“His dick smaller than my toes,” CupcakKe reveals on the hook of her new song. “I’d rather ride Squidward nose.” It’s called, naturally, “Squidward Nose,” named after the plump, dangling appendage that hangs in the middle of the beloved SpongeBob Squarepants character’s face. And it is, I’m very pleased to inform you, a banger.
Eschewing the more skeletal production of modern hip-pop, “Squidward Nose” is brassy and bold, largely bypassing clever innuendo for real talk: “All about the head like I’m in beauty school / I said roses are red, might turn your balls blue.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg of CupcakKe’s lyrical prowess, but I won’t spoil the fun. Just listen.
Earlier this week, CupcakKe was admitted to the hospital after an alarming tweet where she referenced suicide. A day later, though, she posted that she was doing OK: “I went to the hospital & im finally getting the help that I need to get through , be happy , & deliver great music . thanks for all the prayers but please don’t worry bout me.”
The next day, she posted that “Cleaning has been so therapeutic for me lately” with a trio of photos at Walmart.
“Squidward Nose” is the first bit of new music we’ve heard from CupcakKe since last year’s Eden album. She’ll be hitting the road for some U.K. and Ireland tour dates in a few months. Check those out here, and listen to the great new song above.
What you say in therapy stays in therapy. That’s the beauty of it. Except, however, in the case of three close friends, who tried out text therapy and decided to share their sessions with the entire internet, baring their souls for all the world to see.
Robyn Kanner, Akilah Hughes, and Timothy Goodman hit publish on their text therapy sessions in December 2018, baring their trauma and innermost private thoughts for all the world to read. It was a scary thing for each of them; a moment that caused them sleepless nights, and concerns about the reception their sessions might garner from readers.
That’s how the Friends With Secretsproject was formed — a project that allows readers to scroll through a series of conversations between Kanner, Hughes, and Goodman and their respective online therapists. As you read through the conversations, you read the stories that have shaped these three humans’ lives, the trauma they have endured, the thoughts they don’t share with most people in their lives. Witnessing these messages passing back and forth makes for raw, vulnerable, and incredibly moving reading. Their sessions not only are an insight into the personal struggles faced by millennials, they also explore how race, gender, wealth, and class intersect with mental health and can limit people’s access to mental healthcare. They picked five sessions which best told the “general story” of their four months of text therapy and published them online.
Image: friends with secrets
So, why text therapy? Goodman tells Mashable that during their conversations about the things happening in their personal lives, the topic of text therapy had come up because it’s “kind of trendy” currently. Text-based therapy is a form of talking therapy which uses messaging instead of in-person conversation.
Online therapy — which often involves the use of video chats — has been studied extensively. Researchers in one 2012 large-scale study found that “telemental health services” decreased patients’ “hospitalisation utilisation” by around 25 percent. But, as Wirecutter notes, “peer-reviewed studies on text therapy are small” so it’s currently difficult to assess the efficacy of this particular form of therapy. A 2013 peer-reviewed study of 30 patients of text therapy found patients reported strong relationships with their text therapists. John Torous — director of the digital psychiatry division at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center— told Wirecutter that “text therapy is really unknown” and “there are a lot of assumptions being made.” Talkspace is a popular text therapy provider, which matches individuals up with an assigned licensed therapist, who they’ll speak to every session. The structure of the sessions really depends on the provider — sometimes therapists respond once or twice a day, others message patients back and forth in real-time. In the case of Friends with Secrets, the online therapy takes the form of asynchronous messaging.
“Sharing personal stories is a very intimate way to connect to other people, other lonely people in the world, human beings.”
The nucleus of the idea formed in January 2018 when all three friends were going through a lot of different things in their personal lives, says Goodman. “We’re all creative people and artists, the three of us, so I think we have a strong desire to express ourselves and share stories and so we wanted to create something that was meaningful and powerful for us but also for other people,” says Goodman.
In an age where companies collect and share data about our lives, sharing stories about mental health online can come with a real risk. But Goodman and Kanner — who are both self-employed — say that they are accustomed to putting themselves in their work, and that they don’t know what they’d do if they weren’t able to express themselves. “I work for myself, and I have been putting my “self” in my work for 5 years now,” says Goodman. “With Instagram and Twitter, so many of us put our personal lives out daily, I don’t see the big deal. Maybe it’s generational.” For privacy reasons, they have changed the names of the therapists they spoke to and not shared the brand of the text therapy service they used.
Image: friends with secrets
“Sharing personal stories is a very intimate way to connect to other people, other lonely people in the world, human beings,” says Goodman. “A lot of things that the three of us talk about are painful, but they’re the reality for millions of other people so by publishing them it, it takes a lot of the stigma away.” Not only that, Goodman has found the process of sharing his stories publicly therapeutic and says it has made him feel less alone when other people connect to it. “I think that’s a really powerful tool,” he tells me.
Rather than sharing screenshots on social media, the text sessions have been published on a website — a deliberate choice given the intimate nature of the stories being told. Kanner says that Twitter and Instagram are a “hard place to have a conversation” like this.
“A lot of things that the three of us talk about are painful, but they’re the reality for millions of other people so by publishing them it, it takes a lot of the stigma away.”
“They’re wonderful platforms but they can be garbage to dive into the nuance of a relationship, or other experience, or other trauma,” says Kanner. “Some of the stuff that I say in the first couple of sessions, if that was a Twitter thread, like, I’d be ruined.”
In one of the sessions, Kanner — who identifies as a trans woman — describes being sexually assaulted by a trans woman. “I open up talking about a sexual assault between a trans woman and me. Like, that’s not a story that’s supposed to be told, no one wants to tell the story of trans women hurting each other.” “There can be so much bad that comes out of a story about ‘this trans woman hurt me,’” she adds.
One particular moment in Kanner’s second session was particularly striking. When talking about her adolescence, she tells her therapist Jennifer about the first time she ever talked to someone about gender. “I looked up forums online and saw this post from a trans person about how suicide hotlines were good because they’d let you talk about gender,” Kanner tells Jennifer.
Image: friends with secrets
Kanner explains that she would call every single night and would talk to an adviser about gender for as long as they would allow. “Isn’t that so fucked up? The only way I knew how to get people to talk to me about my gender was to act like I wanted to die,” she tells Jennifer. Kanner tells me that her story is about one of many “access problems” that trans and non-binary youth face. “For me, that happened about 2005 when I was on the phone with a suicide helpline acting like I wanted to die to talk about gender. That was a very of-the-moment thing,” she says. This experience is one that other trans and non-binary teens growing up during that particular era might relate to. Kanner says that, a decade later, the conversation is a little different for young trans kids wishing to talk about gender.
Both Goodman and Kanner have mixed feelings about their experience trying out this form of therapy. Kanner found being able to read back over the sessions helpful in helping her identify her dependence on alcohol, which prompted her to get sober. In Robyn’s final session, she writes that she’s “got to fucking stop all of this” in reference to her self-harm and alcohol use. Her therapist ends that session stating her hope that Robyn has “noticed the changes” in herself over the course of their time and conversations.
“I know I drink about my trauma, but over time that behaviour has gotten much harder. Now, as a person with a little bit more time in sobriety, I feel like there are so many other healthy coping mechanisms for me to deal with,” Kanner tells me. “These therapy sessions, being able to read them, being able to spend time with them, helped me see that all much clearer.” For Goodman, who had previously seen a therapist in person for six or seven years after college, this experience prompted him to get back in touch with his therapist and to start back with in-person therapy.
