Thursday, April 13, 2017

WaPo's Daily 202 (Yet Again)

Once again: if you're not receiving the Washington Post's "Daily 202" email, you're missing out.

It's a great quick summary, it's grounded (not screaming partisanship, just verified facts), and it catches lesser-known stories while offering smart, fresh perspective. It not only informs me, but it helps me digest what I already know.

Here's the beginning of today's:
THE BIG IDEA: West Wing staffers always matter, but never more so than when the president they serve lacks deep ideological convictions. It is clearer than ever that whoever has Donald Trump’s ear controls the direction of the country.

-- Reflecting the declining influence of chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and the growing power of former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, Trump broke Wednesday with several populist and nationalist positions that he espoused on the campaign trail:

1. The president pledged his full support for NATO. “It was once obsolete; it is no longer obsolete,” he said during an afternoon press conference, after meeting with the organization’s secretary general. “I complained about that a long time ago, and they made a change — and now they do fight terrorism.” Fact Checker Michelle Ye Hee Lee notes that, as recently as March 22, Trump called the trans-Atlantic alliance “obsolete, because it doesn’t cover terrorism.” He was incorrect: NATO has been involved in counterterrorism since 1980, and especially since 9/11. Nothing has changed, except his position.

2. He told the Wall Street Journal he will not label China a “currency manipulator.” As a candidate, he pledged to do so on his first day in office. Just last week, Trump called China “the world champion” of currency manipulation in an interview with the Financial Times. Yesterday, he changed his tune. “They’re not currency manipulators,” he told three Journal reporters in the Oval Office. Besides, he explained, talking about how they manipulate their currency could jeopardize his talks with Beijing about confronting the nuclear threat of North Korea.

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