Over a July dinner with Oracle CEO Safra Catz — who has been mentioned as a candidate for several potential administration jobs — McMaster bluntly trashed his boss, said the sources, four of whom told BuzzFeed News they heard about the exchange directly from Catz. The top national security official dismissed the president variously as an “idiot” and a “dope” with the intelligence of a “kindergartner,” the sources said.
A sixth source who was not familiar with the details of the dinner told BuzzFeed News that McMaster had made similarly derogatory comments about Trump’s intelligence to him in private, including that the president lacked the necessary brainpower to understand the matters before the National Security Council.
It was only a few weeks ago that the Secretary of State called POTUS a “f*cking moron.” Now we learn that the National Security Advisor called him an “idiot” and a “dope.” We must never become numb to just how dangerously unprecedented this all is.
The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit to block AT&T’s takeover of Time Warner, the parent company of CNN.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Monday, is an unusual challenge to the $85 billion deal, which was announced by the two companies more than a year ago. AT&T says it will fight the case in court.
In the suit, the DOJ argues that the deal violates antitrust law because AT&T would likely “use its control of Time Warner’s popular programming as a weapon to harm competition.”
The government alleges that the deal “would result in fewer innovative offerings and higher bills for American families.”
Josh Marshall provides the caution.
I generally oppose all mega-mergers like this for a host of reasons. But I have very little doubt that what is driving this is President Trump and his feud with CNN. There’s abundant evidence to that effect, which makes this highly dangerous.
* Kellyanne Conway last week:
Whatever the facts end up being, the premises, of course, the principle, the incontrovertible principle, is that there is no Senate seat worth more than a child. And we all want to get that put forward. I have three daughters and a son, frankly, and we’re all watching this.
Kellyanne Conway today:
Kilmede: So, vote Roy Moore?
Conway: I’m telling you that we want the votes in the Senate to get this tax bill through.
* Jim Wallis writes that, “A year into Trump’s presidency, Christians are facing a spiritual reckoning.” This struck me as an accurate description:
Christians, rightly enough, have never expected perfect leaders — just those who can keep up their end of the moral struggle. But for Trump, there is no moral struggle. He is not immoral — knowing what is right and wrong, and choosing the wrong — he rather seems amoral: lacking any kind of moral compass for his personal or professional life. That’s why the Christian compromise with Trump and his ilk has put faithful Americans at such serious risk.
* I’m not going to tell you why this song is on my mind today. I’ll simply say that it is one of my favorite Beatles tunes and I hope you’ll enjoy listening to it as much as I did.
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