So Much Winning

Item One: U.S. stocks are battered in one of their worst days of 2018 as U.S.-China trade deal appears to sputter

The economic agreement President Trump said he reached with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Saturday showed signs of unraveling Tuesday, with the White House threatening new penalties against Beijing and multiple officials seeking to downplay expectations for an eventual deal.

Investors, who had applauded the deal on Monday, turned sharply negative Tuesday. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 799 points, or 3.1 percent, to close at 25,027. The Standard and Poor’s 500-stock index fell 3.2 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gave up 3.8 percent.

Trump, in a series of Twitter posts, threatened to slap a range of import penalties on Chinese products if they did not make major changes in their economic relationship with the United States.

Also, Stock market plunges as Wall Street gives Trump’s China deal another look

Wall Street is sending a clear signal that, upon closer inspection, Trump’s trade war détente with China isn’t looking so hot — especially after a string of tweets from the president this morning indicated he has no problem going back to a trade war if a broader agreement isn’t reached in the next three months.

All together now: “So much winning!”

Item Two: GOP senators come out and say it: The Trump administration is covering up Khashoggi’s killing

Republican senators emerged from a briefing Tuesday about journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing and essentially accused the Trump administration of misleading the country about it — and even covering it up for Saudi Arabia.

In remarks after a briefing from CIA Director Gina Haspel, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) suggested there is no plausible way that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman didn’t order the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, and said that the evidence is overwhelming. …

…”If they were in a Democratic administration,” Graham said of Pompeo and Mattis, “I would be all over them for being in the pocket of Saudi Arabia.”

But of course, since they are in a Republican administration they won’t be punished for giving misleading statements to the Senate last week. I’m betting money that when Trump’s financials are finally made public, we’ll learn he either owes money to the Saudis or has done considerable business with them in the not-too-distant past.

All together now: “So much winning!”

Item Three: Trump’s latest tweets cross clear lines, experts say: Obstruction of justice and witness tampering

Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that the most striking thing about Monday was that there were two statements in proximity.

“It comes very close to the statutory definition of witness tampering,” he said. “It’s a mirror image of the first tweet, only he’s praising a witness for not cooperating with the implication of reward,” he said, adding that Trump has pardon power over Stone.

“We’re so used to President Trump transgressing norms in his public declarations,” Eisen said, “but he may have crossed the legal line.”

Here are the tweets in question:

All together now: “So much winning!”