Axios

Donald Trump is now well-recognized as the president who hasn't been bound by the same niceties as his predecessors — whether on Twitter or in public remarks. He sparked controversy again this week, when he impugned past presidents for not calling families of service members killed in combat — the latest incident where his inclination to speak off the cuff went beyond the normal remarks of prior presidents.

Bottom line: It was assumed that after taking office Trump's rhetoric would become more mild, but he's proven that he will continue to say what he wants. As Axios wrote in March, Trump is Trump, "the one guy who's NOT CHANGING is a 70-year-old billionaire with his name on the building."

Most Americans, 58%, don't have high expectations for President Trump's legacy, according to a new Marist Poll. The poll found that 42% of those surveyed believe Trump will be remembered as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history and 16% believe he is a below-average leader.

Why it matters: "Deep into his first year as president, Donald Trump's less than stellar approval rating has lowered expectations about how history will judge him," Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said in a statement. "For history to treat him kinder, he will have to up his game."

Senator John McCain is writing a memoir titled "The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations," which will be published by Simon & Shuster's this coming April, according to the AP. The Senator received a brain cancer prognosis in July, five months after signing on for the book deal, and has become an emboldened critic of President Trump.

Why it matters: The memoir has already changed its focus since McCain's diagnosis, from international issues to more of a reflective work on McCain's experience and career, per AP. Originally, the title was slated to be: "It'sAlways Darkest Before It's Totally Black." "This memoir will be about what matters most to him, and I hope it will be regarded as the work of an American hero," said Jonathan Karp, president and publisher of Simon & Schuster's.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced it will host Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for a public hearing about passing a new authorization for use of military force (AUMF). Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump have all used a broad 2001 AUMF to justify military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

After Mattis and Tillerson participated in a closed-door session with senators this August, Senator Tim Kaine said they "did not specifically reject" a new AUMF. Rand Paul's proposal to repeal the 2001 AUMF was shot down by a 61-36 vote.

President Trump has personally interviewed at least two candidates to fill the open U.S. attorney vacancies in New York, reports Politico: Geoffrey Berman for the U.S. attorney post in the Southern District of New York, and Ed McNally for the Eastern District of New York.

The interviews are unusual for a president, and have raised concerns among critics of potential conflicts of interest, as U.S. attorneys are supposed to operate independently from the president. Matthew Miller, former Department of Justice spokesman under the Obama administration said Thursday that Obama never interviewed a U.S. attorney candidate during his two terms.

The White House's defense: "These are individuals that the president nominates and the Senate confirms under Article II of the Constitution," a WH official told Politico. "We realize Senate Democrats would like to reduce this President's constitutional powers. But he and other presidents before him and after may talk to individuals nominated to positions within the executive branch." Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York who was fired in March, tweeted Wednesday: "It is neither normal nor advisable for Trump to personally interview candidates for U.S. Attorney positions, especially the one in Manhattan." And this isn't the first time Trump has done this. Politico points to Senate Judiciary documents that reveal Trump met with Jessie Liu, the candidate for U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, earlier this year. That meeting raised questions from Democrats in particular, though she was later confirmed. "For him to be interviewing candidates for that prosecutor who may in turn consider whether to bring indictments involving him and his administration seems to smack of political interference," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told Politico.

"The right way to help declining places: Time for fresh thinking about the changing economics of geography" — The Economist's lead editorial:

• "Populism's wave has yet to crest. That is the sobering lesson of recent elections in Germany and Austria, where the success of anti-immigrant, anti-globalisation parties showed that a message of hostility to elites and outsiders resonates as strongly as ever among those fed up with the status quo."
• "It is also the lesson from America, where Donald Trump is doubling down on gestures to his angry base, most recently by adopting a negotiating position on NAFTA that is more likely to wreck than remake the trade agreement."

An implicit rebuke of the Republican president was the focus of blunt remarks this week by Sen. John McCain ("half-baked, spurious nationalism") and George W. Bush ("Bigotry seems emboldened").

David Brooks writes in today's column: "Books will someday be written on how Trump, this wounded and twisted man, became morally acceptable to tens of millions of Americans."

Be smart: McCain and Bush have nothing to lose, and see themselves in the twilight of their closing careers. But it's stunning how few in power — and who want to stay in power — say anything like this in public.

Speaker Paul Ryan poked fun at Trump during last night's 72nd annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation white-tie dinner, which always draws top politicians, and includes a comedy routine for New York elite (via AP and NYT):

• "Enough with the applause ... You sound like the Cabinet when Donald Trump walks into the room."
• "I don't think I've seen this many New York liberals, this many Wall Street CEOs in one room since my last visit to the White House."

Sexual abuse in Hollywood. Social media abuse in Silicon Valley. Political abuse in the White House. Dive into Twitter for a few minutes, and these can feel like the worst of times. So everyone, and the GOP establishment in particular, seems hungry for moral clarity.

White House aides, beaten down by criticism from friends and beleaguered by the words and actions of the boss, got a rare moral boost from Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly as he offered a highly emotional and highly personal explanation/defense of Trump's outreach to families who lost young men in Niger.