memeorandum: President Donald Trump makes surprise Christmas visit to troops in Iraq in first trip to combat zone (Benjamin Siegel/ABC News)

9:40 PM ET, December 26, 2018

Top Items:

James LaPorta / Newsweek:

Donald Trump Twitter Account Video Reveals Covert U.S. Navy SEAL Deployment During Iraq Visit — President Donald Trump and the White House communications team revealed that a U.S. Navy SEAL team was deployed to Iraq after the president secretly traveled to the region to meet …

Discussion: Raw Story and Splinter

Steve Eder / New York Times:

Did a Queens Podiatrist Help Donald Trump Avoid Vietnam? — In the fall of 1968, Donald J. Trump received a timely diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam. — For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about …

Benjamin Siegel / ABC News:

President Donald Trump makes surprise Christmas visit to troops in Iraq in first trip to combat zone — President Donald Trump went to Al Asad Air Base in Iraq on his first visit to U.S. troops in the Middle East as president. — First lady Melania Trump joined him on the unscheduled Wednesday visit.

Discussion: CNBC, twitchy.com, The Hill, The Daily Caller, The Gateway Pundit, The Week, Breitbart, Fox News Insider, Joe.My.God., Washington Times, One America News Network and The Root

New York Times:

Trump Makes Surprise Visit to American Troops in Iraq — President Trump visited American military forces on Wednesday in Iraq, making his first trip to troops stationed in a combat zone only days after announcing his intention to withdraw the United States from foreign wars in Syria and Afghanistan.

Discussion: The Resurgent, AOL, BuzzFeed News, RedState, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, NPR, Outside the Beltway, Daily Kos and Townhall

Darlene Superville / Associated Press:
Trump in Iraq on first visit to troops in troubled region

Discussion: Task & Purpose

The Daily Beast:
Trump to Troops in Iraq: 'We're No Longer the Suckers, Folks'

Discussion: Bloomberg, Townhall and Wall Street Journal

New York Times: Donald Trump's Selective Service Records

Cameron Easley / Morning Consult:
Trump's Popularity Revisits Low as Government Agencies Shut Down

Discussion: Political Wire, Bloomberg, The Guardian and CNBC

Elyse Perlmutter-Gumbiner / NBC News:
Trump becomes first president since 2002 not to visit troops at Christmastime

Discussion: Power Line, Salon, Patterico's Pontifications, HuffPost, People.com, The Hill, Complex, Reuters, Breitbart, CNN, IJR, The Gateway Pundit, Joe.My.God., The Week, Daily Wire, Mediaite, Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos and Raw Story

Wesley Morgan / Politico:
Trump makes first trip to Iraq as president

Discussion: ABC News, One America News Network, The Daily Caller, Power Line and The Gateway Pundit

Mark Maremont / Wall Street Journal:

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker Incorrectly Claims Academic All-American Honors — Claim from Whitaker's University of Iowa football days listed on résumé and government documents — Matthew Whitaker, the acting U.S. Attorney General, has incorrectly claimed …

Discussion: Political Wire, Splinter, Contemptor, POLITICUSUSA, Daily Kos, Joe.My.God. and Mediaite

Josh Kovensky / Talking Points Memo: WSJ: Whitaker Fudged Academic Honors On Resume, Gov Documents

Brandon Kochkodin / Bloomberg:

Here Are Three Crazy Market Statistics on a Wild Day of Trading — To say that U.S. stocks trading has been odd this week seems like an understatement. — All three major U.S. indexes gained at least 4 percent on Wednesday. That's the first time that's happened since 2011.

CNBC:

Dow gives back 282-point gain as Wall Street's wild ride continues — Stocks rose sharply in volatile trading on Wednesday as surges in retail and energy shares helped Wall Street regain the steep losses suffered in the previous session. — The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 657 points higher …

Discussion: CNN, Bloomberg, The Gateway Pundit, The Week, Daily Wire and The Daily Caller

Thomas Heath / Washington Post:
Dow Jones industrial average rises over 2 percent as U.S. stock markets try to recover …

Discussion: Townhall, Wall Street Journal and The Week

Jessica Menton / Wall Street Journal:
Dow Industrials Leap More Than 1,000 Points

Discussion: Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Mediaite

Rachael Bade / Politico:

Federal workforce starts to feel pinch of prolonged shutdown — The partial government shutdown entered its fifth day Wednesday with no signs of a breakthrough and hundreds of thousands of federal workers about to feel the pinch of a protracted standoff. — President Donald Trump …

Discussion: Associated Press, Splinter, Talking Points Memo, Breitbart and Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times

Josh Gerstein / Politico:
Trump lawyers, citing shutdown, ask court for delay in emoluments case

Discussion: Raw Story

David Edwards / Raw Story: C-SPAN caller: I support Trump's shutdown because 'it's getting us closer' to the second coming of Jesus

Annie Grayer / CNN:
Mark Meadows says Trump is still ‘very firm’ on the wall as shutdown drags on

Discussion: Joe.My.God. and The Daily Signal

Garrett Ross / Politico:
Trump says he will do ‘whatever it takes’ to secure funding for border wall

Discussion: Political Wire

Mariam Khan / ABC News:
Negotiations to end partial government shutdown at a standstill

Discussion: Associated Press

Matt Wilstein / The Daily Beast:

MSNBC Beats Fox News in Weekly Cable News Ratings for First Time Since 2000 — MSNBC ended the week of Dec. 21st with the #1 cable news ratings on television, beating Fox News for the first time in 17 years. For the Monday through Friday leading up to the Christmas holiday …

Discussion: NBC Universal

David Bauder / Associated Press:
Bad headlines for Trump also means ratings slump for Hannity

Discussion: Joe.My.God.

Max Read / New York Magazine:

How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually. — In late November, the Justice Department unsealed indictments against eight people accused of fleecing advertisers of $36 million in two of the largest digital ad-fraud operations ever uncovered.

more at Mediagazer »

Andrew Restuccia / Politico:

How Trump gave away his secret war zone trip — The tweets stopped and soon the jig was up. — President Donald Trump's trip to Iraq this week, his first to a war zone as president, was supposed to be a surprise. But the White House couldn't keep the sensitive trip a secret for long.

Discussion: Breitbart and The Gateway Pundit

Wall Street Journal:

Investors Fret Over Khashoggi Killing but Still Maintain Saudi Ties — Many businesses have linked their future to Saudi money and the kingdom's sweeping economic overhauls — On Oct. 12, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson announced he was pulling out of talks on a $1 billion deal …

more at Mediagazer »

Audrey McNamara / The Daily Beast:
Russia Warns United States: Don't Interfere in Saudi Royal Succession

Discussion: Bloomberg

Washington Post:

Internet billionaire Reid Hoffman apologizes for funding a group behind disinformation in Alabama race — Internet billionaire Reid Hoffman apologized on Wednesday for funding a group linked to a “highly disturbing” effort that spread disinformation during last year's Alabama special election …

Discussion: Gizmodo, CNBC, The Verge, The Daily Caller and Axios, more at Techmeme »

Daily Mail:

Ivanka Trump wears a summer dress and a bizarre full straw visor hat — Ivanka Trump rang in the holiday on Tuesday by heading out for a stroll near her family's Palm Beach, Florida estate on Christmas Day with husband Jared Kushner.

Discussion: Raw Story, Bloomberg, Hullabaloo, Mediaite and Talking Points Memo

Department of Homeland Security:

CBP Shares Additional Information about Recent Passing of Guatemalan Child — An eight year-old Guatemalan national, previously apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, died shortly before midnight on December 24 at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Discussion: twitchy.com, The Daily Beast, The Gateway Pundit, ThinkProgress, The Daily Caller, Hit & Run, Townhall, Splinter, Associated Press, Hullabaloo, Bloomberg, CNN, Washington Post and New York Times

David Beavers / Politico:
Nielsen deflects blame for boy's death in Border Patrol custody

Discussion: The Guardian, CNN, The Daily Caller, Conservative News Today and Daily Wire

Adam Skolnick / New York Times:

Colin O'Brady Completes Crossing of Antarctica With Final 32-Hour Push — The final miles of a nearly two-month race across Antarctica — a lonely effort marked by long days, short nights and stunning endurance — ended Wednesday with a sprint to the finish.

Angie Leventis Lourgos / Chicago Tribune:

As national Women's March leaders face claims of anti-Semitism, Chicago group says it won't host January march, citing costs — Women's March Inc. co-President Tamika Mallory, shown in 2017, has praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on social media.

Discussion: RedState, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Townhall, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Daily Wire

USA Today:

USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll: What do Democrats want in 2020? Someone new - and Biden. But definitely not Hillary — Former Vice President Joe Biden hints at a 2020 run, saying he thinks he's “the most qualified person” in this Country to be president. Veuer's Justin Kircher has the story. — CONNECT

Discussion: Joe.My.God.

Jamelle Bouie / Slate:

The Path to the Presidency Could Be Harder for White Democrats in 2020 — Before Barack Obama's election in 2008, the relationship between white racial views and partisanship wasn't as clear-cut as one might think. Yes, Republicans won the large majority of white voters who believed black disadvantage …

Discussion: Washington Monthly and New York Times