“I like the idea being able to relate to someone in a physical sense when talking about my personal struggles and fears and traumas, that’s important,” he says. “There were times when I felt disconnected, but there were also times through the process where let my therapist help me despite the fact that we’re talking digitally.” Because Goodman was going through “a lot of depression” at the latter part of his sessions, he decided to go back to see his old in-person therapist.
As for how the sessions have been received online, Kanner and Goodman say they’ve received an overwhelmingly positive response. Starting out, they’d been concerned that people might perceive the project as a group of “self-centred millennials whining about their issues,” says Goodman. But, people have reached out to tell them that they’ve related to their stories. “People are really identifying with it because sharing personal stories, I believe, is a form of activism,” says Goodman. “People see themselves in us, and I’ve heard so much it’s encouraging people to consider therapy or text therapy or to go back to their therapist or whatever.”
Goodman says that in his conversations with people who’ve reached out to him, he’s been asked for advice on what to do when therapy isn’t an affordable option. He says he’s advised people to double check with employers to see if they cover the cost of therapy. If not, he’s advised people to look for support groups or mental health centres in their communities, and to research if any training clinics at universities might offer services. Kanner says others have contacted her to say they’ve started therapy after reading their sessions.
If you’ve read the sessions and feel troubled or concerned, Kanner wants readers to feel assured that they are all doing well. Goodman got himself back into in-person therapy as he was living with depression at the time and said he realised he needed to be “more proactive” about his mental health. “Time has been a really good medicine. Anybody reading it right now, be aware a lot of these things are heavy, a lot of them have been addressed in a really positive way,” says Kanner. “So, there’s hope.”
If you want to talk to someone or are experiencing suicidal thoughts, text the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. For international resources, this list is a good place to start.
If you have experienced sexual abuse, call the free, confidential National Sexual Assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673), or access the 24-7 help online by visiting online.rainn.org.
There will be a new iPhone with an LCD screen this year.
This is according to a report by The Wall Street Journal, which claims the company is planning to launch a new version of the “struggling” iPhone XR, the LCD-equipped, lower-cost iPhone Apple had launch alongside the high-end iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.
The report does not say anything else about the upcoming LCD-based iPhone XR, except that 2019 might be its last year, as Apple is considering dropping it in 2020.
Despite media reports, Apple would likely disagree that the iPhone XR was a flop. In a recent interview, the company CEO Tim Cook said the iPhone XR has been “the most popular iPhone every day” since it began shipping. And even if the iPhone XR is as good as Apple would like it to be, the company still isn’t likely to drop it after just one year, given all the money it likely spent on development and marketing.
The report also claims Apple will launch two OLED-based iPhone models alongside the iPhone XR this year, just like it did in 2018. According to WSJ’s sources, the company will increase the number of rear cameras to three on the biggest model, while the successors to iPhone XR and the iPhone XS will have dual rear cameras.
The ever-increasing number of cameras is a clear trend in smartphones. Samsung’s biggest Galaxy S10 is rumored to have a total of six (four on the rear and two on the front), and several manufacturers launched phones with three rear cameras this year, and Apple is likely to follow suit.
Finally, the WSJ says Apple is considering removing some features from its 2019 iPhones in order to reduce costs. One feature that might get cut is 3D Touch (which is already absent from the iPhone XR, and I doubt too many users noticed).
In the middle of the celebration, there’s Cameron Jordan, flexing and smiling.
To Jordan’s right, one knee on the ground, Eli Apple is in the same pose, minus the smile.
Behind Apple, Vince Biegel is giving the double front biceps.
On the ground on Jordan’s left, David Onyemata shows off one big left arm.
Other players get in on it, too—the scene coming together after an interception in a 48-7 win over the Eagles in mid-November. The photo of it taken by The Advocate, which would later make the rounds on social media and bulletin boards, perfectly captures what this Saints defense has become.
There’s a lot of muscle on display. And a lot of joy.
While the Saints offense gets most of the bouquets, their defense has provided balance and hope this season, finishing second in the NFL with 1,283 rushing yards and 3.6 yards per carry allowed and just three sacks shy of the league lead with 49.
“When we take the field, we are going to prove we are the best on the field … and that’s going against anybody,” Jordan says. “All of our defensive players have the same mindset. We’ll take over the run game, make a team one-dimensional, get a couple turnovers and get the ball back to Drew [Brees] and our offense and put our team in the best position to win.”
And they’ll do it with style, striking poses all the way.
“We always say what we need is one picture a game, when the whole defense runs out to the field after a big play, celebrating, feeding off each other,” safety Vonn Bell says.
The Saints defenders now have a chance to pose for more photos at the expense of the Eagles. The teams meet again Sunday in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
These celebrations, Jordan says, are “organic” and involve considerably less preparation than the plays that inspire them. “We don’t have extra time to practice anything,” he says. “We’re focused on trying to become a better defense.”
Many defenses across the league are posing for pictures these days, but the Saints say the tradition started with them. Bell says the first photo op came after a big play against the Lions in October 2017.
“The league stole our swag with that,” he says. “So we’ve got to come up with something new for the playoffs. We have to have something new up our sleeve.”
So get your camera ready.
Remember: This is the team that finished in the bottom five in the NFL in points allowed four times from 2012 to 2016.
The Saints defense became stuck in a rut as its 2009 Super Bowl players dispersed and the haze from the Bountygate scandal, which broke in 2012, complicated any rebuilding effort. They jumped from Gregg Williams to Steve Spagnuolo to Rob Ryan before settling on Dennis Allen as their defensive coordinator in November 2015.
Before they’d promoted Allen, the team’s decision-makers, coach Sean Payton and general manager Mickey Loomis, had already decided to recommit to the defense.
“There had been some turnover, and we didn’t do as good a job with personnel during that period,” Loomis says. “We needed to fill some holes, get smart on defense and give our guys on defense more bullets.”
They hired Jeff Ireland to oversee personnel and used six of their nine picks on defense in the 2015 draft. Then they used seven first- to third-round picks on defensive players from 2016 to 2018, including the 12th pick in 2016 on defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins and the 11th in 2017 on cornerback Marshon Lattimore.
LattimoreMike Ehrmann/Getty Images
Lattimore was named Defensive Rookie of the Year after a five-interception first season, but it took Rankins a while longer to find his groove. He didn’t become a starter until his second season, and even then he had only two sacks. Teammates had taken to calling him Chris Paul, because like the NBA guard, he specialized in assists.
Rankins re-evaluated himself after the 2017 season. On the advice of his agents, Buddy Baker and Matthew Pope, he spent a good portion of the offseason at St. Vincent Sports Performance in Indianapolis, where trainer Brandon Johnson held him accountable daily, hourly.
“We worked on a plan of attack, all of the things I wanted to improve on,” Rankins says. “I watched a lot of tape of myself and was able to see things, understand why things weren’t working. I felt I didn’t use enough power.
“I’ve always been extremely confident about my athletic ability, being able to move well for my size and get around guys. But guys are great athletes in this league, so you have to be able to play that chess match and keep guys on their toes.”
With more power in his game, Rankins has been crushing it, doubling his previous career high with eight sacks this season, in addition to career highs with 15 QB hits and 12 tackles for loss. And the interior chaos he has created has been a primary reason for the improvement in the Saints defense.
“Ranks has been unreal this year,” Saints defensive end Alex Okafor says. “Everybody saw glimpses last year, but he put it all together this year. I haven’t seen a D-tackle play the way he played.”
Jim Mone/Associated Press
Three players who came to the Saints in 2018—weakside linebacker Demario Davis, defensive end Marcus Davenport and Apple—also have had impacts.
Last March, Davis was coming off a 135-tackle season but was seen as expendable by the Jets and was about to change teams for the third time in three seasons.
Davis had been a middle linebacker for most of his career, but the Saints thought he could be better on the weak side and signed him to a three-year, $24 million contract. With impact on multiple levels, he has been one of the best free-agent acquisitions in football. He was the only player this season to have at least 110 tackles, five sacks and 10 quarterback hits.
Davis also was elected a team captain by teammates before ever playing a down.
“That shows you’ve done something more than prove you can cover a running back in the flat or come downhill in the run game,” Rankins says. “It shows you are touching people on a different level. He’s a hell of a player, hell of a man.”
The Saints wanted a pass-rusher in the draft, but they didn’t have much hope of getting the one they were excited about with the 27th pick in the first round. So they packaged that pick with their 2019 first-rounder to get the 14th pick, which they used on defensive end Marcus Davenport.
Coaches weren’t counting on an immediate impact from Davenport, a raw player coming out of Texas-San Antonio. But since being drafted, he has put on about 20 pounds and has made a number of flashy plays. Pro Football Focus named him to its all-rookie team, citing 28 quarterback pressures and just one missed tackle.
“We like the arc he’s on,” Loomis says.
Early in the season, the Saints struggled with pass defense. In October, they traded fourth- and seventh-round picks to the Giants for Apple, who had been the 10th overall selection in 2016. Opponents have thrown at Apple more than Lattimore, and Apple has been streaky, but he also has been an upgrade.
Grant Halverson/Getty Images
“He’s been the biggest improvement over last year,” says Hall of Fame coach and NBC analyst Tony Dungy.
Apple has fit in with the Saints defensive backs in part because they come from the same place. Apple, Bell, Lattimore and safety Kurt Coleman are all Ohio State alums. “We know each other and how each other plays,” Bell says. “That helps.”
In a divisional playoff game against the Vikings last January, the Saints had a one-point lead with 10 seconds left. That’s when safety Marcus Williams put his head down and completely missed a tackle on Vikings receiver Stefon Diggs, allowing him to run 61 yards for a game-winning touchdown as time expired. The Minneapolis Miracle, they called it.
When the 2018 season began, the Saints defense played as if it was still feeling Miracle-whipped. In what was easily their worst performance of the season, the Saints allowed Ryan Fitzpatrick to pass for 417 yards and four touchdowns in a 48-40 Bucs win in Week 1. Bucs receiver Mike Evans had 147 yards with Lattimore covering him.
It looked like Diggs and the Vikings might have taken more than that game from the Saints. They had taken their confidence and passion.
Saints defensive coordinator Dennis Allen told Dungy the Saints were not practicing well early in the year. Lattimore and some of the defensive backs, he said, had been taking it easy.
Jonathan Bachman/Associated Press
The defense started playing with more of an edge against the Giants in the Week 4. Since then, the defense has been remarkable. And it’s because of its effort.
“You see guys hustling, more tenacious than the opposing offense,” Jordan says. “That’s something we take pride in.”
It started with Jordan.
“Cameron Jordan is the lynchpin, the leader,” Dungy says. “Yeah, he’s a talented guy, but he plays hard on every play, run and pass. He’s chasing down running plays across the field. When your best player does that, it rubs off on everyone. That effort and energy they play with is more important than the X’s and O’s.”
Chris Graythen/Getty Images
That should not minimize what Allen, the former head coach of the Raiders and a current candidate for the Dolphins head coaching position, has done. After the initial rough patch, Allen simplified the game plans, according to players.
Wherever there is an NFL logo, Allen is respected. His staff is pretty good, too. It includes former 49ers head coach Mike Nolan, who handles linebackers; former 15-year NFL cornerback Aaron Glenn, the secondary coach; and fireball defensive line coach Ryan Nielsen.
Their work is evident in the way the Saints play the run. They held Saquon Barkley to 44 yards, Todd Gurley to 68 and Ezekiel Elliott to 75.
“It starts with our front four,” linebacker A.J. Klein says. “They control the line of scrimmage and make our job as linebackers easier. Coach Ryan coaches those guys hard and they are very detailed. The linebackers have been playing great as well. And the back end in the run game, having a loaded box, everyone has been tackling well.”
Says Loomis: “Our run defense has been spectacular. It’s probably as good as I can ever remember it being.”
The pass defense is a little problematic. The team has given up 300 yards or more passing just twice in its past eight games, but overall it allowed more passing yards than all but three teams.
Part of this can be attributed to the fact that opponents haven’t been able to run on the Saints. Part of it can be attributed to forcing opponents to keep up with Brees and the Saints offense. And part of it can be attributed to the slow start.
But for the Saints to get where they want to go, they are going to have to keep enemy quarterbacks in check. They know this.
“Nothing,” Jordan says, “is taken for granted with this defense.”
This defense has created a ruckus around New Orleans in places other than the Superdome.
On many Thursdays during the season, the boys have a night out. About 15 to 20 defenders share a meal along with some lies and laughs, usually in the French Quarter. GW Fins, Doris Metropolitan, Delmonico, Chophouse New Orleans and Desi Vega’s are among the places that have been rocked by Jordan and friends.
Jordan, who knows his way around town, picks the place. Former Saints running back Fred McAfee, who is the team’s director of player development, often assists with the reservations.
“We’re cracking jokes, having good conversations, enjoying some good food,” Rankins says. “We go into a restaurant and take it over. Something silly is always happening.”
That sometimes includes tableside dancing. “We’ve got a dancing team,” Rankins says. “If there is room to do it, it will happen.”
Says Jordan, “You throw some music on, you are going to have guys dancing and gassing each other up.”
Scott Cunningham/Getty Images
One way or another, they demand attention.
The Saints defense has only one Pro Bowl player, Jordan, though they believe Davis and Rankins should have made the team, too.
Dungy says Allen has convinced his defenders that they are the players who should be carrying the Saints. The defenders have taken it to heart.
But the Saints defense isn’t about stars. It’s about teamwork and discipline and doing little things correctly.
Other defenses have been praised more. The Saints defense has even been obscured by its own offense. And they are OK with that.
“We realize other teams are going to be talked about more and other defenses will be talked about more,” Jordan says. “I don’t really care about the outside opinion of if we are overlooked.”
The Saints defenders are pleased with themselves, regardless of if anyone else is.
Rankins: “Man for man, we stack up with anybody.”
Bell: “I think we compare with anybody in the NFL.”
Okafor: “I think our defense is second to none. We can play as well as any of those defenses in the playoffs, and we expect to do that.”
Bill Feig/Associated Press
The Saints held the Eagles to seven points in November. But the Eagles have a different quarterback now—the reigning Super Bowl MVP.
“We have to be able to make Nick Foles uncomfortable in the pocket,” Jordan says. “He has extreme poise in the pocket. We have to do what we have to do to try to eliminate his confidence.”
And if the Saints get past the Eagles, a rematch with either the Cowboys (whom the Saints lost to 13-10 in November) or the Rams (whom the Saints beat 45-35 in November) awaits.
