better angels.” A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. As a nation, we have been blessed with presidents who have called on the greatness of the American spirit. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been most glaring.

Democrats and some pundits sniffed that Romney was just another Jeff Flake, all bark and no bite. Republicans derided the decision to call Trump out, with many of them attacking Romney in response—including his own niece, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, who called his criticism “disappointing and unproductive.”

The backlash to the op-ed was a crash course in “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” But if you look closely, you can see that Romney was laying the groundwork for an eventual challenge to Trump. He was getting into position to get into position.

That said, he didn’t mobilize over the Mueller report, saying only that he was “sickened” by what the special counsel uncovered. Romney’s relatively low profile and mere brow furrowing exasperated Democrats and worried apostate Republicans (like me) who held out hope that Romney might become a Goldwater-like figure in the Senate: a former presidential nominee with the clout to exact some accountability from his party’s president.

Now it looks like Romney was playing the long game, waiting for a moment when there might be leverage for him not simply to annoy Trump, but to be in the jury box rendering a verdict on his presidency. Which is exactly where the whistle-blower report about Trump and his dealings with Ukraine may put him. Suddenly we’ve gone from an environment where impeachment couldn’t even clear the House Democratic caucus to one where polling support for impeachment and removal is above 50 percent, and rising.

Romney has not rushed to get ahead of the process. Instead, he’s engaged with characteristic caution. At first, he called the allegations “troubling in the extreme.” When the readout of Trump’s call with President Volodymyr Zelensky and the whistle-blower complaint became public, providing clearer evidence that the president had courted foreign interference in the coming election, and seemingly pressured a vulnerable ally to do the interfering, Romney stepped up his criticism, calling it “wrong and appalling.”

After Trump pulled American troops out of Syria and abandoned America’s Kurdish allies to slaughter, Romney delivered a blistering indictment of the administration’s betrayal on the Senate floor, saying, “What we have done to the Kurds will stand as a blood stain in the annals of American history.”

People assume that because Republicans have for the most part let Trump be Trump, they have no influence over him. But we saw recently that this isn’t true: Trump walked back the Doral G7 summit after Republicans expressed outrage. The right Republicans, in the right circumstances, can roll him.

Now circumstances are evolving to the point where Romney may be able to lead his colleagues to break with the administration if—or rather when—the president is impeached by the House.

Jeff Flake has speculated that 35 or more Republican senators might vote in an impeachment trial to remove Trump from office, but only if the vote were held in secret. Whatever the real number is, the senators face a collective-action problem. Politically, their safest bet is to move as one, announcing their openness to removal as a bloc. The president can say what he wants about this or that senator. But he wouldn’t be able to claim—with any credibility beyond his most cultlike followers—that a group composed of 10 or more Republican senators is just a cabal of dishonest, no-good losers secretly working for the Democrats.

Part of any collective-action problem is the disincentive to go first. Senators who want to vote against Trump will want to wait until the last minute, letting their more courageous colleagues take the political hit by going first. The senator going first might get hailed as a hero when the history books are written. But in the moment, he or she will be used as a human shield. It won’t be fun, and it’s a big ask for any sitting Republican.

Romney is best suited for the job. We already know, from The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins, that Romney is “taking the prospect of a Senate trial seriously—he’s reviewing The Federalist Papers, brushing up on parliamentary procedure, and staying open to the idea that the president may need to be evicted from the Oval Office.” He’s not up for reelection until 2024, which gives him the maximum amount of leeway to make difficult votes. Even then, he represents Utah, a deep-red state where Trump’s approval rating has been underwater for much of his presidency. And that’s all assuming that Romney would even want to run for another six-year term at age 77. This all points to Romney as the perfect person to overcome the collective-action problem—he has more stature and political capital than anyone else in the Senate, but he also has the least to lose.

Days until Election Day: 376

Donald's Very Bad Day

John Podhoretz is a Conservative writer and columnist who co-founded The Weekly Standard and currently serves as the editor of Commentary magazine. In an article posted yesterday, he says yesterday was "the day that has ensured Donald Trump's impeachment." Washington Post columnist David Ignatius echoed that thought on Morning Joe this morning, saying "Yesterday's testimony [of acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor before House impeachment investigators] had the feeling of a tipping point. It just was of a different character than we've seen before."

A tweet from Ignatius links to a pdf of Taylor's opening statement:

This carefully detailed memo by William Taylor, the American charge in Kiev, documents Trump' s gross abuse of power on Ukraine to subvert bipartisan, legislated goals of US policy, for political reasons. Strikes me as the most damaging evidence yet.  https://t.co/lUH7hfC84y

— David Ignatius (@IgnatiusPost) October 22, 2019

... and this is Podhoretz's article in its entirety:

Remember when I said last week that October 17 was the worst day of the Trump presidency? Well, October 22 and has now come along to break the record. This is the day that, I think, has ensured Donald Trump’s impeachment. Not his removal. But impeachment will be bad enough.

Today’s key sentence: “Ambassador Sondland said, ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance.”

It comes from the testimony of acting U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine William Taylor before House impeachment investigators, and it instantly makes all but impossible the task of anyone seeking to defend Trump against the charge that he held up American military aid to Ukraine to secure a political advantage in the 2020 election.

There were three defenses of Trump following the revelations of the “whistleblower” and the phone-call transcript of the conversation between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine. The first was that he is only interested in investigating corruption relating to the 2016 election. The second is that even though Trump himself said he wanted the Ukranian to do him a favor, there was no quid pro quo. The third is that the only thing Trump was trading for was a White House visit, which is no great shakes.

There’s no need to talk about the “whistleblower” and his findings any longer, and there’s no need for the whistleblower to be heard any further. We have a veteran U.S. diplomat on the record saying that a Trump intimate told him Trump was holding up Congressionally authorized and appropriated military aid to Ukraine because he wanted a public statement from the Zelensky government that it was investigating Joe Biden’s son.

Taylor said this of a September 1 phone call with Gordon Sondland, our ambassador to the European Union about the $275 million in U.S. security assistance to Ukraine as well as a possible meeting between Trump and Ukranian president Zelensky:

“Ambassador Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelensky to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Ambassador Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelenskyy was dependent on a public announcement of investigations—in fact, Ambassador Sondland said, ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance. He said that President Trump wanted President Zelenskyy ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations.”

So that’s it. Unless Trump and Sondland deny this, and offer evidence that Taylor is wrong or lying, we now have contemporaneous confirmation that the president intended to hold up military aid to the Ukranians to secure domestic political advantage.

That’s the ballgame. That’s impeachment. In doing this Trump was contravening U.S. law, which does not give the president the right to deny Ukraine the money appropriated by Congress for Ukraine.

Whether what Trump does obliges the Senate to remove him from the presidency will be up to Republicans in the Senate to decide at the trial that will follow what I think is the now-inevitable impeachment. The fact that the aid to Ukraine has in fact gone through despite Trump’s illegitimate temporary suspension may be the straw the GOP will grasp to prevent his conviction in that trial. But that’s no defense of Trump’s actions. If I’m right, they will, in effect, have to concede the wrongdoing and say it is too minor to lead to such an extreme sanction. So Trump won’t be the first president to be removed from office. He will, however, be the third to be impeached. And, as I said, that will be bad enough.

The Guessing Game (And Mitt's Secret Twitter Account) - Updated

What will be on the cover of People this week? My guesses:

Jennifer Lawrence: A lavish wedding in Rhode Island
Harry and Meghan: A documentary about their Africa trip, it will be shown on ABC this Wednesday night. Meghan talks about the stress of her position; there's also talk that they may take some time off at the end of the year
William and Kate: Their nostalgic and successful trip to Pakistan, did Harry just confirm a "rift?" (Not really)
Elijah Cummings: The long-time congressman from Maryland died at 68
Jennifer Aniston: She's now on Instagram with over 15 million followers in less than a week
Adam Rippon: The skater published a memoir
Arnold Schwarzenegger and/or Linda Hamilton: Terminator: Dark Force opens November 1. I read that producer James Cameron has said that he likes the idea of an action film starring a 62-year-old actress, who, by-the-way, is his ex-wife
Keanan Lowe: The high school football coach in Portland Oregon who disarmed a teen-ager at school, then hugged him until the cops arrived
Bill Macy: The actor died at 97 after a long career
Christian Bale and/or Matt Damon: Their movie "Ford v. Ferrari" opens November 15
Kim Kardashian: Turns 39 on October 21, she and Kanye renewed their wedding vows
Felicity Huffman: A picture from prison
Mitt Romney: Mittens has a secret Twitter account, using the nom de tweet Pierre Delecto, which makes him a member of the pantheon that includes Carlos Danger and John Barron; I will be seriously disappointed if Pierre isn't featured on this week's cover: 

Just spoke to @MittRomney on the phone, and asked him about Pierre Delecto. His only response: "C'est moi." Updated my story accordingly: https://t.co/kcfIopokWh

— McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) October 21, 2019

Slate writer Ashley Feinberg was the first to sleuth it out:

 

Read Ashley's article here; this is how the Washington Post starts their article about Pierre: 

For years, Pierre Delecto’s presence on Twitter largely went unnoticed. Operating a bare-bones account with the handle @qaws9876, the user’s limited activity revealed only an interest in politics — namely, supporting Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). So when “Pierre Delecto” started trending Sunday on the social media platform, people were understandably confused.

“Why are we talking about Pierre Delecto,” one person asked.

“WTH is a Pierre Delecto & why is everyone going crazy about it?” another wanted to know.

On Sunday, Twitter users lost their collective minds when they learned that Pierre Delecto wasn’t a bot or a random Romney superfan, but an account run by the Republican senator himself. As Delecto, Romney, who has become one of President Trump’s most vocal GOP critics, used the account to like critical tweets about the president, while also occasionally defending himself against detractors. By early Monday, the unusual pseudonym was a trending moment on Twitter and had been mentioned in more than 47,000 tweets. (Read more here.) 

Stories that appear on the new cover will be highlighted in green. 

Update. Dennis Quaid: The 65-year old actor just got engaged to his 26-year-old girlfriend 
The Crown: Netflix released a full-length trailer for Season 3:

Times change. Duty endures. Season Three of The Crown arrives 17th November. pic.twitter.com/c3pzvSKM6k

— The Crown (@TheCrownNetflix) October 21, 2019

Update #2. See the new cover, featuring Duchess Meghan, here. 

Fixing His Hair?

Did Donald make a rude gesture to an astronaut when she corrected him about being the first woman to perform a space walk? You tell me:

When gently corrected by one of the astronauts about how other women have spacewalked, Donald Trump uses his middle finger to "fix" his hair.

How is this even real life? pic.twitter.com/9bnj7XfY1m

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) October 21, 2019

Who? - Updated

Mark Esperanto, Secretary of Defense, “The ceasefire is holding up very nicely. There are some minor skirmishes that have ended quickly. New areas being resettled with the Kurds.” USA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil. Bringing soldiers home!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2019

The current secretary of defense is Dr. Mark T. Esper. Wouldn't it be cool to have a president who knows that? Yes, this is probably an autocorrect fail, but still. A fully-functioning president would have caught the change and corrected it before hitting "Send."

And one more thing. "We have secured the Oil." Huh?

Update: He fixed it, or to be more precise, he deleted the tweet and sent out a new version:

“The ceasefire is holding up very nicely. There are some minor skirmishes that have ended quickly. New areas being resettled with Kurds. U.S. soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zone. We have secured the Oil.” Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense. Ending endless wars!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2019

"... an underlying current of frustration, humiliation, anger and fear"

In an op-ed at the New York Times with a headline that says: "Our Republic Is Under Attack From the President," and a sub-head that says: "If President Trump doesn't demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office," former commander of the United States Special Operations Command Admiral William H. McRaven (retired) had this to say about Donald:

Last week I attended two memorable events that reminded me why we care so very much about this nation and also why our future may be in peril.

The first was a change of command ceremony for a storied Army unit in which one general officer passed authority to another. The second event was an annual gala for the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) Society that recognizes past and present members of the intelligence and Special Operations community for their heroism and sacrifice to the nation. What struck me was the stark contrast between the words and deeds heralded at those events — and the words and deeds emanating from the White House.

On the parade field at Fort Bragg, N.C., where tens of thousands of soldiers have marched either preparing to go to war or returning from it, the two generals, highly decorated, impeccably dressed, cleareyed and strong of character, were humbled by the moment.

