Jim Acosta, Mueller, Millennial Women in Congress: 3 Stories You Should Read 11/16/2018

November 16, 2018 Confluence

Reading Time: 3 minutes

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In the category of: Thank heavens for the courts.

Judge orders White House to return press credentials to CNN’s Acosta

The White House said it would ‘develop rules and processes to ensure fair and orderly press conferences in the future.’

The decision to pull Acosta’s press pass last week over a dispute involving a news conference came as a major escalation, followed by another in court Wednesday, when lawyers for the administration argued that Trump had the authority to ban any reporter from White House grounds for any reason.

Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a Trump appointee, said, however, that the administration deprived Acosta of “due process” when it stripped him of his press pass. The judge granted CNN’s request for the reporter’s access to be temporarily restored while the rest of the case moves forward.

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In the category of: Fortunately for all of us, he’s not actually the King.

The 1 thing that drives Donald Trump totally crazy about the Mueller investigation

“The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t care how many lives the ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!”

It’s not clear how Trump obtained information about the “inner workings” of the Mueller investigation given that special counsel’s office has been tight-lipped about its approach — only occasionally revealing something when a plea agreement is reached or when someone like Paul Manafort faces trial based on what Mueller’s team uncovered. Given Trump’s track record with the truth — and his fixation on the idea that Mueller is conducting a witch hunt (even though he’s not) — the possibility certainly exists that Trump made up his alleged insider information about the Mueller probe.

The broader context here speaks to Trump’s ever-mounting frustration with his inability to control the Mueller probe. We know — thanks to CNN reporting — that Trump spent several hours this week huddled with his attorneys going over written answers to questions that the Mueller team had submitted to the White House regarding the 2016 campaign.

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In the category of: The future is female.

“IT GIVES ME HOPE”: MILLENNIAL WOMEN FLEX THEIR POLITICAL POWER, WITH MIXED RESULTS

At the conclusion of a year-long collaboration between the Hive, theSkimm, and SurveyMonkey, we look at how female millennials voted in the midterms—and what their ascendant political power presages for 2020.

After last week’s election, America’s two parties appear further apart than ever. Democrats reclaimed the House thanks to a record-breaking number of female candidates, including the nation’s youngest congresswoman (New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), the first two Muslim congresswomen (Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar), and the first two Native American congresswomen (Kansas’s Sharice Davids and New Mexico’s Deb Haaland). Republicans, meanwhile, strengthened their hold on the Senate by embracing Donald Trump’s nationalist message. Voter turnout, which has always sagged during midterm elections, soared to a historic high. Millennial women, who were expected to play a consequential role in an election stacked with first-time female candidates, generally seem satisfied with the results, regardless of how they voted, but fewer are optimistic about the future. “I am proud that we have elected so many diverse members for the first time, but I am not proud of many members of the White House,” one respondent to a survey conducted by theSkimm wrote. “I am dissatisfied that while I saw so much progress, there were also many people who continue to support hate, and it is discouraging to see in this country that I believe in so much.”

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