“We want another shot at the Cowboys offense,” Okafor says. “We didn’t play as well as we wanted to that Thursday night. To get a shot to redeem ourselves in the playoffs at home would be huge for us.”
Regardless of the opponent, the Saints defenders believe the postseason will be about them, celebrating big plays in end zones as flashes pop.
“We always gonna make a play,” Bell says. “Always gonna make a picture.”
Dan Pompei covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danpompei.
Everyone who’s seen Netflix’s delightful romcom To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before can attest to the fact that the chemistry between the Lana Condor and Noah Centineo is absolutely electric.
Even though their movie relationship is a pretend one, Condor’s character Lara Jean and Centineo’s Peter really hit it off.
Condor told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that she and Centineo also really hit it off in real life. So much, in fact, that they made a contract much like the one in TATBILBF.
“I felt something,” Condor told Fallon about first meeting Centineo. “We kind of did what we did in […] the movie. We made a contract and set boundaries.”
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman remains in regular contact with his adviser Saud al-Qahtani, accused of masterminding the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post reported.
The newspaper, citing unnamed US and Saudi sources, said that Prince Mohammed, also known as MBS, continues to seek advice from Qahtani.
David Ignatius, the paper’s security affairs correspondent, quoted an unnamed US citizen who had recently met MBS as saying that Qahtani is in possession of a lot of files and dossiers.
“The idea that you can have a radical rupture with him is unrealistic,” the source said.
A Saudi who is close to the royal court concurred.
“There’s stuff [Qahtani] was working on that he may have to finish, or hand over,” he said according to The Washington Post.
Qahtani worked as an adviser to MBS after serving in several positions within the royal court [Al Jazeera]
The last official government comment on Qahtani was on November 15, when prosecutors said he was under investigation and was barred from leaving the kingdom.
He was dismissed as a royal adviser following Khashoggi’s murder, but the ambiguity surrounding his status has raised questions about whether he continues to have influence behind the scenes.
Qahtani is believed to have played a pivotal role in Khashoggi’s assassination by first trying to draw him back to Saudi Arabia. He met the Saudi hit team before they left for Turkey and allegedly gave orders to kill Khashoggi if he refused to return to his country voluntarily.
Ignatius quoted another Saudi source as saying that Qahtani had recently made two trips to the UAE, even though he was presumed to be under house arrest in Riyadh.
The adviser also reportedly met recently with senior deputies from the royal court’s Centre for Studies and Media Affairs at his home in Riyadh and told them that he had been blamed and “used as a scapegoat.” Qahtani had run the centre until shortly after Khashoggi’s death.
Continuing repression
The paper reported that “far from altering his impulsive behaviour,” MBS “appears instead to be continuing with his autocratic governing style and a ruthless campaign against dissenters,” according to US and Saudi sources.
It said the Trump administration had hoped that the Saudi royal would learn something from Khashoggi’s killing and make some changes.
“Domestically, he feels very confident and in control. As long as his base is secure, he feels that nothing can harm him,” the US source who had recently met MBS said.
“He’s completely unchastened by what has happened,” an experienced Saudi-watcher based in the UK said. “That is worrying for Western governments.”
One example that shows how MBS hasn’t altered his Qahtani-style internet bullying tactics is a new aggressive social media campaign launched this week to attack Khashoggi and Canadian-based Saudi critic Omar Abdel Aziz.
Ignatius said the Twitter hashtag “Fact” was used to present the alleged involvement of the two men in anti-Saudi plots financed by Qatar.
A video on Twitter titled “Qatar System Exposed”, produced by a company with the same name as a Dubai-based video studio, alleged that Khashoggi was part of a plot to “create a new destabilizing Arab Spring to unsettle Arab countries, mainly, Saudi Arabia”, reinforcing what the source said about Qahtani’s visit to the UAE.
Anata, occupied West Bank – A newly-opened highway in the occupied West Bank has been hailed by Israelis but condemned by Palestinians, who are calling it the “Apartheid Road“.
It’s the first operational section of an eastern ring road around Jerusalem that could deny Palestinians access to parts of the West Bank and threaten a future Palestinian state.
Route 4370 has a high wall in the middle, topped with fencing that segregates the road into two separate two-way lanes.
The western side is for Palestinians in the West Bank to use to go around Jerusalem, which they cannot enter without an Israeli military-issued permit, while the eastern side serves Israeli settlers going to and from Jerusalem.
Palestinians from the village of Anata, which lies on the outskirts of Jerusalem but is separated from the city by Israel’s barrier wall, say part of the highway is built on Anata’s land.
‘They want to take that land’
“Anyone can see the Israelis’ plan,” said resident Ahmed Rifea. “A few months ago they wanted to take Khan al-Ahmar”, a the Bedouin village that garnered international attention after the Israeli government issued a demolition order against it. “Now they build this new road? They want to take that land,” Rifea said.
Originally encompassing 35,000 square km of land, Anata has shrunk to a little more than 1,000 square km because more than 90 percent of it lies in Area C as agreed by the Oslo Accords, that puts it under total Israeli civil and security control.
The Rifea family owns hundreds of dunams (tens of hectares) of land in Anata, but almost all of it has been confiscated by Israel for road and illegal Jewish settlement construction.
The road has red “dangerous for Israelis to enter” signs that signal a Palestinian-only route [Megan Giovannetti/Al Jazeera]
Route 4370 runs northeast of Jerusalem past Khan al-Ahmar and the illegal Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim – in a controversial area known as E-1, which lies on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities want to annex E-1 as part of their “Greater Jerusalem” plan to redraw the borders of the city – Khan al-Ahmar, stands in the way, which may be why Israel ordered it demolished.
Expanding Jerusalem further east would create room for more settlement growth, connect Maale Adumim to the city as a suburb, and ease the housing crisis for Jewish Israelis in Jerusalem.
The annexation of E-1 would also displace about 140,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem towns and villages, like Anata.
Moreover, it would continue Israel’s fragmentation of the West Bank by bisecting the northern Palestinian cities from the south, making any potential future state of Palestine less viable.
A ‘gift’ from Israel
According to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) spokesperson’s office,”The construction of the new road was intended to shorten and optimise travel times for Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria,” – using the biblical name for the West Bank.
Israel Afrayat, the transportation coordinator of the Israeli civil administration appeared in a promotional video explaining the purpose of the new road and why Israel has ‘gifted’ it to the Palestinians.
The road is meant to “serve all people”, Afrayat said in the video, which is published on the Arabic language Facebook page of COGAT.
“Our goal is safety first – to protect your children,” Afrayat said.
Representatives in both the Palestinian ministry of public works and housing as well as the ministry of transportation said they were not notified and had no information about the opening of the new road.
The old road offered Palestineans access to Jerusalem [Megan Giovannetti/Al Jazeera]
“The main purpose of this road is to connect Maale Adumim with Jerusalem and to separate Palestinians from their land, especially people from Anata,” Jihad Shobaki, an officer at the Palestinian ministry of public works and housing, told Al Jazeera.
The Israeli activist group Ir Amim agreed and said that the highway “eliminates one of the obstacles to settlement construction in E-1 and should signal cause for heightened vigilance”.
According to Ir Amim, the northernmost part of this “Apartheid Road” was always intended to “solve” the dilemma of maintaining at least transportation contiguity between northern Palestinians cities with the south while diverting them from the E-1 and Jerusalem areas.
The highway was initially conceived more than a decade ago by the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. International pressure delayed construction for years.
