BY PRIYANKA ARIBINDI, BRIAN BEUTLER
& CROOKED MEDIA

Tuesday, June 5th, 2018

—LeBron James preemptively dismissing a White House invite

MORE LIKE MS-13 MILLION WITHOUT HEALTH CARE

Many Republicans in Congress have been angling to revive Obamacare repeal since the effort ran aground last year.

President Trump himself, in tweets and at rallies, continues to whine about the collapse of Obamacare repeal in the Senate and attack Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for his vote against repeal despite the fact that McCain is dying of cancer.

But rather than revive repeal now, Republicans are undoubtedly going to spend the next five months raving about MS-13 and national anthem protests because they think that, rather than Obamacare repeal, will motivate their base and help them win elections. Tellingly, though, White House sources say they aren't taking the issue seriously for now only because “the votes aren’t there.” The Trump administration and Republican leaders in Congress haven't come out against renewing repeal efforts per se—they've instead groused quietly about people talking about repeal.

But if they do well in the midterms, it’s unlikely that they’ll pass the NFL PLAYERS MUST STAND OR BE DEPORTED Act. Instead, they will revive their efforts to repeal Obamacare, and this time they might be successful.

They have good reason to keep their Obamacare repeal fantasies secret:

• The last time Democrats had a steady double-digit lead in generic congressional ballot polls was when Republicans were trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and Democrats were trying to stop them.
• According to a new CBS/YouGov poll, of those who say GOP changes to the health care system under Trump have affected them personally, more than twice as many claim those changes have hurt them than helped them.
• The same poll finds health care is a top issue for midterm voters of both parties.  
• GOP sabotage efforts are causing individual market premiums to soar.

From Brian: Republicans want their voters to believe Democrats have a secret plan to impeach Trump if they win back the House. That is complete bullshit. On the other hand, there is a potential future House majority with a secret plan—it’s a GOP plan to throw millions and millions of people off the insurance rolls in 2019.

RAMPING UP TAMPERING

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office caught former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort attempting to tamper with witnesses. On Monday night Mueller filed a motion asking a federal judge to either rescind his supervised release and throw him in jail, or to revise the terms of his release. Manafort is acting both like a man who believes that cooperating with Mueller would end very badly for him, and like a man who believes the president might pardon him.

Meanwhile, George Papadopoulos—who got the Russia investigation moving in 2016 by bragging drunkenly about Russians offering him stolen dirt on Hillary Clinton—will face sentencing soon. So naturally his wife (who previously portrayed him as a figure who might bring down the president) went on Tucker Carlson's show and begged Trump to pardon her husband. I’m sure her second husband won’t be such a shitty spy.

While the criminals Mueller has caught try to undermine him, Trump seems to have admitted on Tuesday that he pressured Attorney General Jeff Sessions to withdraw his recusal so he could end the Russia investigation. Some things make Mueller's investigation harder; others, like Trump confessing repeatedly to obstruction of justice, make it easier.

Education Secretary Betsy Devos says that the Federal Commission on School Safety won’t address the impact of guns on school violence. This statement is at odds with the purpose of the commission, which was formed after the Parkland massacre that killed 17 students and teachers. We’re just spitballing, but has anyone suggested replacing all the students with guns? Could work!

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cancelled the Senate’s August recess in order to prevent vulnerable Senate Democrats from campaigning and fundraising in their home states. That theory comes not from angry liberals, but from McConnell’s deputy John Cornyn, who said, “Now they’re desperate, because they realize they’re more exposed politically because they’ve got so many people up running for re-election in red states.” A better theory is that Cocaine Mitch needs to stick around to supervise the Georgetown trap house.

Facebook gave user data to at least four Chinese electronics companies—one of which, Huawei, has been flagged by U.S. intelligence as a national security threat. These partnerships, which date back to 2010, will continue except for the one with Huawei, which Facebook says will end by the end of the week.

Deputy DNC chair Keith Ellison is running for Attorney General of Minnesota, instead of seeking re-election to Congress.

Scott Pruitt had a senior EPA aide request a meeting with the head of Chick-fil-A to discuss a “potential business opportunity”—his wife Marlyn becoming a Chick-fil-A franchisee. According to EPA staffers, he was “eager for his wife to start receiving a salary,” which makes sense because he really shouldn’t be receiving one at this point.

Trump used the White House to pretend (black) athletes aren’t patriotic, in order to rile up his (white) base, but then didn’t know the words to “God Bless America.” We heard he’s pretty good at singing the Russian national anthem though.

Kelly Sadler, the White House aide who mocked ailing Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), is out at the White House. Not for mocking a terminally ill man but because of a dispute with another communications official, Mercedes Schlapp, who called Sadler a bitch after Sadler accused her of leaking the McCain comment. Office politics, amirite?

The Miss America pageant is ditching the swimsuit competition, saying "We will no longer judge our candidates on their outward physical appearance.” #MeToo gets results.

Designer Kate Spade was found dead in her New York City apartment today. She was 55.

It’s primary night in California and elsewhere, but in an effort to get this newsletter out in a timely fashion/be able to provide results that might take days to tally, we’ll get you a breakdown tomorrow. I mean, if you need to know right now, just Google it.

On Pod Save the People: DeRay, Brittany, Sam, and Clint discuss the thousands of deaths following Hurricane Maria, black women voters, and the Drake and Pusha T feud. Then DeRay talks with Rep. Yvette Clark (D-NY) about immigration under Trump, being one of the 11 House members who did not vote for the Blue Lives Matter bill, and the future of the Democratic Party.

Listen →

For the first time, doctors in the United States have successfully treated a late-stage breast-cancer patient with immunotherapy, deeming her cancer-free for two years as a result. Researchers are now preparing to launch clinical trials in order to determine if the treatment can be replicated for other patients.

Senior officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives regularly overrule their own inspectors’ recommendations to revoke gun dealers’ licenses to sell firearms. This has allowed dealers who don’t conduct background checks on buyers, sell weapons to felons, and threaten the Bureau’s own officers, to continue to sell firearms. According to the New York Times, of the 11,000 inspections on licensed dealers that the bureau has conducted since October 2016, inspectors cited over half for violations, though less than one percent of dealers ultimately lost their licenses...cool.

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