They understood the awesome responsibility that the nation had placed on their shoulders. They understood that they had an obligation to serve their soldiers and their soldiers’ families. They believed in the American values for which they had been fighting for the past three decades. They had faith that these values were worth sacrificing everything for — including, if necessary, their lives.

Having served with both officers for the past 20 years, I know that they personified all that is good and decent and honorable about the American military with genuineness of their humility, their uncompromising integrity, their willingness to sacrifice all for a worthy cause, and the pride they had in their soldiers.

Later that week, at the O.S.S. Society dinner, there were films and testimonials to the valor of the men and women who had fought in Europe and the Pacific during World War II. We also celebrated the 75th anniversary of D-Day, recognizing those brave Americans and allies who sacrificed so much to fight Nazism and fascism. We were reminded that the Greatest Generation went to war because it believed that we were the good guys — that wherever there was oppression, tyranny or despotism, America would be there. We would be there because freedom mattered. We would be there because the world needed us and if not us, then who?

Also that evening we recognized the incredible sacrifice of a new generation of Americans: an Army Special Forces warrant officer who had been wounded three times, the most recent injury costing him his left leg above the knee. He was still in uniform and still serving. There was an intelligence officer, who embodied the remarkable traits of those men and women who had served in the O.S.S. And a retired Marine general, whose 40 years of service demonstrated all that was honorable about the Corps and public service.

But the most poignant recognition that evening was for a young female sailor who had been killed in Syria serving alongside our allies in the fight against ISIS. Her husband, a former Army Green Beret, accepted the award on her behalf. Like so many that came before her, she had answered the nation’s call and willingly put her life in harm’s way.

For everyone who ever served in uniform, or in the intelligence community, for those diplomats who voice the nation’s principles, for the first responders, for the tellers of truth and the millions of American citizens who were raised believing in American values — you would have seen your reflection in the faces of those we honored last week.

But, beneath the outward sense of hope and duty that I witnessed at these two events, there was an underlying current of frustration, humiliation, anger and fear that echoed across the sidelines. The America that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within.

These men and women, of all political persuasions, have seen the assaults on our institutions: on the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State Department and the press. They have seen our leaders stand beside despots and strongmen, preferring their government narrative to our own. They have seen us abandon our allies and have heard the shouts of betrayal from the battlefield. As I stood on the parade field at Fort Bragg, one retired four-star general, grabbed my arm, shook me and shouted, “I don’t like the Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!”

Those words echoed with me throughout the week. It is easy to destroy an organization if you have no appreciation for what makes that organization great. We are not the most powerful nation in the world because of our aircraft carriers, our economy, or our seat at the United Nations Security Council. We are the most powerful nation in the world because we try to be the good guys. We are the most powerful nation in the world because our ideals of universal freedom and equality have been backed up by our belief that we were champions of justice, the protectors of the less fortunate.

But, if we don’t care about our values, if we don’t care about duty and honor, if we don’t help the weak and stand up against oppression and injustice — what will happen to the Kurds, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Rohingyas, the South Sudanese and the millions of people under the boot of tyranny or left abandoned by their failing states?

If our promises are meaningless, how will our allies ever trust us? If we can’t have faith in our nation’s principles, why would the men and women of this nation join the military? And if they don’t join, who will protect us? If we are not the champions of the good and the right, then who will follow us? And if no one follows us — where will the world end up?

President Trump seems to believe that these qualities are unimportant or show weakness. He is wrong. These are the virtues that have sustained this nation for the past 243 years. If we hope to continue to lead the world and inspire a new generation of young men and women to our cause, then we must embrace these values now more than ever.

And if this president doesn’t understand their importance, if this president doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, both domestically and abroad, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office — Republican, Democrat or independent — the sooner, the better. The fate of our Republic depends upon it. (This is the column in its entirety.) 

I'm part of a military family. My father's older brother died while serving in the Navy in World War II and my father served in the Navy as well. Another uncle served a 20+ year career as an Air Force officer, including in Vietnam. One of my cousins, and my ex-husband, graduated from the Air Force Academy; they both served 20+ year careers. Three of my younger cousins are currently serving in uniform, two as Air Force officers and one as an Army officer. And another young relative is serving in the Reserves after a two-year enlistment. 

Anyone who has read this blog over the last four years knows that I don't admire the current president (massive understatement) and there are many, many reasons for my disdain. If anyone asks me, today, why I'm fervently hoping that Donald will soon be out of office, one way or another, I'll simply point them to Admiral McRaven's heartfelt words above and say, This is why.  

Don't Be A Tough Guy! Don't Be A Fool! - Updated

Felt the need to ask WH if this is actually real and it is. pic.twitter.com/bHyIFw6cvO

— Katie Rogers (@katierogers) October 16, 2019

Reactions: 

1. This is embarrassing beyond words.
2. It suggests the President is mentally unstable.
3. No competent staff would have let this thing leave the building.
4. Imagine the letters we *haven't* seen. https://t.co/xs28pY53fI

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 16, 2019

Just think everyone.  Trump has absolute control of our nuclear arsenal.  What could possibly go wrong https://t.co/KqC7YIYVKz

— Steven Strauss (@Steven_Strauss) October 16, 2019

Edward Luce is the U.S. editor of the Financial Times:

Trump’s writing is that of a ten year old; his grasp of how the world works closer to a five year-old: and his behaviour that of a mentally ill 73-year-old man. This is why America has a 25th amendment.

— Edward Luce (@EdwardGLuce) October 16, 2019

I am a historian of US foreign policy. I have read many, many letters from US Presidents to foreign leaders, and I have never read a letter from the US President so unhinged, so threatening, so bizarre, so completely lacking in basic etiquette. Trump is deeply, deeply unwell. https://t.co/XOOo2689sI

— Brad Simpson (@bradleyrsimpson) October 16, 2019

Imagine leaking this insane letter to a Fox host because you think it makes the administration look good https://t.co/XPQhYC5uaX

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 16, 2019

The scariest thing about Trump's letter to Erdogan isn't that Trump dictated it. It's that no one--the national security adviser, the chief of staff, the Secretary of State (all of whom I presume saw it before it was sent)--could persuade him not to send it. Did they even try?