Rifea said he found out about the road being opened through the COGAT Facebook page. Other Anata residents learnt through the notice distributed to them by COGAT stating that it is forbidden to build on their own land within 300 metres of the new road.
“If they close the road, they shut off people from their land. As always, when Israelis open one thing, they close another,” Shobaki said.
“In the end, we will use [the road]. What can we do?” Rifea said.
The Anata-Azzayim road became the first operational section of the Eastern Ring Road in the West Bank – also known as the ‘Apartheid road’ [Megan Giovannetti/Al Jazeera]
Sometime between the series finale of Gossip Girl and the birth of Kate Middleton’s second baby, I gave up emulating the women I saw on TV. For too many of my teenage years, I had found myself struggling to pull off that wavy CW hair and awkwardly speaking in pointed sound bites à la ABC’s Revenge. Eventually, when I got over myself (and consequently, my collection of rhinestoned Claire’s headbands), I wrote off the idea of idolizing anyone with a primetime cable slot.
Then came I’m Sorry and with it, its star and creator Andrea Savage. This blisteringly funny comedy series has given me not only one of my favorite TV shows ever, but also a sense of comfort and confidence in looking up to a woman who doesn’t seem to be taking any of life’s shenanigans all that seriously despite working in the high pressure world of comedy writing. With the premiere of I’m Sorry‘s Season 2 this past Wednesday, here is my best sales pitch on why Savage’s remarkably delightful series should be your next laugh-out-loud binge.
Before I’m Sorry began airing on truTV in 2017, I knew very little about Savage and her impressive comedy career. Of course, I’d seen her in Step Brothers and on Veep, but I’m Sorry represented for me and many others the first opportunity to fully appreciate Savage’s talents. Taking center stage as a heightened version of herself, Savage steered her semi-autobiographical show’s first season through the anecdotes of her real life, adding in other stories from her writers room along the way. What resulted was an unapologetic and fresh five hours of quality comedy, centered around—dare I say it—a bonafide role model.
Watching Andrea wait in line for a cup of coffee could give most 30 Rock hijinks a run for their money.
Throughout I’m Sorry‘s first season, Andrea and her husband Mike, played by Tom Everett Scott, face relatively run-of-the-mill obstacles, situations, and people. Living in Los Angeles and raising their young daughter, the pair copes with a healthy combination of successes and hiccups, none of which are particularly noteworthy. (Okay, the ass cubes thing was of note.) As a result, the comedic beats of the show are delivered almost entirely through the cutting observations and witty back and forths of its imperfect, but lovable characters.
Under the harsh spotlight of a limited plot, I’m Sorry‘s edgy and tight dialogue rarely falters. From the dark side of The Sound of Music to the ritualistic nonsense of goddess parties, Savage rips through topics with a fervor and finesse rarely seen outside the world of late night stand-up. Simply put, watching Andrea wait in line for a cup of coffee could give most 30 Rock hijinks a run for their money—not an easy feat.
There’s something about I’m Sorry that makes you not only want to laugh, but cause loving laughter in others as well.
That being said, I’m Sorry‘s hefty comedic chops are not its main selling point. At the core of every zinger, Savage has maintained a loving warmth for her characters and audience, an often overlooked ingredient in successfully sharp comedy. By allowing her messy characters to consistently present with well-intentioned kindness as well as quippy retorts, Savage has made the best of two regularly opposed worlds. Despite the show’s need for juicy, mockable source material, Savage has carefully crafted a world blissfully devoid of low blows—inviting her audience into each joke with a rare, but welcome “we’re all friends here” mentality.
To wit: Now on my fourth rewatch of Season 1, I can confidently say, I’m Sorry tends to bring out the best in its viewers. I have watched this show with friends, family, coworkers, and even airplane acquaintances. Each time, as the credits have rolled, my viewing partners and I have fallen into surprisingly zesty banter, a contagious side effect of the show’s irresistible rhythm.
The hysterically cringey, but relentlessly forgiving world of Savage makes you not only want to laugh, but cause loving laughter in others as well, mistakes be damned. That desire, to be good while still having a good time, is one worth celebrating—even if it has to start and stop with an “I’m sorry.”
Season 1 of I’m Sorry is available on Netflix. Season 2 is now airing on truTV Wednesdays at 10/9c.
It’s been barely a week since Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, and already the I-word is flying around Washington. “We’re going to impeach the motherfucker,” Rashida Tlaib declared jubilantly mere hours after being sworn in. Longtime members Brad Sherman and Al Green filed articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on the first day of the new session. And the president, for his part, is clearly spoiling for the fight, declaring in a Rose Garden news conference, “Well, you can’t impeach somebody that’s doing a great job.”
Now what?
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The Democrats could pass articles of impeachment tomorrow on a party line vote. As you may have noticed, they haven’t. The Sherman-Green impeachment measure was always seen as dead on arrival, and for political and practical reasons, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has no plans to change that anytime soon. But, with a boisterous and empowered Democratic majority now stalking the halls of Congress—one half of it, anyway—the impeachment question is now suddenly real in a way it hasn’t been since Trump was elected.
The progressive left, a key part of the Democrats’ base, isn’t likely to stop agitating. New York Times editorial writer David Leonhardt published a detailed, count-by-count bill of charges against Trump last Sunday that mentioned the I-word no less than 12 times. Billionaire activist Tom Steyer this week traveled to Iowa where he announced he would sink more money into his campaign to impeach Trump instead of mounting his own White House bid. Since the midterms, the question has gone from anti-Trumpist fantasy to practical gamesmanship—something being discussed in Capital Hill offices and hallways, at law firms and among party strategists and leaders.
In one sense, Trump is as vulnerable as he’s always been. In another, the risk is huge. The collision of anti-Trump forces with his powerfully loyal base—to say nothing of the president’s own thirst for conflict—would guarantee the most explosive political disruption in generations. If the effort misses, the blowback could easily propel Trump back into office in 2020, with a reinvigorated base bent on revenge.
“If they’re dumb enough to impeach him, they’re going to lose the House and he’s going to be reelected and there won’t be a Senate trial,” said Joseph diGenova, an informal Trump adviser and frequent Fox News pundit. “That’s what’s going to happen, and I hope they do it.”
So, what would an impeachment really take in the Washington of 2019, and how would it all go down? To answer these questions, POLITICO interviewed more than two dozen sources, including sitting Republican and Democratic senators and members of Congress, current and former Capitol Hill aides, political operatives, historians and legal experts. The story that follows is the most detailed accounting, anywhere, of what dominoes need to fall if House impeachment articles were really to move forward, how a Trump trial in the Senate would go down and what—if anything—might break the Senate GOP majority apart enough to vote to remove their own president from office.
The picture won’t be consoling to anti-Trumpers who hope it will be easy, but neither will it reassure loyalists who see any attack on the president as off-limits.
Impeachment is rare, and every generation comes with its own set of complications, but with Trump there are parts you really can game out, from how the known details of his misbehavior might play to the bigger economic and political factors that would serve as impeachment’s backdrop. It’s also possible to work through the Senate Republican Conference vote by vote, with a likely breakdown of just where, and when, the necessary splits might start to occur. There are also wildly unpredictable elements, starting with just what special counsel Robert Mueller turns up in his investigation—and ending with a Senate proceeding that has many of the features of a courtroom trial, but that is also much looser, and could require far more, or far less, than a courtroom for conviction.
