Week 53: January 21-27

On Monday night the government reopened after three day shutdown. The Democrats relented, fearing the politics of government funding for immigration reform. McConnell did promise to hold a Senate vote on DACA before the CR is up on February 8

Here is Haberman on Trump’s confused role in the shutdown.

Frum and Douthat debate how sever a autocrat Trump is or may become.

A lot of Russia News this week:

Axios reports that Sessions has been pressuring the FBI director Wray to go easy on Trump and clean out FRI people suspected of being against him, specifically McCabe.

Wray threatened to resign if this pressure about McCabe and others continues.

We learned this week that Meuller is looking to interview Trump soon, and on Wednesday Trump told reporters that he is willing and ready to comply on the record.

And on Thursday night the New York Times, with the Washington Post soon following, reported that in June Trump ordered the firing of Meuller. It did not happen because his White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to quit.

According to a report that came out on Saturday by the Washington Post, on Wednesday Trump had John Kelly call Sessions and tell the DOJ to release the Nunes memo despite the fact that the FBI and DOJ have not cleared it for release. Apparently Trump is also talking about firing Rosenstein. Unclear whether this report is related to the Times piece about Meuller, but people speculate something is going on behind the scenes that is prompting these leaks about Trump’s state of mind regarding the Russia investigation.

Trump’s Job Approval: 38.8%