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During an address at MacDill Air Force Base, President Trump accused the press of not reporting on terrorist attacks. Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted that polls showing his executive order on immigration to be unpopular are fake news. A group of national security and intelligence officials, including former Secretaries of State John Kerry and Madeleine Albright, signed a letter saying Trumps executive order would endanger U.S. troops. And 97 companies, including Apple and Google, filed a legal brief condemning the ban. Senate Democrats plan to express their opposition to the confirmation of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary nominee, ahead of Tuesdays Senate vote. John Bercow, the speaker of Britains House of Commons, said he would be strongly opposed to Trump addressing Parliament during his official visit to the U.K.

Forgive and Forget?: Now that Donald Trump is the president of the United States, a small cadre of high-profile conservativesthe haters, the losers, the Never-Trumpers who never fell in linehas found itself wondering whether their partys president will use his new powers to settle old scores. (McKay Coppins)

How to Beat Trump: Donald Trump presents a unique challenge to those looking to organize against him. David Frum lists three ways for the left to mobilize effectively.

An Unexpected Choice: If prominent neoconservative Elliott Abrams is selected and confirmed as deputy secretary of state, he will occupy a peculiar position in an administration that has promised to repudiate nearly everything that neoconservatism stood for, and which has disdained foreign-policy professionals as bumbling fools. (David A. Graham)

Follow stories throughout the day with our Politics & Policy portal.

Deja Vu: Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to Donald Trump, walked back her comments about the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre on Friday, saying she made an honest mistake. But she referenced the same fictitious event in an earlier interview with Cosmopolitan.com. (Kristen Mascia)

Strategy Stumbles: Interviews with administration officials reveal that the president is increasingly frustrated with the backlash to his recent executive actionsand is rethinking an improvisational approach to governing that mirrors his chaotic presidential campaign. (Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman, The New York Times)

Whats Wrong With Nationalism?: The concept has a bad reputation across the globe, but nationalism can be a force for good, write Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru: A benign nationalism involves loyalty to ones country: a sense of belonging, allegiance, and gratitude to it. (National Review)

Tipping the Scales: For the first time in the Affordable Care Acts history, more people favor the law than oppose it. Danielle Kurtzleben explains why the theory of relative deprivation, or being deprived of something a person feels they are entitled to, could explain the reversal of public opinion. (NPR)

A New Home: Nebraska has accepted more refugees per capita than any other state, but it also happens to be a deeply conservative one. Robert Samuels captures how this dynamic has affected some Syrian refugees who have settled in the state. (The Washington Post)

Taking Control: The Republican Party currently controls the House, Senate, and White House for the first time since 2007. These graphics show which party held a majority under past administrations and what the majority managed to accomplish. (Chris Canipe, The Wall Street Journal)

Actress Melissa McCarthy caused a stir this weekend with her impersonation of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday Night Live. What are some of your favorite political impressions in comedyand why?

Send your answers to hello@theatlantic.com, and our favorites will be featured in Fridays Politics & Policy Daily.

-Written by Elaine Godfrey (@elainejgodfrey) and Candice Norwood (@cjnorwoodwrites)

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The Atlantic Politics & Policy Daily: Senate Democrats Stay Up Late on a School Night - The Atlantic

Democrats are preparing for a battle over President Trumps push to dismantle the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which analysts said will be difficult to accomplish without bipartisan support.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi vowed Monday to take thecase to the public to try to build opposition to any effort to eliminate or water down protections designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.

The president has moved to expose hardworking Americansto unfair, deceptive and predatory practices, perpetuating a massive con on those who thought he would stand up for them against the powerful interests, Pelosi told reporters.

Dodd-Frank, which was passed with almost no Republican support in the wake of the financial crisis, toughened capital requirements for financial firms,set up a powerful panel of regulators to watch for threatsand created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureauto oversee credit cards, mortgages and other financial products.

Trump signed an executive orderFriday ordering a review of Dodd-Frank, which he has vowed to dismantle.Republicans and businesses say the law has restricted bank lending and consumer choices.

After the signing, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said the move represented the beginning of the end of the Dodd-Frank mistake.

Althoughsome of the laws rules can be weakened by regulators appointed by Trump, key provisions cannot be eliminated without legislation. That sets up a looming political battle between the administration and congressional Democrats.

