Slate Voice

Last week’s decision by House Intelligence Committee Republicans and the White House to declassify a misleading, politically charged memo about evidence in the Russia investigation is yet another example of our toxic political environment. But it also points to another problem—one that existed long before President Trump—about how the U.S. government inconsistently and ineptly treats classified information and Americans’ poor understanding of that process.

On its face, the so-called Nunes memo regarding government surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page in 2016 does little to undermine the case against President Trump and his confederates. It does not contradict the indictments against Paul Manafort or Rick Gates nor explain the plea agreements of Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, nor extinguish questions about the extent to which Russia interfered in the election—either in collusion with the Trump campaign or not.

On May 15, 2015, just a few months before the U.S. and other world powers signed a nuclear deal with Iran, President Barack Obama convened what was to be a high-profile meeting of Middle East leaders at Camp David. King Salman of Saudi Arabia, however, was a no-show. King Hamad of Bahrain elected to go to a horse show in the U.K. instead. The elderly rulers of Oman and the UAE also stayed home, citing health concerns.

President Trump has proposed nothing less than a vast overhaul of the country’s immigration policy, seeking an end to the diversity visa lottery and family sponsorship programs in favor of a system that would privilege immigrants from mostly white countries.

Adapted fromFantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History © 2017 by Kurt Andersen. With permission from Random House. All rights reserved.

Donald Trump hasn’t created the massive “deportation force” he promised as a candidate for president. But he has done the next best thing—boosting, bolstering, and unleashing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, giving it broad authority to act at its own discretion. The result? An empowered and authoritarian agency that operates with impunity, whose chief attribute is unapologetic cruelty.

How far will the Republican Party go to defend Donald Trump? That’s an open question as he accumulates power and insulates himself from accountability. In recent days, we’ve learned that last year, Trump didn’t just fire FBI Director James Comey, who was leading the Russia investigation.

President Trump tried to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. That fact, reported Thursday night by the New York Times and confirmed by sources for the Washington Post and other papers, shreds the assurances from Republican lawmakers that Trump would never attempt such a thing. It also bolsters key elements of the case for impeachment.

This Spiel originally appeared onThe Gist and has been edited and condensed for clarity. Donald Trump is a lot of things: incurious, incompetent, inattentive, inaccurate, insular, and infuriating. Is he insane, or—more broadly speaking—is he not well? Is he not fit? Is he not stable and also so far from genius as to be judged a blithering idiot? In his book Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff says, “Some believe that for all practical purposes, he was no more than semiliterate.

On the second day of the first government shutdown of Donald Trump’s presidency, one narrative began to rise above the rest: Blame the Democrats. Republican lawmakers and Trump advisers blitzed the airwaves on Sunday to explain why Senate Democrats’ demand for a DACA fix tethered to a funding bill is irresponsible and unreasonable. (DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is an Obama-era executive policy that allows undocumented people who came to the U.S.

Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, is becoming President Trump’s right arm in the Senate. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and Cotton, a right-wing ideologue, is helping to steer the president. Either way, Trump’s behavior in the immigration debate—turning against a legislative compromise after Cotton was summoned to a White House meeting to oppose it—illustrates the young senator’s influence.

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

Ben Shapiro was 5 feet 2 inches and extremely prepubescent when, in the mid-1990s, he enrolled as a sophomore at a private Jewish high school in Los Angeles. The scrawny new kid had skipped ahead two grades, was too smart, talked too much, and got brutally bullied. Things came to a head when, on an overnight school trip, a few of Shapiro’s classmates handcuffed him to a bed and beat him with their belts.

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

Over the past year, I developed a stock answer for when new acquaintances asked what I wrote about. “It used to be language, books, and culture,” I’d say. “Now it’s language, books, culture, and Trump.” While the rise of the former Apprentice star changed my beat explicitly—after the election, I was tasked with critiquing his political performance as theater—this general turn Trumpward is an experience most journalists share.

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

Last week, during an Oval Office meeting, Donald Trump disparaged African and Haitian immigrants. Since then, he and his allies have tried to revise or cover up his remarks. To understand what Trump said and why his friends are trying to doctor the record, you have to understand how the immigration debate echoes the debate over another racially charged issue: affirmative action.

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice