BY PRIYANKA ARIBINDI, BRIAN BEUTLER & CROOKED MEDIA
Friday, March 1, 2019 | President Trump has capped off a week marked by incriminating testimony and diplomatic failure by picking a fight with the family of a young American murdered by the North Korean regime. On Friday, the parents of Otto Warmbier issued a statement rebuking Trump for absolving North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un of their son’s death. "We have been respectful during this summit process,” they said. “Now we must speak out. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuses or lavish praise can change that.” On Thursday, Trump said he “take[s Kim] at his word,” that Kim “didn’t know” that Warmbier’s captors were brutalizing him. "I don't think that the top leadership knew about it," Trump explained. "I don't believe that he [Kim] would have allowed that to happen." Not content to walk back this obscene betrayal, Trump responded to the Warmbiers’ criticism, which was echoed by Republicans including his former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), by lying: “I never like being misinterpreted,” he tweeted, “but especially when it comes to Otto Warmbier and his great family.” Against a backdrop of Republicans accusing Democrats of being secret Stalinists, Trump has spent the week flattering an actual Stalinist dictator. In an interview with Sean Hannity Thursday, Trump said of Kim, “He is very sharp,” “a real leader,” “I like him.”
This spectacle will continue until Trump has decided that returning to a hostile posture toward Kim will pay him more political dividends than trying to reach some kind of peace agreement. Trump is incapable of not brown-nosing dictators he wants something from or who have leverage over him, and is also incapable of processing criticism or turning the other cheek. And this made a confrontation with the Warmbiers, along the lines of his attacks on the Khan family during the 2016 election, inevitable.
| The House Ways and Means Committee will demand several years of President Trump’s tax returns, and is ready to take “all the necessary steps,” including litigation, to get them. Ways and Means chairman, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), had been reluctant to request the returns, which the committee is entitled to by law, but Michael Cohen’s testimony earlier this week about Trump’s financial crimes appears to have forced his hand. | A new Pentagon proposal, stemming from peace negotiations with the Taliban, aims to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan in the next five years. Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) launched his 2020 presidential campaign Friday, and promises to center his candidacy around the issue of climate change. Inslee argues that fighting climate change and its catastrophic consequences has to be the country’s top priority and is one of the few Democratic candidates to advocate for eliminating the filibuster in order to actually implement popular progressive ideas. House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings has demanded the White House’s “full and immediate compliance” with requests for information regarding Jared Kushner’s security clearance, including staff memos detailing President Trump’s insistence that Kushner receive a clearance over the strong objections of top intelligence and White House officials. Ridesharing app Lyft filed the paperwork to go public, beating rival Uber to the punch. Now all they have to do is figure out how to make money. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) became the fourth Senate Republican to oppose Trump’s national emergency declaration—all but guaranteeing that both houses of Congress will pass bipartisan language rescinding the declaration, and Trump will have to veto it. Jordyn Woods told her side of the Khloe-Tristan-Jordyn cheating saga publicly on Jada Pinkett Smith’s web show, but Khloé was quick to call her out for “lying.” In other Kardashian news, Kylie Jenner—Jordyn’s best friend—has reportedly accused her partner Travis Scott of cheating too. Big day for the rumor mill and for all of you people who make this garbage profitable! (From Priyanka: I did not write that last part.) Coming soon to your neighborhood: A cheaper Amazon grocery store? Toni Harris has become the first woman to receive a full scholarship to play college football. Harris, an ovarian cancer survivor, will play defensive back at Central Methodist University in Fayette, MO. | On Sunday, HBO will air the first part of Leaving Neverland—a four-hour documentary about pop superstar Michael Jackson and two men who accuse him of sexually abusing them as minors. Jackson’s estate vehemently denies these allegations, and has filed a lawsuit against HBO. Earlier this year, Lifetime produced Surviving R. Kelly—a docu-series that brought national attention back to over a decade’s worth of abuse allegations against another music-industry giant. | FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has presented a plan to the White House to ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes at convenience stores. If the policy is adopted, a convenience store or gas station selling e-cigs would have to sell them in a separate room, and require ID from customers before they’re allowed to enter that room. | Donald Trump, Jr., helped associates infiltrate the National Security Council to pitch a plan to “turn Venezuela’s strongman president, Nicolas Maduro, into a U.S. stooge,” so that they could access Venezuela’s oil and make tons of money. Read about this and the other crazy ways the Trump administration harmed national security out of malice and greed in this wild lookback by Politico. → | Employees are overloaded with requests to collaborate, but a tech solution without an underlying strategy won’t solve the problem. Forbes Insights and Dropbox Business can help → | SIRI, SHOW ME SELF-REGARD. | Did someone forward you this email? Sign up to get What A Day in your inbox! Want to advertise with us? What are you waiting for?! | |