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) October 16, 2019

That bizarre letter was sent a week ago, FYI. Meaning it was...basically thrown in the trash by Erdogan.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) October 16, 2019

On October 9, ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ thought this insane letter would be a good negotiating tactic.

Today, he thought that releasing this insane letter after Erdogan had entirely ignored for a week would make him look good.

Which of those facts is more frightening? pic.twitter.com/ESTak0pv3p

— Jarrett Blanc (@JarrettBlanc) October 16, 2019

Update on Friday morning. Jon Sopel is the North America editor for the BBC:

Wow. #Erdogan tells news conference the letter sent by @realDonaldTrump telling him not to be a ‘tough guy’ wasn’t in line with diplomatic or political customs. He said they wouldn’t forget the lack of respect. “When the time comes necessary steps will be taken” pic.twitter.com/PU9062krr6

— Jon Sopel (@BBCJonSopel) October 18, 2019

Addendum: and guess who is going to Sochi next Tuesday at the invitation of Vladimir Putin? Yep - President #Erdogan
- to discuss #Syria #Kurds

— Jon Sopel (@BBCJonSopel) October 18, 2019

Even Turkey's former Ambassador to the US is trolling @realDonaldTrump after THAT LETTER#Turkey #Kurds https://t.co/AxqF1Nf2mG

— Jon Sopel (@BBCJonSopel) October 18, 2019

Jonathan Bernstein has some thoughts, too, written yesterday:

Wednesday, the 1,000th day of Donald Trump’s presidency, went badly. That’s no surprise; most of the first 999 days went badly too. I have no idea if he’s going to wind up getting ousted from office, either as a result of the impeachment House Democrats are readying or the 2020 election. But things are getting worse for Trump — whether he realizes it or not.

Every once in a while, some event offers a clarifying reminder of the president’s poor judgment. On Wednesday, it was the release of a letter Trump wrote to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The letter itself was an embarrassment, in which Trump, soon after telling Erdogan on the phone that U.S. forces would move out of his way to enable Turkey’s invasion of Syria, tried to walk things back. Sort of. As Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman put it at the Monkey Cage, the president opted for “threatening rhetoric reminiscent of a Mafia boss” to “make loud threats that he may not be able to deliver on.” As soon as the letter was published, professional diplomats and historians said they had never seen something so amateurish from a U.S. president.

But what really underlined Trump’s problem for me wasn’t that he wrote an incompetent letter to follow up on what seems to have been an incompetent phone call. Or that his Syria policy, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Eli Lake notes, has resulted in chaos and death. Or that, on a crass political level, he’s managed to alienate his congressional allies just as he needs them most, with House Republicans voting overwhelmingly on Wednesday to condemn his decision.

No, what really got to me was that Trump distributed copies of this letter to congressional leaders when they showed up at the White House for a briefing. Think of it. Even if the letter had been perfectly normal, what Trump was handing them was an Oct. 9 request to Erdogan to halt his invasion — a request that Erdogan has, as we’ve seen, totally ignored. Trump was bragging about what he considered to be a sign of his own brilliance without realizing that it was instead evidence of abject failure.

This isn’t new, of course. Trump still brags about how the 2018 election was a glorious victory for Republicans (it wasn’t). He brags that a published summary of his call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy cleared him of wrongdoing (it incriminated him). And on and on. The thing is, it’s possible for others within the political system to deal with a liar. But how do you deal with a president who can’t tell the difference between victories and losses? Someone for whom normal incentives don’t apply because he doesn’t seem to realize when things are going badly?

Every president has policy fiascoes at some point. Every president slumps in the polls. Every president makes hiring decisions that go wrong. But normal presidents, most of the time, recognize their errors — even if they don’t admit them publicly — and work hard to improve things. Trump, to be blunt, doesn’t. It’s destroying his presidency, and damaging the nation. (This is the column in its entirety.)                   

If You Can't Take Care Of Your Kids...

Did the Morning Joe crew have too much fun with this clip? They only ran it three times:

Impeach The Pres??

Just out: MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME IS AT THE HIGHEST POINT EVER, EVER, EVER! How about saying it this way, IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! Also, MORE PEOPLE WORKING TODAY IN THE USA THAN AT ANY TIME IN HISTORY! Tough numbers for the Radical Left Democrats to beat! Impeach the Pres.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2019

I assume Donald will delete this tweet, but for now, in the last sentence, he appears to be calling for the current president, a.k.a. himself, to be impeached. 

Michael Douglas And His Son Cameron

Issue dated October 28, 2019: Michael Douglas And His Son


Michael Douglas's son Cameron, who spent eight years in jail for drug dealing, writes about his recovery and redemption in a memoir titled Long Way Home. The book comes out October 22.




Last year at this time: Issue dated October 29, 2018

The Guessing Game - Updated

What will be on the cover of People this week? My guesses:

Simone Biles: Broke the all-time record, male or female, for medals at the gymnastics World Championships
Anne Sacoolas: The American wife of a diplomat serving in the U.K., Sacoolas is accused of hitting and killing a British teenager while driving on the wrong side of the road. Claiming diplomatic immunity, she returned to the U.S. The dead boy's distraught parents are insisting immunity be waived
Hunter Biden: Still in the news. ABC interviewed him over the week-end, it will air on several ABC shows beginning tomorrow
Peter Weber: The next Bachelor was injured while golfing on an off day in Costa Rica. Question: who carries two cocktail glasses while climbing into a golf cart?
Matt Lauer, Brook Nevils and/or Ronan Farrow: Farrow's new book includes a claim from Nevils that Lauer raped her during the Sochi Olympics. Lauer claims their sexual encounters were consensual
Marie Osmond and the Osmond Brothers: The original 4 will perform for the final time on today's episode of The Talk
Coleen Rooney: A bizarre feud on Twitter, did Rebekah Vardy give false stories to a tabloid. based  on items in Rooney's personal Instagram account? (Who are these people? They're the wives of big-deal soccer players in England.) (Read more here)
Shep Smith: In a surprise on Friday, Smith announced he was leaving Fox News. Was he fired or did he resign?
Carson King: Donated over $3 million dollars to a children's hospital after his "need money for beer" sign went viral
James Middleton: Kate's brother is engaged
Tyler Skaggs: A Los Angeles Angels employee claims to have provided Skaggs with the drugs that killed him
Coco Gauff: The 15-year-old phenom won her first Singles title and is now ranked in the Top 100
Joe Giudice: Released by ICE and now in Italy, Giudice will continue to fight extradition

