memeorandum: U.S. Considering Plan to Stay in Remote Syrian Base to Counter Iran (Lara Seligman/Foreign Policy)

1:50 PM ET, January 26, 2019

Top Items:

Trump and His Associates Had More Than 100 Contacts With Russians Before the Inauguration — Among these contacts are more than 100 in-person meetings, phone calls, text messages, emails and private messages on Twitter. Mr. Trump and his campaign repeatedly denied having such contacts with Russians during the 2016 election.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Root, POLITICUSUSA and Joe.My.God.

Pelosi / Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

Pelosi Statement on Special Counsel Indictment and Arrest of Trump Campaign Advisor Roger Stone — Washington, D.C. - Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement after Special Counsel Mueller released a seven-count indictment of top Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone, for lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstruction:

Discussion: ThinkProgress, The Guardian, Mother Jones, Conservative News Today, The Daily Caller, TheBlaze, The New Civil Rights Movement, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit and The Stream

Andrew C. McCarthy / National Review:

Stone Indictment Underscores That There Was No Trump-Russia Conspiracy — Will the Justice Department ever correct the record? — Roger Stone is the shiny object. The obstruction charges in his long-anticipated indictment, made public on Friday, are not the matter of consequence for the United States.

Discussion: Washington Post, The Intercept, Politico, The Guardian, New York Times and Hit & Run

Mike Allen / Axios:

Trump's self-inflicted slump — Yesterday was a devastating day for President Trump as he heads into his reelection campaign and an era of divided government. — As Axios' Jonathan Swan puts it: He blinks; he disappoints the people who still love him; he gets no credit for reopening the government …

CNN:

CNN NEWSROOM — THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. — [14:30:00] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We do not have the necessary space or resources to detain, house, vet, screen and safely process this tremendous influx of people.

Betsy Woodruff / The Daily Beast:
‘I Will Piss on Your Grave’: Emails Reveal Roger Stone's Abuse of Frenemy Randy Credico

Discussion: BuzzFeed News

Abigail Tracy / Vanity Fair:
“We Can See Collusion”: With the Stone Indictment, Mueller Begins Making His Case

Discussion: TheBlaze, The Guardian and Mediaite

Zachary Basu / Axios:
House Intelligence to hand over transcripts to Mueller investigation

Discussion: ABC News, POLITICUSUSA and Fox News Insider

John Podesta / Washington Post:
It might now be Roger Stone's time in the barrel

Discussion: National Review, Politico, Bloomberg and Raw Story

Jennifer Rubin / Washington Post:
What did the president know, and when did he know it?

Discussion: USA Today, Salon, Raw Story and Shareblue Media

Peter Baker / New York Times:

For a President Consumed With Winning, a Stinging Defeat — WASHINGTON — President Trump famously declared that in his administration the nation would become tired of all the winning. So on Friday he tried a little losing. — After the longest government shutdown in history …

Discussion: Slate, Mother Jones, ThinkProgress, New York Daily News, NPR, The Resurgent, Al Jazeera and Raw Story

Politico:

POLITICO Playbook: What we've learned post-shutdown — DRIVING THE DAY — THE SHUTDOWN IS OVER. One can believe that this is what PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP needed to do — reset the negotiations — but you cannot make a coherent argument that it's not a cave to accept an agreement …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Washington Post:
‘Prisoner of his own impulse’: Inside Trump's cave to end shutdown without wall

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times

Andrew Restuccia / Politico:
‘Complete, total surrender’: Why Trump waved the white flag

Discussion: Washington Post, POLITICUSUSA, RedState, Hit & Run and The American Conservative

Quint Forgey / Politico:
Trump warns border security compromise ‘will not be easy’

Discussion: Washington Post, CNN, Deadline and Breitbart

New York Times:
Trump's Shutdown Was a Cruel Joke

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA, Macleans.ca and Vox

New York Times:

A Bruised Trump Faces Uncertain 2020 Prospects. His Team Fears a Primary Fight. — With his approval rating sinking, and foes within the party wooing potential Republican challengers, aides to the president are working to shore up his support. — Mr. Trump, close associates acknowledge …

Discussion: Axios, Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, Outside the Beltway, Joe.My.God. and twitchy.com

Telegraph:

Melania Trump - An Apology — Following last Saturday's (Jan 19) Telegraph magazine cover story “The mystery of Melania”, we have been asked to make clear that the article contained a number of false statements which we accept should not have been published.

