Here's What Happened in Politics Over the Last 48 Hours

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | March 27, 2017 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | March 27, 2017 |

The political world quieted down this weekend after Republicans handed Donald Trump a humiliating defeat on Friday by failing to repeal Obamacare. Trump kept a low profile as he licked his wounds, and media organizations spilled a lot of ink recounting how Trumpcare faltered (the House Freedom Caucus seems to be largely at fault). There was some finger pointing, but knowing Trump and this White House, the blame game will be stepped up in the following days, especially as it seems that the markets are taking a tumble because of the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s ability to enact his policies.

In case you wisely took the weekend off from politics yourself, here were a few of the biggest headlines over the past 48 hours.

Embarrassing: We learned that when he met with poor German Chancellor Angela Merkel last week, Donald Trump slipped her an actual fucking bill for $374 billion, reflecting what Trump thinks Germany owes for the use of NATO (plus interest). Merkel, for her part, didn’t comment on the invoice, but one German chancellor said it was “outrageous,” adding that “the concept behind putting out such demands is to intimidate the other side.” It’s also bush league bullsh*t; Donald Trump trying to run the country like a goddamn business instead of a government.

You Have to be Kidding Me? — Speaking of running the business like a government, last night it was announced that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner would be the head of a new White House office with sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and solve other domestic problems (like the opioid crisis) by soliciting ideas from the business world. This is exactly what we need: A guy with six bankruptcies and his son in law — also rich on family money — soliciting ideas from the Wal Mart CEO and other business executives on how to solve America’s drug problem while redirecting government contracts into their own pockets.

In my experience: Jared will give people who have experience in an industry he's never worked in advice re: how to do their jobs. https://t.co/O4mvyYKUzx

— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) March 27, 2017

WTF? — In case you missed it, this was an actual headline on Fox News:

News Alert: @POTUS spending weekend working at the White House. pic.twitter.com/kAtZVQE2Mr

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 26, 2017

First of all, that the President is working on a weekend shouldn’t be “news,” and second of all, it’s not even true. Trump didn’t visit Mar-a-Lago to play golf this weekend; he stayed behind and played golf at a Trump golf course in Virginia. Twice. It’s the eighth weekend in a row that he has spent on Trump-branded properties.

Terrifying — Trump and his White House staff are apparently wiping their electronic devices in anticipation of giving evidence in the investigation into collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. From The Independent:

White House officials and members of Donald Trump’s transition team are reportedly “purging” their electronic devices to avoid being compromised by subpoenas, it has been claimed.

The accusation comes just weeks after government lawyers ordered the President’s aides to preserve any materials that could be connected to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Hilarious — Donald Trump has been careful not to directly criticize Paul Ryan for the failure of the healthcare bill (Ryan did, after all, literally get down on his knees to beg a Republican Congressman to vote for the bill; it didn’t work). Trump knows that Ryan has a lot of leverage in both the investigation into collusion with Russia and any potential impeachment hearing. However, on Saturday morning, Trump did tweet instructing his followers to watch Justice with Judge Jeanine on Saturday night, and in that episode, Judge Jeanine Pirro spent the first six minutes explaining why Paul Ryan needs to step down as Speaker of the House. The White House insists that the tweet had nothing to do with the Speaker.

Goddamnit — Huma Abedin is reportedly giving her marriage to Anthony Weiner another shot. THANKS TRUMP.

You and Me Both, Brother — Joe Biden admitted this weekend that he regrets not being President.

.@JoeBiden in a speech tonight at Colgate University: "Do I regret not being president? Yes."

— Willie Geist (@WillieGeist) March 25, 2017

— Suck It, North Carolina — The AP is reporting that North Carolina will lose 3.76 billion in lost business over a dozen years because of the bathroom bill, and that is an underestimation based only on public records.