Sexiest Man: Not for this week, but it's time to start thinking about the 2019 Sexiest Man. People usually announces the newly-crowned winner in early November. Right now I have no guesses for who it might be this year; here are the previous winners:

1985 Mel Gibson
1986 Mark Harmon
1987 Harry Hamlin
1988 John Kennedy, Jr.
1989 Sean Connery
1990 Tom Cruise
1991 Patrick Swayze
1992 Nick Nolte
1993 Sexiest Couple: Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford
1995 Brad Pitt
1996 Denzel Washington
1997 George Clooney
1998 Harrison Ford
1999 Richard Gere
2000 Brad Pitt
2001 Pierce Brosnan
2002 Ben Affleck
2003 Johnny Depp
2004 Jude Law
2005 Matthew McConaughey
2006 George Clooney
2007 Matt Damon
2008 Hugh Jackman
2009 Johnny Depp
2010 Ryan Reynolds
2011 Bradley Cooper
2012 Channing Tatum
2013 Adam Levine
2014 Chris Hemsworth
2015 David Beckham
2016 Dwayne Johnson
2017 Blake Shelton
2018 Idris Elba

Stories that appear on the new cover will be highlighted in green.

Update: William and Kate: A "complex" visit to Pakistan.

And one more thing. Remember this?:



It's from 18 years ago, when Rudy Giuliani was in the process of dumping his second wife and taking up with his third. (Read the cover story, dated May 28, 2001, here.) I don't really think People will put Rudy on the cover this week, but if they want to, all they have to do is swap out the pictures and change a few words because history is repeating itself. (Wow, is it possible that Rudy isn't a very nice man?) Rudy is done with wife number three, as explained by the Washington Post in an article titled "Third time was not the charm: Rudy Giuliani's latest divorce is bitter, expensive and very public"

It starts with this:

In the “What on earth happened to Rudy Giuliani?” sweepstakes, there are plenty of entries but no winners. Everyone wants to know why “America’s Mayor” became President Trump’s favorite consigliere.

Here’s one factor: He’s in the midst of a very bitter, very expensive, very public divorce. (A moment of silence, please, for the death of romance — especially when there’s no prenuptial.) Perhaps the contentious end of his third marriage is a distraction?

... includes this:

Giuliani, 75, is leaving this marriage the same way he entered it: with blaring headlines, tabloid updates and so much drama.

“He digs it,” says Ken Frydman, spokesman for his 1993 mayoral campaign. “He loves the attention. It’s sport for him — and a lack of judgment.”

In May 2000, New York’s two-term mayor called a news conference and announced a separation from his second wife, television anchor Donna Hanover. It was also a public acknowledgment of his year-long relationship with Judith Nathan, whom he praised as a “very, very fine woman.” The separation, however, was allegedly a surprise to his wife, who said she found out her 16-year marriage was ending by watching television.

A surprise, but also not surprising: Hanover started dating Giuliani when he was married to his first wife, Regina Peruggi. An eternal mystery: When the mistress becomes the wife, why is she shocked when another mistress enters the scene? (“Job opening,” goes the old joke.)

... Nathan and Giuliani met in 1999 at Club Macanudo, an East Side cigar bar. Nathan, divorced from her second husband, was a hospital sales rep and a trained nurse. Across the room: Mayor Giuliani. Sparks flew.

“It was the thunderbolt,’’ he told the New York Times. “Our attraction was instantaneous. There was almost something mystical about the feeling.’’

Soon, the two were inseparable, except for the quality time he spent with his wife and two children.

The affair was not, shall we say, discreet. Nathan accompanied the mayor to a number of official functions and stayed at his side during his treatment for prostate cancer, which led to his divorce lawyer’s TMI revelation in 2001 that the cancer had rendered Giuliani impotent and the two had not had sex for a year. They were not ones to let the marriage of true minds admit impediments, so love flourished.

... and ends with this:

Judith Giuliani, 64, receives $42,000 a month in alimony, an amount she claims is peanuts compared with the $230,000 per month they spent as a couple, according to the New York Times. Her lawyer, Bernard Clair, reported that Giuliani earned millions working at the law firm Greenberg Traurig: Almost $8 million in 2016 and $9 million in 2017. He also claims that by working pro bono for Trump, his client’s husband is deliberately concealing income and working with people who will have to “reimburse him” at a later date.

Giuliani, on the other hand, is pleading poverty. Because he is working for free and paying his own expenses, his lawyer says he can’t afford to support his wife in the lifestyle to which she became accustomed and had to borrow money to pay taxes.

“My reason for working for President Trump for free is wholly and entirely patriotic, and also because he is my friend,” he told the New York Post.

Meanwhile, they’re reportedly fighting over everything: money, Christmas decorations, remote controls and who gets to hang out in which of the private clubs to which they belong.

Judge Michael Katz told the couple: “It is beyond me why either party in this case would have an interest in having all of this done publicly.” Settling, he said, “would treat their relationship and marriage with more respect than divulging all our dirty laundry out for public consumption.”

That’s not happening. There is some chatter in New York that Judith Giuliani is writing a book — or it might be a savvy negotiating tactic for someone with no prenuptial and a good memory.

The Giulianis’ next court date is scheduled for January. (Read the entire article here.) 

Update #2. See the new cover, featuring Michael Douglas and his son Cameron, here. 

He Chocked

So funny to watch Steve Kerr grovel and pander when asked a simple question about China. He chocked, and looks weak and pathetic. Don’t want him at the White House!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2019

So far Donald hasn't corrected this tweet from last night. If I can find a relevant clip from Friends, I'll update this post. 

Oprah Winfrey

Issue dated October 21, 2019: Oprah


Oprah looks great on this week's cover. What are the five moments that changed her life? You'll have to read the magazine to find out. The teaser article at people.com, linked-to above, only lists two, moving to Nashville as a young girl and swearing off sensationalist TV in 1989. I had Harry on the Guessing Game list; last year Lady Gaga and A Star Is Born were the big news.

