Obviously, the come-from-behind overtime win by the Patriots over (my beloved) Falcons was the biggest news from Super Bowl Sunday. But in Washington the talk this past weekend was consumed by the president’s latest controversial remarks about Vladimir Putin and a judicial fight over his travel restriction executive order. There’s also reason to believe that after a tumultuous start to the Trump administration, led in large part from the White House by senior counselor Steve Bannon, other forces within the administration are trying to reassert their own influence with the most powerful man in the world.
What to Expect This Week
The Trump executive order restricting travel into the United States from seven Muslim nations was suspended by a federal judge in Washington state on Friday—and, thanks to a Sunday ruling by the Ninth Circuit federal appeals court, the suspension will remain in effect, at least until sometime on Monday.
There will be more confirmation votes for Trump cabinet appointees, including an expected vote on Education secretary-designee Betsy DeVos (who will likely need Vice President Mike Pence’s tiebreaking vote).
Trump—who has already tweeted his congratulations to close friends Tom Brady, Bill Bellichick, and Patriots owner Bob Kraft—probably hasn’t said his last this week about New England’s win in Houston.
Trump on America: “Our Country’s So Innocent?”
The uproar began on Saturday, when Fox News released an excerpt from Bill O’Reilly’s pre-Super Bowl interview with Donald Trump in which the veteran TV host pressed Trump to explain why he “respects” Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“Well I respect a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get along with him,” Trump said. “I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world, that’s a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea.”
O’Reilly pushed back: “But he’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer.” Trump replied by saying “there are a lot of killers.”
“We’ve got a lot of killers,” he continued. “What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”
Conservatives and liberals alike expressed everything from dismay to outrage over the suggestion that the United States government had engaged in acts like that of Putin’s government in Moscow, which has committed oppression, violence, and even murder against political opponents in Russia and abroad.
The White House has not responded to multiple requests for comment about what the president means. But in the full interview airing before the Super Bowl, O’Reilly challenged Trump’s suggestion. “I don’t know of any government leaders that are killers,” he said. “Well, take a look at what we’ve done too. We made a lot of mistakes. I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning,” Trump said.
O’Reilly argued a mistake isn’t the same as being a “killer.” “A lot of mistakes, but a lot of people were killed. A lot of killers around, believe me,” the president responded.
It’s not the first time Trump has drawn a moral equivalence between the United States and Putin’s Russia. More than a year ago, calling into Morning Joe, the future Republican nominee was essentially asked the same question by host Joe Scarborough: How can you unequivocally praise a strongman who kills political opponents and journalists, and whose government invades foreign countries with impunity? “Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe,” Trump said.
Poppy Bush Flips
One of the best moments of the Super Bowl came right at the beginning, when George H.W. Bush, fresh out of the hospital after a serious health scare, took to the field with his wife Barbara (also recently admitted to the hospital) for the coin toss. The 92-year-old former president looked eager to flip the coin and thrilled to be a part of the excitement at Houston’s NRG Stadium. It’s worth a watch if you missed it.
Reince On the Rise?
At the New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush do their typically thorough job at revealing the details of the inner workings of Trump world. They report changes are coming to protocol at the White House, where Steve Bannon and his consigliere Stephen Miller have had free rein (particularly on the drafting of executive orders). Here’s an excerpt:
Priebus, who has imported a sizable part of the White House staff from his last perch at the Republican National Committee, was also seen watching the Super Bowl with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Bannon and company are more ideologically aligned with the president, and there’s no evidence Trump is shifting anywhere on policy. But as Haberman and Thrush report, Priebus is offering Trump another way to approach his presidency that achieves his goals and avoids self-destruction. The turmoil over the travel ban may have been a good example for Trump of how not to run things. The widespread praise for his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court—and the willingness of Trump to listen to outside experts in order to find and select Gorsuch—could offer him a positive case for embracing more conventional strategy.
In Ronald Reagan’s first term, White House chief of staff James Baker was out-of-step ideologically with the front-line soldiers of the Reagan revolution. Baker was also viewed suspiciously by Nancy Reagan, and some conservatives tried to oust him from his job (only to be reproached by Reagan). But Baker’s knowledge of Washington and his singular purpose of implementing the president’s agenda were a big part of making Reagan’s first four years in office a success. Priebus may be looking to the Baker precedent. The question is, will Trump follow Reagan’s lead?
The Gorsuch Gambit
Speaking of Reagan, Trump’s best tribute to the Gipper so far in his short presidency is the nomination of Gorsuch to succeed the late Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch approaches the law from an originalist philosophy set forth largely by Scalia, a Reagan appointee, making the Colorado native a natural heir, as Terry Eastland wrote in an editorial for the latest issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
Also worth a read from our new issue is Fred Barnes’s tick-tock report of how Trump came to select Gorsuch for the job. Read a snippet below:
Song of the Day
“Everybody Hurts,” REM