Discussion: CNN, Townhall, Daily Wire, The Daily Beast, TheBlaze, Conservative News Today, Joe.My.God., RedState, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, illegal immigration …, The Gateway Pundit, twitchy.com, The Daily Caller and Mediaite

Kelly Gilblom / Bloomberg:

Telegraph to Pay Melania Trump ‘Substantial’ Damages for Article — The Telegraph agreed to pay U.S. First Lady Melania Trump “substantial” damages after running an article in its magazine a week ago that it said included “a number of false statements” and shouldn't have been published.

Edward-Isaac Dovere / The Atlantic:

Ex-Starbucks CEO Could Get Trump Re-elected — Before there was Jill Stein, there was Ralph Nader. Before there was Nader, there was Ross Perot. — None won. All argued that the Republican Party and the Democratic Party were basically the same, and the only way to make real change was to ditch them both.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Hullabaloo

CBS News:
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says Donald Trump is not qualified to be president

Discussion: IJR

David Roth / The Concourse:

You Can't Get There From Here — “It's not going to change a damn thing,” the President of the United States told an assemblage of news anchors at an off-the-record White House meeting some weeks ago. “But I'm still doing it.” To a certain extent, that groaning is just standard Trump shit …

Discussion: Eschaton

Bret Stephens / New York Times:

Yes, Venezuela Is a Socialist Catastrophe — In the age of A.O.C., the lesson must be learned again. — Conspicuous by its relative absence in much of the mainstream news coverage of Venezuela's political crisis is the word “socialism.” Yes, every sensible observer agrees …

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, Front Page Magazine and Instapundit

Shane Dixon Kavanaugh / Oregonian:

Saudi students who vanish before trial span states, decades — A university student from Saudi Arabia facing criminal charges in Ohio vanished in 1988, new evidence that the Saudi government intervened decades before it took similar action in several cases The Oregonian/OregonLive recently uncovered in Oregon.

Willie Brown / San Francisco Chronicle:

Sure, I dated Kamala Harris. So what? — I've been peppered with calls from the national media about my “relationship” with Kamala Harris, particularly since it became obvious that she was going to run for president. Most of them, I have not returned. — Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago.

Discussion: Political Wire

Scott Shane / New York Times:

Huge Trove of Leaked Russian Documents Is Published by Transparency Advocates — A group of transparency advocates on Friday posted a mammoth collection of hacked and leaked documents from inside Russia, a release widely viewed as a sort of symbolic counterstrike against Russia's dissemination …

The Hill: Transparency advocate group releases trove of hacked Russian documents

John Bresnahan / Politico:

'She's not one to bluff': How Pelosi won the shutdown battle — Two months ago, Nancy Pelosi was battling an internal Democratic rebellion trying to bar her from the speakership. — Pelosi faced doubts over whether she was the right person to lead the new Democratic majority …

Discussion: Washington Post and Outside the Beltway

Adam Green / Roll Call:
Democrats were ripe for division. Then the shutdown came along

Discussion: Raw Story and Hullabaloo

Michael Cavna / Washington Post:

Another cartoonist loses his job. This does not bode well for the future of newspaper cartooning. — Another Pulitzer-winning cartoonist has been shown the door. — Steve Benson was laid off Wednesday by his longtime employer, the Arizona Republic, as part of larger cuts by the Gannett company.

Washington Post:

The shutdown was proof of Trump's stark incapacity for leadership — PRESIDENT TRUMP'S temper tantrum over Congress's refusal to fund a border wall paralyzed much of the government for five weeks, sapped the morale and wallets of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and low-wage contractors …

Discussion: CNN, Raw Story, Washington Press and Jamie Dupree - AJC