Last year at this time: Issue dated October 22, 2018

Resign And Get It Over With? - Updated

Writing at Bloomberg Opinion, political scientist Jonathan Bernstein ponders possible outcomes of the impeachment story. Resignation by Trump is his second-most likely:

With new twists in the story of President Donald Trump’s looming impeachment coming every day — at times seemingly every hour — let’s try jumping ahead to the end. Here are four possible outcomes of this process, ranked from most to least likely.

By far the most likely endgame is that Trump is impeached by the House and then acquitted in the Senate. House Democrats seem determined to move ahead, even if they get no support from Republicans. But on the Senate side, where 67 votes are needed and there are only 47 Democrats, it’s very hard to imagine 20 Republicans voting to remove the president. Gradations of support still may matter. If Democrats wind up with fewer than 47 “yes” votes, for instance, that would be a political disaster; even a single Republican plus all Democrats would be better. Better still for them would be a chamber majority — not least because, if defecting Republicans voted with united Democrats, they could force trial rules favorable to impeachment supporters.

After that, we’re really just guessing. But if I had to bet on a different outcome it would be Trump’s resignation. I’ve seen some speculation that Trump would, unlike President Richard Nixon, fight to the bitter end. But that’s what everyone, including Nixon, expected in 1974. Once Nixon was certain to lose, he realized that putting the nation — and himself — through such an ordeal was pointless. There’s also the possibility of a Spiro Agnew-like ploy. Facing corruption charges, Agnew, Nixon’s first vice president, accepted a deal in which he resigned from office and pleaded no contest to one offense, while the attorney general agreed to forgo further prosecution. If Trump faces prison but could avoid it by quitting, I’d expect him to take that deal. We’re a long way from either scenario, but it’s not hard to see a path from here to there. It would simply require a gradual weakening of Republican support — as it is, very few Republicans are eager to come to the microphones to defend Trump — until eventually it collapsed.

Less likely would be the entire impeachment movement fizzling out in the House. I’d be quite surprised by that at this point. It’s possible that the evidence against the president could turn out to be weaker than it now appears, or that the politics of the situation change. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi no doubt still sees the drawbacks of a party-line impeachment and acquittal. But as of now, it’s hard to see how this train gets stopped. I’m tempted to say this is actually the least likely outcome, except that ...

It’s still difficult to imagine how this ends in removal, something that has never happened to a president. My read of the situation is that a 67 to 33 Senate vote to oust the president is unlikely. Again, there just aren’t 20 Republicans whose support for Trump is soft. That means he’d only be removed after a trial if the whole party turned against him, including a lot of Republican-aligned interest groups and media outlets. The final Senate vote in that case would probably be something like 87 to 13 or even closer to unanimous, with only a handful of radicals holding out.

Even if the party is behind them, however, Republican senators still aren’t going to want to take that vote. Nor are they going to want to sit through a trial that airs Trump’s dirty laundry and might make more than a few other Republicans look bad. Plus, they’re going to be in a hurry to find another presidential nominee while leaving as much time as possible between removing Trump and the election. Which is why, if removal looks like a foregone conclusion, everyone is going to put heavy pressure on Trump to simply resign and get it over with.

I quoted the last sentence in the title of this post, but the second-to-last sentence is interesting too:

... they’re going to be in a hurry to find another presidential nominee while leaving as much time as possible between removing Trump and the election.

Another presidential nominee? If Donald is removed or resigns, Mike Pence automatically becomes president. Wouldn't President Pence also be the obvious (and best) choice to be the 2020 Republican nominee? Apparently Bernstein doesn't think so, and as I've said here before, neither do I. 

Update: Great minds think alike? After I published this post I went to the homepage of the Washington Post, which currently has not one but two stories contemplating the possibility that Donald will not be the Republican nominee in 2020. The first, titled "So if Trump gets removed, who's the GOP nominee?" includes a list of potential replacement candidates, some with comments:

1. Mike Pence. Comments: Pence would start in the pole position if Trump were removed from office. But he has never been a formidable figure to national Republicans, and plenty of party activists - pro- and anti-Trump - would want a fresher start if Trump were gone. He'd have to expect a serious challenge. 

2. Mitt Romney. Comments: If the GOP had to come up with a candidate on short notice, Romney fits the bill. Heck, did he ever stop running for president after 2008? The irony is that if the GOP could/would/had to rid itself of the incumbent president, it would be free to occupy the large void in the middle of American politics. A center-right Romney-Haley ticket would probably get 55% percent of the vote against Warren, or maybe Biden too. 

3. Nikki Haley. Comments: Haley denounced Trump's move to abandon the Kurds. She might be the only person acceptable to both pro- and anti-Trump Republicans. 

4. Tom Cotton

5. Josh Hawley. Comments: Hawley would probably be too young to become the nominee. But he is fast becoming a favorite among evangelical Christians who want someone who shares their values without being too identified as one of them. He would make an attractive vice-presidential pick for the nominee, especially if former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley were to emerge on top.   

6. Jeff Flake. Comments: Mr. Conscience of a Conservative wants Republicans to "save their souls." Perhaps he could convince voters the best place to buy a ticket to heaven is at the ballot box. And as far as his own celestial fate goes, he might earn some points by running instead of telling other people to do it. 

7. Ben Sasse

8. (Tie) John Kasich

8. (Tie) Mike Pompeo

10. Joe Walsh  

Joe Walsh is the only one of the three declared Republican candidates who made the list. Who are the others? Bill Weld and Mark Sanford. Who's Josh Hawley? (I admit I didn't know when I first saw this list. Please don't judge.) He's the junior senator from Missouri, age 39, having defeated Claire McCaskill in 2018. (Read the rest of the article here.)

The second article, titled "How likely is it Trump will be on the ballot in 2020?" is a column from Jennifer Rubin, a regular opinion writer at the Post. Here are her thoughts on the subject, along with the (unpleasant) picture of Donald, taken yesterday, that accompanies her article: 


photo credit: Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg

A normal political party — either for political convenience or some remote sense of propriety — would have dumped this guy a long time ago (before, for example, he consigned the Kurds in Syria to a genocide). Trump and the current Republican Party are anything but normal. Their utter shamelessness and the use of propagandist (false) Fox News keeps them bound together in the belief that they can survive this.