As you read this, remember: No president has ever actually been removed from office by impeachment. The House impeached Andrew Johnson on 11 different counts in 1868, angry about how Abraham Lincoln’s successor was handling reconstruction after the Civil War, but he ultimately avoided Senate conviction by one vote. More than a century later, Richard Nixon resigned from office rather than face impeachment; in late 1998, in a highly partisan vote, the House impeached Bill Clinton on two counts, but he didn’t come close to being removed by the Senate—a lesson in overreach not lost on today’s Congress. “If and when the time comes for impeachment—it will have to be something that has such a crescendo in a bipartisan way,” Pelosi, the decisive player in any potential move by Democrats to impeach Trump, told CBS in an interview that aired Sunday.
If Trump were really to be the first, here’s what to watch for as the dominoes fall. Welcome to the Only Impeachment Guide You’ll Ever Need.
I. The Mueller Factor
Nothing is hanging over Trump’s head like the investigation into whether his 2016 campaign conspired with Russia to win the White House. Mueller, legendary as one of the most ambitious, aggressive and methodical directors ever to lead the FBI, is perhaps the most widely respected investigator in America. And since he’s a lifelong Republican, only the most die-hard wing of the Trump base can dismiss his work as the kind of partisan-driven overreach that discredited the investigation into Bill Clinton.
Mueller was appointed under a different set of rules than Clinton investigator Kenneth Starr, and this time there is no requirement that he deliver a detailed report to Congress. (Starr’s report in 1998 nearlybroke the earliest iterations of the internet, with some 20 million Americans logging on to read his graphic account of the president’s sexual trysts with a White House intern.)Mueller needs to send his findings only to his Justice Department supervisor, although the expectations are high that Congress will ultimately get its hand on some version of that document, and that its details will make their way to the public.
So far, Mueller has cut a wide swath through Trumpworld, securing guilty pleas from Trump’s former national security adviser; his longtime personal lawyer; and the chairman who helped run his 2016 presidential campaign, along with his deputy. Federal prosecutors working with Mueller have also implicated Trump in a set of campaign finance crimes, and the president has posted tweets and made public statements that many legal experts say could be used to charge him with obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
Any of those scandals, on their own, might have brought down a president in the past. With Trump, none has moved Congress any closer to impeachment. And despite the party handover in the House, they’re still not that close. So when Mueller does complete his work, his findings would need to include something genuinely big, and genuinely new—at least one or more pieces of irrefutable evidence that Trump has committed “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” the loosely defined grounds for impeachment spelled out in the Constitution.
In the case of Trump, the experts I spoke with said that for the Senate to actually move toward conviction—meaning at least 20 Republican senators voting to remove a Republican president—Trump would likely need to be incriminated for betraying the nation itself, not just for campaign violations, or improper behavior like paying hush money to porn stars.
What could rise to that level? Bear in mind that Trump has already faced accusations similar to those that brought Nixon down—he admitted on national television tofiring FBI Director James Comey to end the Russia investigation; and there’s plenty of evidence that he has tried to intimidate witnesses who could deliver incriminating evidence against him and lied to the public about his actions as part of a wider cover-up. Several sitting senators and members of the House, along with other close observers of Congress, told me Trump would need to face charges bigger and darker, and with the smoking-gun clarity of Nixon admitting to his schemes on tape.
For instance: actual documents showing that Trump himself knew his 2016 campaign was working in concert with Russia to win the White House, and signed off on the arrangement. Or a money-laundering scheme run through the Trump Organization on behalf of foreign governments or oligarchs, rendering the president susceptible to blackmail and extortion. If there’s hard evidence that those foreign powers shaped his policies while president, that could seal the deal even for some Republicans.
Whether Mueller’s investigation will uncover anything like this remains the most addictive guessing game in Washington. The special counsel has been on the job for nearly 20 months, and has so far shown himself to be a by-the-book operator, which cuts two ways: He won’t be scared off a scent, but it’s unclear how far he’ll stray from the original mission. Remember that the investigation that led to Clinton’s impeachment started with a 15-year-old real estate deal, but the impeachment charges themselves came from a long side investigation into whether the president obstructed justice and lied under oath about his affair with the White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
Mueller has yet to reveal any public threads of a conspiracy directly connecting Russia and Trump’s campaign, though attorneys for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort earlier this week disclosed an intriguing detail that raises new questions about collusion: Their client shared polling data during Trump’s 2016 race with a Ukrainian associate who has ties to Russian intelligence.
Even the Republicans I spoke with acknowledged that serious revelations about the president that aren’t yet in the public domain would be hard for their party to defend. “I think a lot of people would shift if the president clearly illegally evaded taxes the way his father did, or that he is beholden to a foreign government,” said Rick Tyler, a Republican operative who has worked for Newt Gingrich and Ted Cruz, and has been an outspoken advocate of the Never-Trump camp even as his former bosses contorted themselves into presidential allies.
If the president is actually indicted for a crime, that obviously changes everything.”
John Cornyn of Texas, a senior member of the Senate GOP leadership whose job until January involved whipping votes in the upper chamber, said the Senate was far from likely to support removing a sitting president and called the act of impeachment “basically a futile gesture.”
But pressed on whether the special counsel’s investigators could uncover anything that would alter those Senate dynamics, Cornyn replied, “If the president is actually indicted for a crime, that obviously changes everything. But right now all I see is speculation and people who have no knowledge of what Director Mueller actually has speculating on what could happen. I don’t think that’s particularly productive. It may be interesting, but it’s not based on facts.”
Mueller may not be only important source of fresh evidence. There are the federal prosecutors in New York who convicted Michael Cohen, the former Trump attorney, and with whom Cohen continues to cooperate. There’s the newly elected Democratic attorney general in New York, who campaigned on a pledge to investigate Trump’s finances, businesses and charitable foundation. And there are the House Democrats, whose newly won congressional subpoena power could be a game-changer. They plan to launch a slew of investigations in 2019, including a re-examination of Trump campaign ties to Russia; allegations of money laundering between the Trump Organization and foreign interests; and whether Trump as president has personally enriched himself in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. House Democrats also are planning a careful push to make the president’s personal tax returns public.
Trump could dig himself in deeper, as well. Though he’s restrained himself from ending the Mueller probe, I spoke to one senior Republican official in touch with the White House who predicted Trump’s reaction could cause the president problems if the Russia investigation turned personal and Trump’s closest family members—his son Donald Trump Jr., daughter Ivanka Trump or her husband, Jared Kushner—faced criminal charges. “Everyone knows he surrounds himself with dirtbags and weak people and psychopaths,” said the official. “But the family is the family and that’s a lot closer to Trump than anything else.” That’s the situation where Trump might overreact, issuing blanket pardons or ordering up a Nixon-like Saturday Night Massacre, firing Mueller and the senior ranks of his own Justice Department.
“To me, that’s the red line,” said the official. “If that gets crossed, then everything changes in both parties.”
II. The Big Picture
Though Americans tend to think about impeachment as a legal proceeding, it’s far more a political matter than a legal one: The Constitution’s vague language leaves it up to congressional interpretation by design. Political scholars and D.C. insiders agree that impeachment simply won’t happen unless a sitting president looks politically vulnerable. A sudden downward turn in a couple of important barometers will go a long way toward determining whether Trump’s core supporters across the country—and their elected representatives—would actually abandon him.