To get legislation through the Senate, Republicans would need the support of at least eight Democrats to break an expected filibuster. The chances of that dont look good right now, said Jaret Seiberg,an analyst with brokerage and investment bank Cowen & Co.

Democrats have promised to defend the 2010 law, one of former President Obamas signature accomplishments.

The lesson of history is that when faced with a danger like Donald Trump, opposition needs to grow. Most of all, opposition needs to be willing to fight, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), an ardent supporterof Dodd-Frank, told theProgressive Congress Strategy Summit in Baltimore on Saturday.

Giveaways to giant banks so they can cheat people and blow up our economy again? said Warren, who came up with the idea for the consumer bureau. We will fight back.

Seiberg noted in a report Monday that even moderate Democrats boycotted last weeks Senate Finance Committee vote to advance the nomination of Steven Mnuchin to be Treasury secretary. Mnuchin, a wealthy Wall Street executive,would help lead the effort on an overhaul of financial rules.

If these trends continue, it will be hard to see the president driving legislation forward, particularly as it relates to reforming Dodd-Frank and providing banks with regulatory relief, Seiberg said.

Republicans could try to use the budget reconciliation process, which requires only a simply majority in the Senate,to make changes to Dodd-Frank regulations that affect federal spending and taxes.But that would limit how much of Dodd-Frank could be changed, Seiberg said.

For example, a reconciliation provision could eliminate the independent funding stream for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and subject it to the congressional appropriations process. But reconciliation couldnt be used to replace the bureaus single director with a bipartisan commission, which Republicans have advocated.

Likewise, Trump could not repeal the Volcker Rule, whichprohibits federally insured banks from trading for their own profit and limits their ownership of risky investments. Instead, Trump would have to try to change the rules provisions through the five regulatory agencies that are in charge of it.

Strong Democratic opposition to Trump so far means there are substantial obstacles to bipartisanlegislation overhauling financial, health and energy regulations, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a report Monday.

While we have not expected a sweeping overhaul of regulation in any of these areas to become law, recent developments lower the probability somewhat that even incremental changes could pass in the Senate, the report said.

On Friday, at a White House meeting with top corporate chief executives including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co., Trump signaled his intention to rely on Wall Street for advice on reducing financial regulations.

Theres nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie, Trump said before the meeting began, adding that we expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank.

One of the administration officials helping to direct the overhaul of Dodd-Frank is National Economic Council DirectorGary Cohn, who recently stepped down as chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs. Mnuchin also used to work at the Wall Street investment bank.

Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, said Monday that Trumps campaign rhetoric about being tough on Wall Street amounted to a pack of lies.

Waters said Democrats on the Financial Services Committee have been willing to make minor modifications to the law. But she said they would not allow its key provisions, such as creation of the consumer bureau, to be demolished.

We listen very carefully to any concerns that are identified by community banks, even by the big banks, she said.

But, she added, Were not going to destroy Dodd-Frank.

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

Read the rest here:
Democrats dig in to fight Trump's takedown of Dodd-Frank financial regulations - Los Angeles Times

Bannon, the former Breitbart executive who has now emerged as one the most influential advisers inside Trump's White House, described a "victimology" among African Americans created by the welfare state, which caused them to attack black conservatives.

After listing off several prominent black conservatives, Bannon said, "These people are heroes. They take an incredible, incredible amount of grief because the welfare state has built in this victimology. And the elitist, liberal, progressives have a plantation mentality that they don't think African Americans should be out of government control."

A spokesperson for the Trump administration did not return a request for comment.

Bannon added in the webinar that Tea Party activists have to support black conservatives.

"The Democratic progressive party cannot rule if they don't get 90% of the black vote. If we cut into the black vote, if we make it 80/20, we can win a hundred congressional seats this time," Bannon said.

Earlier in the program, Bannon said conservative women and minorities are attacked by liberals because they pose a threat to their narrative about conservatives.

"If you think the women are vilified, if you think Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann, and Michelle Malkin, all of these great women in the tea party movement are absolutely vilified because they are an existential threat to progressive narrative, you haven't seen anything by how they viciously attack our black and African American conservatives," he said.

Read more:
Steve Bannon in 2010: Democrats have a 'plantation mentality' towards African-Americans - CNN

House Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat John Conyers is among those included in the draft letter. | Getty

House Democrats are preparing to put a squeeze on Republicans for their silence in the face of President Donald Trump's attack on a federal judge.

