Good Monday morning.
Good Monday morning.
Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios
In our lifetime, no president has matched Donald Trump’s ability to summon the power of pulpit + friendly media + the tweet-by-tweet power of repetition and persuasion to move minds en mass, Axios CEO Jim VandeHei writes:
Why this matters ... Trump and allies are floating untested legal arguments: The president can't obstruct justice, or can unilaterally shut down probes of himself, or can even pardon himself. If you think he won't try something unprecedented — and maybe get away with it, at least with Republicans — you aren’t paying attention.
A few data points to marinate in:
A case in point on being numb: Trump's retaliation against Amazon.
Tim Miller, a Republican and the former spokesman for Jeb Bush, nailed the nothing-is-abnormal-when-everything-is-abnormal phenomenon in a tweet about a piece he wrote for Crooked Media:
Then consider this small but telling example of persuasion:
Remember this: Hayden might be right. It is possible that no matter what Mueller finds, no matter how extensive or incriminating, Trump survives.
New overnight ... "A group of top business economists believes the major tax cuts President Trump pushed through Congress will give a significant boost to economic growth this year and next year. But they worry that by 2020, the country could be entering a new recession," AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger writes:
"The NABE economists are 'slightly less optimistic about the U.S. economy in 2018 than they were three months ago,' says NABE vice president Kevin Swift, chief economist at the American Chemistry Council."
P.S. Wall Street Journal lead story, "Global Growth Loses Steam: Shift dims outlook for stocks as some investors turn to safer assets such as bonds." (Subscription)
"[N]ot enough nuclear experts may exist to visit the hundreds of buildings, track down the voluminous records and conduct the comprehensive inspections required to verify compliance" with a North Korean denuclearization deal, the L.A. Times' David Cloud reports:
Debbie Nathan, writing for The Intercept about mass court proceedings that result from the administration's "zero tolerance" policy for illegal border crossers:
"Facebook Gave Device Makers Deep Access to Data on Users and Friends: The company formed data-sharing partnerships with Apple, Samsung and dozens of other device makers, raising new concerns about its privacy protections" — N.Y. Times' Gabriel J.X. Dance, Nicholas Confessore and Michael LaForgia:
"Facebook officials defended the data sharing as consistent with its privacy policies, the F.T.C. agreement and pledges to users. They said its partnerships were governed by contracts that strictly limited use of the data, including any stored on partners’ servers. The officials added that they knew of no cases where the information had been misused."
The students of March for Our Lives, including survivors of the Parkland high school shooting, today will announce a 60-day, 20-state, 75-stop summer bus tour to register young people to vote and to promote gun law reform.
David Hogg, 18, who graduated yesterday with the other seniors of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, told me in an interview Saturday to promote the tour that his biggest surprise as he travels the country has been: "There’s a lot more love than hate out there."
Another key leader of the tour is Parkland grad Emma González, 18, whose powerful moment of silence was a highlight of the Washington rally.
The tour launches Friday, June 15, at a Peace March in Chicago, led by students from St. Sabina Academy. From there, students will make 50 stops in states that include Texas, California, South Carolina and Connecticut.
Shannon Recor leaves yesterday's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School graduation. (Lynne Sladky/AP)
NBC "Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon was the surprise graduation speaker yesterday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a gunman killed 17 people in February:
"Silent forms of protest make bold statements at Parkland graduation" — CNN: "Numerous members of the class of 2018 wore sashes bearing the message #MSDStrong, the school's rallying cry after the February mass shooting."
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
The new flashpoint in the climate change debate is over the role of oil companies — whether they're culprits, allies, or something of a frenemy, Axios' Amy Harder reports in her weekly "Harder Line" energy column:
Vulnerable Senate Dems have found a common villain: the pharmaceutical industry. They're highlighting both drug prices and the opioid epidemic as they try to make their cases to voters, Axios' Caitlin Owens reports:
P.S. Elections = volatility ... "If 2016 is any guide, pharmaceutical, biotech and other healthcare stocks could be in for a rough summer and fall heading into another round of U.S. elections," Reuters' Lewis Krauskopf reports:
A surprise "Star Wars" flop ... “Solo” is crashing at light speed, according to The Wall Street Journal's Erich Schwartzel (free link):