This means, first and foremost, the economy. A president sitting on a booming economy is likely to be reelected, and a president likely to be reelected sits in a political castle that his own party would never storm. But a shaky economy—or, worse, a serious downturn—makes even a celebrity president with a die-hard base look vulnerable.
Nixon’s resignation came on the heels of not just a spiraling scandal, but a crash in the global stock market, an international oil crisis and a recession on the domestic home front that would have cast a pall on his administration even without Watergate. Clinton, president during a years-long growth spurt, survived an impeachment attempt easily.
Trump, over the past two years, has governed through an economic roller coaster, with about 4 million new jobs created and rising wages but fears of a recession and global economic decline never far from the surface. In just the past month, stock prices have taken record turns in both directions, while a government shutdown reaches historic lengths with no end in sight.
Politically, ousting Trump would require the same kind of seismic wave he successfully surfed during his 2016 campaign—nothing less, in fact, than another shakeup and realignment of the Republican Party. A pair of data points will help tell the story here. First, there’s Trump’s overall public approval ratings, which have been at historic lows throughout his presidency. The Real Clear Politics’ average currently has Trump at around 42 percent. His floor to date: 37 percent, in mid-December 2017. “Nothing’s going to change until he hits 30,” said Jim Manley, a former Senate operative who worked for former Democratic Leader Harry Reid.
But perhaps an even more important indicator on the impeachment front is Trump’s standing among likely GOP primary voters. The latest Gallup tracker shows the president holding an 89 percent approval among Republicans, the very same number he enjoyed right after he was sworn into office in January 2017. As long as figures like that don’t slide dramatically—and Republicans haven’t budged in their support despite nearly two years of White House turmoil—Trump is probably safe from seeing his own party toss him under the bus.
For Trump to be meaningfully vulnerable, Republicans in a handful of states would need to start seeing polling data that show their support for him could sink their own political futures, including in key purple state battlegrounds like Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina. In Trump’s case, there’s another, unique indicator: if he starts to lose Fox hosts like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.
III. The House
Impeachment starts in the House, where any member can introduce a resolution seeking to remove the president. Though it’s not technically a bill, it would work much the same way—with majority votes required in committee and on the floor.
But nothing will move, officially, until it gets a green light from Democratic leadership—which means the real power for determining what happens on the impeachment front rests with Pelosi. No stranger to hardball politics, Pelosi sees impeachment as a nuclear bomb that she’d rather not have to detonate unless and until the time is right. In the meantime, she’d like to get some potential policy wins under her belt, and so the California Democrat has spent the better part of the past year pleading with her party to remain patient in any bid to remove Trump until a more complete picture has emerged spelling out the evidence of any presidential illegalities.
While Pelosi has the authority to create a special committee to consider impeachment, she’s signaled that the Judiciary Committee led by Rep. Jerry Nadler will serve as the primary venue for any hearings on the topic, and will handle any resolutions that are likely to move forward.
The institutional Democrats’ hesitation is rooted, in part, in the recent history from the Clinton era. If they fail, the damage could be enormous, both to the country and to their own party. Just as Clinton did, Trump could come out on the other side of an unsuccessful impeachment attempt with greater public sympathy and an improved prospect of winning reelection in 2020.
And House Democrats will need allies across the aisle, which also requires a cautious approach. The experts I spoke with said that without some Republican votes, it would look far too much like a belated effort to overturn the 2016 election results—and would fail to provide the bipartisan cover that Senate Republicans would need to actually vote to convict the president later.
What’s the magic number? Elaine Kamarck, a longtime Democratic operative who worked in the Clinton White House and later on Al Gore’s 2000 campaign, estimates that Pelosi would need impeachment votes from about 20 Republicans, giving a total House vote of 255-179, assuming the Democrats hold together and vote as a bloc (with one seat still vacant in North Carolina). Donald Ritchie, the retired Senate historian who helped the chamber navigate Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, said the target should actually be higher—much, much higher.
“If there’s any chance of getting two-thirds [of Senators] removing the president, you’d have to have two-thirds of the House of Representatives voting to impeach,” or closer to 100 House Republicans, with a vote of 335-99, he said. “Anything less than that, and I don’t think it would fly in the Senate.”
IV: The Senate
This is where the impeachment fight gets real. Like both Andrew Johnson and Clinton before him, Trump would still be president even if the House voted to impeach him. Trump’s fate actually rests with what happens in the Senate, where, pending a trial, a two-thirds majority vote is needed to remove a president from office.
That’s a threshold that’s never been met in the 229 years since George Washington took the first oath of office. And it’s the reason Clinton’s impeachment was more of a partisan backfire than a politically destabilizing event: Nobody believed the Senate would actually vote to convict him.Republicans held a 55-45 majority over the Democrats in 1999, andthe anti-Clinton forces needed to capture a dozen votes from the president’s own party. Not only did they net zero, they didn’t even hold onto all the Republican votes. Clinton emerged from his impeachment battle with the best public approval ratings of his presidency, and his final Gallup numbers were the highest for any outgoing president measured since the end of World War II.
As in the House, Trump’s presidency would hinge on what happens with Republicans. The math is simple: If the Democrats can secure all 47 votes in their caucus, they’d need 20 Republicans to secure a conviction. To feel comfortable moving forward with impeachment proceedings at all, they’d need to get signals from maybe half that number.
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian from Rice University, said that even a Senate trial fueled by serious charges against Trump won’t be seen as a real threat to his presidency unless a sizable number of Republicans step forward early. “It’s got to hit the 10 mark to be eye-opening,” he said. “Then, you are 10 away.”
Long before the case hits the Senate floor, there will be plenty of time for the Republicans to consider the evidence and send those signals. “Remember, you’re going to have a lot of time while the House actually figures out what the articles of impeachment are supposed to be,” Kamarck said. “During that time I think you’ll see the Senate reacting or holding their cards tight. You’ll know pretty early who the ringleaders are in the Senate, if there are any.”
In Washington, the parlor game has begun: As the Mueller probe keeps drilling closer to the president, the 53 Republicans’ records and statements are being scrutinized for any signs of who potentially would ever break with Trump.
The first group of possible defectors is fairly obvious. You might call them “establishment figureheads”—lions of the pre-Trump GOP who have been uneasy with the president’s character, disagree with him on policy, and might be looking for a way to decisively detach their distinguished careers from his name.
This group starts with Mitt Romney, the freshman from Utah who marked his arrival in the Senate with a blistering op-ed attacking the president as unfit for office. It also includes Pat Roberts of Kansas and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, two senior Republicans who have announced they won’t be running for reelection in 2020, freeing them to think more about history than their political futures. There’s also Richard Burr of North Carolina, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has led his chamber’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and seen much of the still-classified evidence firsthand.
Other Republican senators who could be in the first group to peel off are Ben Sasse, the first-term Nebraskan who refused to vote for Trump in 2016 and even compared his party’s nominee to the white supremacist David Duke; and Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska senator who has already defied Trump by not voting to confirm his most recent Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.
If those senators were to abandon Trump—and there’s no guarantee that even with their significant personal and policy differences they will—that gives a tentative count of six Republican defectors, and 47 still in Trump’s camp.
To get to the 10 required for a realistic Senate trial, another group would need to come into play—the “vulnerable 2020 class.” These are the handful of incumbents from swing states who are up for reelection in less than two years, and who could easily lose their seats if enough of their home-state Republican voters turned against the president.