How rational is it for Republicans to not only continue carrying his dirty water but supporting his reelection? They would, in 2020, be running with a candidate who comes into their state (if it is remotely winnable for Trump, who exaggerates what “remotely winnable” encompasses), declaring that going to foreign countries to get dirt on rivals is perfectly fine. Ads tying them to his inane defenses and confessions (there is overlap there, I grant you) will rain down upon them.

A presidential nominee with a track record such as Trump’s, and who lost the popular vote in 2016, and who has done nothing but offend voters outside his core base, would ordinarily portend disaster for his party up and down the ticket. Perhaps the incumbent cowards would rather risk losing and watching the Senate and White House turn over to the Democrats than speak out against Trump. They’d rather go down with the cult, for at least they might have a shot at jobs in right-wing organizations.

Other than that, I cannot think of a single, logical reason the Republican Party would want to go into 2020 with this guy. (Who knows which characters — e.g., former national security adviser John Bolton, Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William P. Barr — will finally testify against Trump in an effort to save their own skins?)

The latest Fox News poll understandably shook up the president, who blasted the network for releasing a harmful poll. His approval is deep in the red (43 percent approve, 55 percent disapprove, with 47 percent disapproving strongly). He is trailing among all women, white women, suburban women (56 percent strongly disapprove) and white college-educated women (57 percent strongly disapprove) as well as white non-college educated women (43 percent strongly disapprove). Unless there are states with no women, Trump looks ready to get pummeled in 2020.

Republicans have been granted an off-ramp from the Trump traffic jam, a way of perhaps saving the Senate and holding down losses in the House. All they need do is declare they will not support him in 2020. It would be easier to get a somewhat competitive candidate to win 30 to 35 percent in an early primary race to help nudge him off stage but it is not, strictly speaking, necessary. All they need is a modicum of common sense and a mammalian survival instinct. Well, yes, that’s why he is still a better than even chance to be the nominee. But the odds are increasing that Republicans one way or another may be forced to shove him aside. When they do, the potential replacement better not be someone who excused the inexcusable. (Read the column here.)  

A few more random thoughts: 

For a brief moment in history, Joe Walsh was my Congressman. He ran in 2010 against incumbent Democrat Melissa Bean and wasn't expected to win. She had exponentially more money in her war chest; he had never been elected to anything and got minimal support from the Republican party. I never saw her name on any list of endangered incumbents or districts at risk of flipping. Because I volunteered on the Melissa Bean campaign, I was at what was supposed to be her victory party on election night. As the night went on the race was too close to call, so eventually they sent everyone home. A couple of days later, after a recount, Walsh was the winner, part of the big Tea Party movement of 2010. He only served one term, however. He was defeated in 2012 by Tammy Duckworth.  

There's one more scenario that's not being discussed much. Call it the LBJ option, or possibly the "declare victory and leave the field" option: If neither impeachment/removal or a Trump resignation happen, Donald could serve out this term but choose not to run in 2020. 

As Donald's troubles mount, are writers and photo editors deliberating using the most unpleasant and/or unflattering pictures of him? It certainly looks that way in my Twitter feed. 

"If the GOP had to come up with a candidate on short notice" These are the words next to Mitt Romney's name on the above list, and as I've said here before, I believe that's the main reason Romney decided to run for a senate seat in 2018. In a post dated January 26 of this year, I wrote this: 

I don't for one minute believe that Romney, at the age of 71, has any real interest in being the 97th-most senior member of the U.S. Senate, which is what he currently is. I've thought from the moment he announced his run that his real reason for getting himself elected to the senate is strategic, based on the belief that Donald may not last his full term: Mittens wants to be in position to raise his hand and humbly offer to serve. (To be clear, and obviously, if Donald leaves office for any reason, the VP automatically becomes president. I'm talking about Senator Romney offering to be the 2020 nominee.) (Read the entire post here.)

Update #2. Jonathan Bernstein continues to point out ways in which Trump's situation is similar to Nixon's, as well as ways in which it is not. Note that in the second tweet, I think he means "kids":

Trump, oddly enough, has more long-time *Republicans* working for him. Which may work the same...or not. But other than his kid and son-in-law, not too many personal loyalists around now, and only a few (Hicks, most notably) who were there but departed.

— Jonathan Bernstein (@jbview) October 13, 2019

Update #3 on Monday evening. A few more unpleasant, or possibly unhinged, pictures of Donald, from his rally in Minneapolis last Thursday night.

From NY Mag:




From the Washington Post:



From CNN:




Update #4 on Friday, October 18. I'm not the only one considering the LBJ scenario. It came up in reporter Aaron Blake's Friday live chat at the Washington Post:

Q: GOP Plan B

Hypothetical scenario. Trump says he's not running in 2020 because why not. Who are the front runners to challenge Biden/Warren?

A: Aaron Blake

Good one!

-Pence

-Haley

-Sasse

-Cruz

-Portman

-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey

And I wouldn't be surprised if Romney looked at it, honestly. (You can read the entire chat here.)

Update #5 on Saturday, October 19. Another bad picture of Donald. I said previously that Trump's increasingly unpleasant appearance is indicative of his deterioriating mental state, and it's still true: 

Trump’s season of weakness: A president who prizes strength enters key stretch in a fragile state @PhilipRucker https://t.co/G4BN9EJ16l

— David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) October 19, 2019

The Guessing Game - Updated

What will be on the cover of People this week? My guesses:

Elton John: His autobiography comes out October 15
Hunter Biden: He's been in the news recently
Amber Guyger: Convicted of murder, sentenced to 10 years in jail. Over the week-end, Joshua Brown, a key prosecution witness in Guyger's trial, was shot and killed
Diahann Carroll: A true pioneer, Carroll died on October 4
Prince Harry: Suing a British tabloid. Another possibility is the Fab Four, i.e., William, Kate, Harry and Meghan, who all appear in a commercial for a mental health initiative
Thomas Markle: After laying low for a while, Meghan's father is back in the news
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds: She gave birth to their third child
Angelina Jolie: She gave an interview to French magazine Madame Figaro; her movie Maleficent: Mistress of Evil opens October 18. Michelle Pfeiffer and Elle Fanning also star
Sarah Hyland: Hospitalized over the week-end

Stories that appear on the new issue will be highlighted in green.