A draft resolution being circulated by three Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee including ranking Democrat John Conyers sharply criticizes Trump for his weekend swipes at the Seattle-based district court judge, James Robart, who halted the president's travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries.

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"Whether or not one agrees with the substance of a particular judicial decision, it is inappropriate for sitting presidents, or other government officials, to engage in ad hominem attacks against a judge, or otherwise place political pressure designed to undermine the independence of that judge, or to erode trust in the entire court system," according to the resolution.

The non-binding, politically charged measure, spearheaded by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), will likely go nowhere in the GOP-controlled House. But it's a tool in the limited Democratic arsenal meant to embarrass Republicans and highlight their uncomfortable relationship with Trump early in his presidency.

The draft resolution quotes from a slew of Trump's weekend tweets aimed at Robart, highlighting Trump's characterization of the George W. Bush-appointed jurist as a "so-called judge."

The measure also slaps at Trump for his campaign-season attack on Gonzalo Curiel, the judge who presided over a lawsuit against Trump University. It concludes with a statement of support for the notion that the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government are co-equal and "each deserves the respect of the others."

Republicans have largely refrained from directly criticizing Trump over his weekend comments about Robart, though several issued harsh rebukes of Trump during the campaign when he slammed Curiel. A few GOP lawmakers, though, chided Trump for getting personal with Robart.

"It is best not to single out judges," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

And on ABC's "This Week," Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a frequent Trump critic, said: "We dont have so-called judges."

Read this article:
Democrats seize on Trump's judge slam - Politico

The 2017 legislative session begins today, and Democrats have only the illusion of control.

In last years elections, Democrats won majorities in both the Senate, 12-9, and Assembly, 27-15. Leftists expect those majorities to push through liberal policy priorities: rolling back Republican-passed labor and education reforms, raising property taxes and increasing the minimum wage.

Fortunately, Democrats cant achieve these goals without Republican support. Democrats need the signature of Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval on their bills, or they need Republican votes in the Assembly and Senate to get the two-thirds majority needed to override any Sandoval veto.

Republicans have leverage, and theyve already boxed in Democrats on two significant issues: Education Savings Accounts and property tax increases. Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson, R-Henderson, has declared, No ESA funding no budget. Sandoval has put $60 million into his budget to partially fund ESAs.

Robersons statement means nothing if Sandoval isnt willing to veto the budget over ESAs. Roberson was Sandovals strongest ally in 2015. Read between the lines: Sandoval is going to play hardball for ESAs.

Its already working. Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson, D-Las Vegas, has signaled hes willing to negotiate on ESA funding. As I wrote last month, Sandoval will determine whether ESAs are funded or not.

The Senate Republican caucus also has declared that its members will not support a property tax increase, which matters because tax increase bills require two-thirds majorities in both houses. This puts Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford, who wants to be governor and may run in 2018, in a pickle.

Local government unions, powerful players in any Democratic primary, want a property tax increase. Ford, D-Las Vegas, doesnt have the votes. Even if he did, Nevadans, especially older citizens who vote in midterm elections, hate property tax increases.

Further complicating matters for Ford: Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak, who already has $3 million for his all-but-announced campaign for governor, can have it both ways. Sisolak, also a Democrat, has called for a legislative fix that increases the property tax cap which pleases union bosses but hasnt come out in support of a specific legislative proposal. This would allow a Sisolak-supporting super-PAC to bash Ford in a gubernatorial primary for wanting to raise property taxes, while Sisolak can simultaneously tell unions he supported legislative action.

Expect Ford to be vocal about wanting to increase property tax caps while letting others try to advance it behind the scenes.

This pattern is going to play out for other major Democrat priorities, like another $1 billion-plus tax increase for new K-12 funding. If Democrats dont announce a major tax increase proposal this week, theyre not serious about making it happen. Democrats have a history of proposing tax increases so late in a session that the proposals have no prayer of passage. Theyre announced solely to convince the partys liberal base that lawmakers tried really hard.

Sandoval is supportive of some liberal priorities. For instance, hed probably sign a small minimum wage increase paired with overtime reform, but one thats far from $15 an hour.

This reality will define the session. Democrats are in charge, but they arent in control.

Victor Joecks column appears in the Nevada section each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com. Follow @victorjoecks on Twitter.

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For Democrats in Carson City, control only an illusion - Las Vegas Review-Journal