This group consists of five: Susan Collins of Maine, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Martha McSally of Arizona and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. They’re genuinely caught in a political vise: A vote against Trump could kill their chances if it comes before they’ve faced their own primary voters, but a vote to save the president could torpedo them in the general election. For these senators, Trump’s approval among the primary electorate is a key indicator, as is the exact timing for when they’d be forced to take any vote for conviction.
The next category would be the Republican senators who won’t face voters again until 2022 or ’24—let’s call them “anxious incumbents.” Not all of the GOP senators in those election cycles are likely to peel away from Trump, but some could: Mike Braun of Indiana, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Mike Lee of Utah, Rob Portman of Ohio, Rick Scott of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina and John Thune of South Dakota.
That now makes 23 senators who could be considered in play based on home-state politics, Trump’s popularity and staying power and a variety of other factors. If even half started to signal they’d consider impeachment charges, the debate would take on far more significance and likely trigger a last-stand defensive campaign from the president.
Scott Mulhauser, a former aide to Vice President Joe Biden, said he expects GOP senators would look for guidance to the likes of Vice President Mike Pence and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on what would likely be the most historic vote of their careers.
“To have this land in a real way, not only will the work of Mueller and his team of course have to be ironclad. But it will also have to be damning to the point where these guys have no choice,” he said. They also should anticipate a full-throated fight from Trump: “If it’s his future, the wrath is coming.”
V. The proceedings
Once any impeachment charges are before the Senate, there’s no guarantee here but one: It will be a hell of a show.
Republicans could disregard anything the House does and simply table the matter, which Trump allies say would be a viable position for GOP leaders to take. “If I’m McConnell, I say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to have an election in 2020. It will be the trial,” said diGenova, a former federal prosecutor who nearly joined the president’s legal team last year.
But public pressure leading into the next election cycle could also be hard to ignore. “If the House acted, I don’t think the Senate could not act,” said Ritchie, the historian emeritus of the Senate.
If there is a trial, all 100 senators would be serving as Trump’s jury, meeting in a solemn courtroom-like atmosphere where they’d be asked to sift through reams of evidence and, potentially, live witnesses. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts would preside, while House Democrats would serve as the president’s prosecutors, and Trump’s attorneys as his defense counsel. Rudy Giuliani vs. Jerry Nadler, anyone?
To convict, the Senate needs to get to 67 votes. Depending on the signals we’ve seen from that first group of senators, that means about a dozen or more additional Republicans would have to brave Trump’s rhetoric, which will no doubt be escalating as he digs in, and also flipping on the leader of their own party.
Who else could Trump lose? Once truly damning evidence started coming out, the president would need to watch his back for another group, aptly dubbed “his former political foes”: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham and even McConnell. All have accommodated themselves to the president in the interest of power. But none are likely to have forgotten Trump’s mean tweets, nasty nicknames and otherpersonal, out-of-the-norm attacks on their appearance, family, and more. Any or all of these could see a vote for his conviction as the ultimate payback. They might even take a special relish in watching the whip count nudge up to 66 and then casting the decisive vote.
“The question is: Do any of these people feel they owe Donald Trump anything?” said Kamarck. “I think it will get very personal. It will devolve on a personal level. What you have to ask yourself is, who has Donald Trump gone out of his way to be a total, utter asshole to?”
I think it will get very personal. It will devolve on a personal level. What you have to ask yourself is, who has Donald Trump gone out of his way to be a total, utter asshole to?”
Beyond golfing with a couple of Republicans, Trump has built few of the personal relationships that might help save him in the Senate. “You should hear the way these guys talk about him behind his back,” Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democratic senator who lost her reelection bid in 2018, told The New Yorker Radio Hour when asked whether Republicans were really loyal to Trump.
Roger Stone, the longtime Trump political adviser, told me that this—the president’s lack of Senate friends—rather than the substance of the impeachment articles, could be a problem if impeachment proceedings did actually kick into gear.
“I don’t see a real charge that’s problematic,” Stone said. “On the other hand, most of the Senate Republicans are establishment Republican, country club, neocon types. I don’t think Donald Trump is terribly popular with them to begin with.”
Interviewed on the record, Republican senators right now have one consistent message on impeachment: We know nothing. “I think we’ve got to let this process continue and we’ve got to allow the facts go to where they will and not have any political interference,” Rob Portman said; John Thune, the new Republican Senate whip in 2019, also demurred: “I think we just don’t have the full picture yet.” Ron Johnson said of an impeachment: “If that were to occur, you’re acting as a juror in a trial, and you need to take a look at all the evidence. That’s how I’d approach it.”
As for Senate Democrats, they plan to work their own individual relationships across the aisle to size up what’s possible. “I think all of us will be having conversations just as we’ve been discussing the investigation and protecting it,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal told me. They’d be reporting what they hear from Republicans up the chain to party leaders Pelosi and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’d be in charge of counting votes. “Park yourselves on the sidelines,” explained Illinois’ Dick Durbin, who as the Senate Democratic whip would also have a big role to play ahead of a conviction trial, told ABC’s “This Week” in December when asked about the president’s legal and political liabilities.
***
To be sure, many observers still don’t see any way that 20 Senate Republicans and a corresponding number of House Republicans would ever risk their own political futures abandoning Trump absent something jarring—something that to date Mueller or other investigators have yet to produce.
“They’re going to have to really have a smoking fucking gun to show this is a bipartisan exercise,” said Sam Geduldig, a former House GOP leadership aide. “There are not a lot of Republicans who’d want on their tombstone: ‘Impeached President Trump.’”
“Renaming a post office is one thing. To have them do substantive work on a controversial issue and have 67 agree is virtually unheard of,” explained Mulhauser, who also has worked for several Senate Democrats.
There are of course many other possible scenarios for Trump beyond impeachment. Neal Katyal, the former acting Obama solicitor general, suggested last month that the president already faces enough legal jeopardy once he’s out of office that his attorneys may want to consider negotiating a deal with prosecutors to resign rather than face jail time when his term is up.
Democrats have other political calculations to keep in mind, too, including their chances of winning back the White House in 2020. If they succeed in impeaching Trump in the House and somehow convicting him in the Senate, they’d need to draw up an entirely new general election playbook for going up against a different Republican, presumably a President Mike Pence.
“You don’t want the Republican Party reinventing itself post-Trump” if you’re the Democrats, said Brinkley, the presidential historian. “The longer Trump is in legal limbo, the more of this sort of drip-drip about Russian collusion and the financial dealings, the longer it goes on, the better for the Democrats.”
But if an impeachment process starts and fails, Trump could effectively use the fight to his electoral advantage. Democrats would also need to consider their own election prospects in the House and Senate in 2020 if Trump is still at the top of the ticket, only more popular because he’s withstood his opponents’ assault. It may be that impeachment—as much as it excites some of the Democratic base—is in nobody’s immediate political interest at all.
“That’s the problem with an impeachment strategy,” Brinkley added. “The Democratic Party is better off running against a deeply damaged President Trump that seems to have a lot of terrible legal woes and ethical damage. It’s better off to run against a wounded Trump than to drive Trump out of office.”
Every January, companies get real busy telling us it’s about time we all lost some weight. As if January didn’t suck enough already.
Well, James Corden and supermodel Ashley Graham are here to tell us that we actually don’t need to do any of that.
In a cover version of Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” performed on The Late Late Show, Graham and Corden reminded all of us that we don’t need to change our bodies for other people.
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Daily Trends Hunter 