Ossoff: The president who promised to drain the swamp and lower prices is instead obviously and undeniably more concerned with self-enrichment and building a monument to himself and vanity projects then he is with addressing the deep economic pain of the American people with gas, groceries, rent, health care all near all time highs in just the last few months.
PabloReports: What do you make of Speaker Johnson’s decision to send everyone home early?
Khanna: We’ve got a war going on. We should be ending it, and instead we’re going back. It makes no sense.
PabloReports: What arguments can Democrats make about what affordability would look like in a Democratic term?
Khanna: First, end these wars. The war is what’s causing gas prices to go up. It’s what’s causing food prices to go up. We need to have Medicare for All to reduce health care costs. We need to reduce child care costs. We need to have free public college and trade school. We need paid family leave. We need to make sure we are increasing wages. We need a new social contract. We keep hearing, “How are we going to pay for it?” Stop funding the militarization of our government and start taxing the billionaires.
Trump set up the cameras, the podium, the flags — then canceled his own bipartisan housing bill signing because he'd rather hold the country hostage over a voter suppression bill. And that's just the beginning. Your midday update is here: https://t.co/B9ezqayixE
Ossoff: We see a faithless president, self-dealing, while he depicts himself as Christ, while he depicts the Obamas as apes, while he plunges the nation recklessly into war, plunders our health care, and sends prices soaring.
And while the people pay more than ever for groceries and housing and health care, he builds a monument to himself.
While a cancer patient loses health coverage, he adorns his office in gold.
Voting rights laws are dismantled, prisons for immigrants are full of children, and all the while we see this wickedness advanced and defended by those who wrap themselves in the banner of righteous faith.
But we ask, where in Scripture are we commanded to deny care to the sick, to take from those with the least to give to those with the most, to violate the house of worship to hunt down the refuge
MacFarlane: The words we didn't hear from these remarks today, sucker, loser, piggy, stupid fake news, idiot. President Obama, first lady Obama didn't invoke the name calling that has gotten in a cancerous way into our political bloodstream
Phillip: Why are we bending over backwards to make Iran feel comfortable about signing a deal that actually gives us what we had before and gives them what they did not have?
Jennings: You're leaving out the critical piece, which is the document flatly states Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.
Phillip: That’s what the JCPOA said. And this document, as we know, says that it reiterates what it has always said which is they are not pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Jennings: You believe it?
Phillip: No, you don’t believe it. So, why do you believe it now?
Jennings: Because we bombed the crap of their uranium enrichment facilities last summer.
Setmayer: Apparently not enough.
MacFarlane: The crudeness with which [Donald Trump] speaks was in sharp contrast to what we heard Thursday when President Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama addressed the crowds from the podium at the opening of the Obama Center.
It's what you didn't hear from the Obamas that made the contrast clear. They didn't use those Trumpian techniques of name-calling, of cursing, of menacing political rivals, of saying things that belittle people.
We've all become quite accustomed to this name-calling culture that has gotten into our national bloodstream during the era of Trump. And the contrast was noteworthy.
In new court filing, plaintiffs accuse Team Trump of "petty defiance" and "inexcliable" conduct in its handling of the removal of Trump's name from Kennedy Center
They argue the tarp and scaffolding are a "transparent effort" to frustrate a return of the rightful name
Obama: I am not immune to anger or doubt. But I do know this when we lose faith in each other, when we stop believing that voting matters… we open the door to the most ruthless or the most careless, or the most fearful among us who see some groups and some people as more equal than others and see government as nothing more than a way to divvy up the spoils and punish enemies, and keep those who are different in their place. I do not believe that is the story of America that prevails in the end.
Gangel: In March, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan go to the oval office for a formal sit down interview with the president. He's very proud about some presidential historian has given him this document, which he says shows he's more powerful than Hitler and Stalin.
He's proudly reading it and showing it to them, and they can't figure out who the presidential historian is. And they start searching. Name doesn't show up. But the president had said that this historian was a friend of former hall of fame golfer Gary Player. So they search…the historian is Gary Player's former caddie.
The extent of Trump's destruction of Washington, D.C., is truly stunning. It's the ultimate metaphor.
The algae-infested Reflecting Pool. The destroyed grass from the UFC event. The bulldozed East Wing grounds. "86 47" etched into the lawn near the Reflecting Pool.
REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz
Blundell: The entire coat of paint has been eaten away by the peroxide they put in the reflecting pool to fix the algae ... they literally have to drain the reflecting pool swamp and do it again.
Axelrod: When I was in the white house, I got a call from Donald Trump. And he called to say he wanted to build a ballroom. And he said, we have those shitty little tents. He never raised security. He is obsessed with building a ballroom. This just became a convenient way to divert public money into the project because he it became much more expensive and he couldn't extort enough from the donors
NEW: House Oversight Democrats have launched an investigation into reports that Stephen Miller pushed suspending habeas corpus. The inquiry, obtained by MeidasTouch, demands White House records and orders officials to preserve all related communications. https://t.co/5bi5tJrNO4