Update. This is the commercial featuring the two royal couples. You'll hear William first, followed by Meghan, Kate and then Harry:

Here is the #everymindmatters commercial which was powerfully supported by William and Kate and Harry and Meghan when it aired on @ITV last night. All 4 Royals contributed with a voiceover to the @NHSEngland campaign. It’s has major exposure ... 👍 pic.twitter.com/eEFHFrXZHE

— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) October 8, 2019

Update #2. Click here to see the new cover, featuring Oprah.

In My Great And Unmatched Wisdom...

As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2019

....the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2019

It's Like A Cow's Opinion. It's Moo - Updated

I wonder what made me think of that?

Now the press is trying to sell the fact that I wanted a Moot stuffed with alligators and snakes, with an electrified fence and sharp spikes on top, at our Southern Border. I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough. The press has gone Crazy. Fake News!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2019

Update: Moot Twitter was having way too much fun with this one. Donald deleted the tweet above and sent out a corrected version:

Now the press is trying to sell the fact that I wanted a Moat stuffed with alligators and snakes, with an electrified fence and sharp spikes on top, at our Southern Border. I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough. The press has gone Crazy. Fake News!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2019

Who cares, right? It's moo:

Tyler Perry

Issue dated October 14, 2019: Tyler Perry


It's Tyler Perry this week, a cover story tied to the opening of the Tyler Perry Studio in Atlanta, which happens Saturday. He also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday. I had Justin & Hailey, and Meghan & Harry, on the Guessing Game list. (Read it here.)

And by-the-way, how does a star get a star on the Walk of Fame? It doesn't just show up out of nowhere. The star has to apply, then promise to show up for the ceremony with a bunch of his or her famous friends. They also have to pay $40,000. Really. You can read more here. And just as the Miss America pageant started as a way to bring off-season tourists to Atlantic City, the Walk of Fame was started by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to bring more visitors to Hollywood. That's one of 25 Fun Facts about the WOF, according to Mental Floss. (Read more here.)

Last year at this time: Issue dated October 15, 2018

Last Exit From Trumpland

Ross Douthat is a Conservative author, blogger and columnist. This is his September 27 column in the New York Times, in its entirety:

Ask an intelligent Republican staffer what they imagine awaits their party after Donald Trump, and you’ll get an interesting disquisition on the factions and figures that might shape conservatism, the political and policy arguments to come.

Ask that same staffer what happens if Trump is re-elected, and you’ll get a heavy sigh, a thousand-yard stare and then a hopeful “Well, maybe we can just pretend he isn’t there …?”

This is the state of Republican politics with impeachment suddenly looming. People are ready for the after, the reckoning to come, the attempted restorations and Trumpisms-without-Trump, the great Nikki Haley-Tucker Carlson brawl.

But if Trump survives impeachment and somehow gets re-elected, there will be no after Trump, not yet and not for four long years. Instead Trump will bestride his party like a decaying colossus, and his administration’s accelerative deterioration will be the G.O.P.’s as well. There will be no second-term policymaking, no John Kelly to stabilize the ship — just a floating hulk drifting between the icebergs of recession and foreign crisis, with all American conservatism onboard.

Outside the ranks of the truest Trump believers, most Republicans anticipate very bad things in 2022 and 2024 if the Trump Show continues uninterrupted. And most would happily fast-forward through that show if the magical remote control from that terrible Adam Sandler movie were suddenly available.

My days of writing high-dudgeon columns demanding that Republicans act in concert against Trump are behind me; cynicism and bemusement define my attitude toward G.O.P. decadence these days.

But in a bored-Roman-aristocrat drawl, I just want to suggest — mildly, dabbling my hands in a convenient finger bowl — that the current impeachment inquiry might, in fact, be that magical remote control: a chance to hit fast-forward and summon the post-Trump future into existence here and now, for the 2020 campaign.

Hitting the button requires only two things: the swift, before-primary-season impeachment schedule House Democrats are entertaining and then 20 Republican votes in the Senate for conviction, if the Trump-Giuliani operation in Ukraine looks as bad in a few months as it does today.

Of course the second thing is a political near-impossibility. But we’re fantasizing here, my dear Petronius, so we can imagine how it might happen. Start with Mitt Romney, add the four retiring Republican senators, plus the most embattled purple-state 2020 incumbents, plus a clutch of Republicans most at risk in 2022, plus the handful of the senators who don’t face the voters till 2024 … and then you’re just a few Republicans of principle away from 20.

In voting to remove Trump (and to bar him, as an impeachment can, from simply running for president again immediately), these 20 would allow the other 33 Republican senators to stand by him, thank him for his service and promise to Make America Great Again themselves. And the more ambitious among the latter group of senators would then compete to succeed Trump, while his wrath was concentrated against the treacherous 20.

That competition would be the next phase of our fast-forward: With Trump gone, everyone from Haley and Carlson to Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley could jump into an accelerated primary campaign against the unloved Republican “incumbent,” Mike Pence. The result would be, in effect, the 2024 G.O.P. primary four years early — with the possibility of either pre-empting a President Elizabeth Warren or preventing a Trump second term’s likely demolition of the G.O.P.

Of course this is just a pleasant conceit, whose mere description by a Trump critic like myself will irritate the many conservatives for whom it’s absurd to imagine any upside to allowing Democrats and the media to eject a fighting conservative president from office.

I think these conservatives underestimate, as liberals did with Bill Clinton long ago, the advantages in jettisoning a corrupt leader. (An Al Gore presidency was a better timeline for Democrats, even though it would have required the horror of letting Ken Starr win.) But I certainly can see ways in which, after so much elite failure and populist anger, having elites (indeed, the C … I … A!) work to remove a populist president just before his re-election campaign could make our toxic politics that much worse.

But I would still ask — swirling my wine and adjusting my NeverTrumper toga — worse than what? Worse than a world where Trump survives impeachment, the Ukraine miasma chokes Biden’s campaign, Warren proves less electable than her supporters hope, we replay 2016 with the Electoral College and enter a second Trump term with the ship of state rudderless, Democrats yet more radicalized, and all those icebergs looming for the country and the G.O.P. alike?

In the event we do arrive in that world, consider this column a casually tossed marker for the Republican Senators who will probably vote to keep Trump in office, in case they find themselves very unhappy with the ultimate result.

You can’t say that you didn’t have an early exit from the Trump era. You can’t say you didn’t have a choice.