'President Trump Fails NATO'; Nobody Will Drown In High-Risk Pools [Opinion]

Welcome to the White House Patch's daily roundup of what political pundits, columnists and editorial boards across the nation are saying about the news inside the Beltway. (For more national political news, sign up for the free White House Patch email newsletter.)"

The New York Times: President Trump Fails NATO

"All told, Mr. Trump’s commitment to NATO and America’s tradition of leadership remain very much up in the air. Should the president abdicate both, no one would be happier than Vladimir Putin." (The New York Times)

James Heaney: Relax. Nobody Will Drown In Trumpcare’s High-Risk Pools

"[T]he idea pushed by the Center for American Progress, that the Trumpcare high-risk pools will be crushed by demand far outstripping their supply, is not based on fact. In reality, the AHCA establishes one of the best-funded high-risk pools in history." (The Federalist)

PREVIOUSLY:

Ezra Klein: Trump promised to protect the sick and the poor. He lied.

"Trump lied in public about the most consequential policy decisions he is now making as president. He lied on the trail, and he is lying again now from the Oval Office. His budget, released on Tuesday, is an assault on the poor and the vulnerable, and a repudiation of the economic populism that sent him to the White House." (Vox)

Cal Thomas: Saudi Arabia's duplicity

"Trusting Saudi Arabia to combat terrorists and extremists and “drive them out,” as President Trump called on the kingdom and other Arab and Muslim nations to do in his Riyadh speech, is akin to forging an alliance with the Ku Klux Klan to combat racism and anti-Semitism." (The Washington Times)

Rishabh Bhandari & Aaron Sibarium: Why Impeaching Trump Is a Bad Idea Read

"Trump’s removal from office would further anger the very voters who elected him — and further degrade our already-weakened political system." (National Review)

Maya MacGuineas: Trump’s Budget Doesn’t Make Sense

"President Trump’s budget sticks to his campaign promises ... The problem is, those promises didn’t add up on the campaign trail, and they don’t now." (The New York Times)

Richard A. Clarke: Trump’s anti-terror call to ‘drive them out’ will actually make things worse

"Whatever the U.S. pundits may say about the Trump address in Riyadh, the truth is that most of the leaders of 50 Islamic nations there likely thought Trump's analysis of terrorism sophomoric. Worse yet, some of them heard encouragement for the kind of crackdowns that are at best counter-productive." (New York Daily News)

Monica Lewinsky: Roger Ailes’s Dream Was My Nightmare

"Their dream was my nightmare. My character, my looks and my life were picked apart mercilessly. ... Meantime, Mr. Ailes huddled with his employees at Fox News, dictating a lineup of talking heads to best exploit this personal and national tragedy." (The New York Times)

The Economist: Donald Trump’s reset on Islam

"'I think Islam hates us,' said Mr Trump last year, after calling for a blanket ban on Muslims entering America. His first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, considered Islam a 'malignant cancer'." (The Economist)

Anthony H. Cordesman: Trump gets it right in Saudi Arabia

This time, the president used the right words to start rebuilding the foundations of America’s strategic partnerships in the Muslim world and Middle East, and to deal with truly urgent threats. This speech is the right beginning — in remarkably well crafted terms — and it deserves bipartisan and expert respect. (The Hill)

Jill Abramson: Trump is a president gripped by delusions of absolute power

"This is American law for dummies, but Trump gives no indication of knowing its basic tenets. Fundamentals bear repeating. No one in the United States has absolute power or an absolute right to do anything that violates the constitution. But apparent violations seem to be occurring almost daily." (The Guardian)

Alex Simendinger: Trump Takes Page From Bill Clinton Crisis Playbook

"On Thursday, Trump aped defense techniques used during Bill Clinton’s impeachment saga (with the added twists of a Republican complaining in 2017 about a vast left-wing conspiracy via social media that didn’t exist in the late 1990s)." (RealClear Politics)

Laurence H. Tribe: Impeachment proceedings need to start now

"[W]e need to get over the allergy to the basic concept of removal through impeachment and stop thinking of it, inaccurately, as retribution for sinister intent." (Boston Globe)

The Wall Street Journal: The Special Counsel Mistake

"Mr. Mueller has experience in counterintelligence and at 72 years old has nothing to prove. But he is also a long-time Washington player close to the FBI whose director was recently fired, and he is highly attuned to the political winds. As they say in Washington, lawyer up." (The Wall Street Journal)

New York Post: The media might have revealed more intel than Trump

"For all the outrage over what President Trump might have told the Russian ambassador last week, aggressive journalism — and ambitious leaks — may have done the worst harm on Tuesday." (New York Post)

Jeff Greenfield: The ‘Grownups’ Won’t Save Us From Trump

"What last week’s Oval Office lovefest with the Russians demonstrated was that the adults are not, in fact, in charge: a 70-year-old man-baby named Donald Trump is. There are just too many ways in which the president—any president, but especially this one—is beyond the restraints of those who serve him." (Politico)

David Brooks: When the World Is Led by a Child

"He is thus the all-time record-holder of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the phenomenon in which the incompetent person is too incompetent to understand his own incompetence." (The New York Times)

Tom Bevan: James Clapper's Assault on Democracy

"But you know what does seriously erode our system of checks and balances? It’s when high-ranking government officials lie under oath to members of Congress. That’s what James Clapper did on March 12, 2013, while testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence." (RealClear Politics)

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