In his two months in office, Trump has signed the rollbacks of protections for trade, the environment, workers, borrowers, women, retirees, internet privacy, and transgender folks. He’s approved the construction of the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, and he conducted his first military excursion with mixed results. He’s also gotten several appointees confirmed.
But he’s meeting resistance from both sides on the plan to repeal and replace the ACA (which ultimately failed), his budget proposal (which includes the wall), and the new travel ban (hitting legal issues again). Gorsuch won’t be a slam dunk either. He hasn’t started yet on his tax reform and infrastructure plans, and the plan to defeat ISIS is still in the works (though a recent report says we’re close to a military success already).

Russia Investigation:

1. James Comey and Mike Rogers testify in front of the House intelligence committee over Russian collusion and Trump’s wiretap accusations. Here’s what we found out:
   • Russia meddled in our elections and favored Trump over Hillary.
   • The FBI is investigating members of the current administration for coordinating with Russia.
   • The FBI has no information to support Trump’s claims of wiretapping.
2. Prior to the testimony, Trump sends out a series of tweets saying the Democrats made up the Russia story and that it’s fake news when the media reports that there’s no evidence to support his wiretapping accusations.
3. House Republicans ignore the testimony and focus on the leaks coming from the White House.
4. Trump sends out multiple inaccurate tweets during the testimony, some of which Comey refutes in real time.
5. The FBI, the NSA, and the Department of Justice all refute Trumps accusations of wiretapping.
6. Sean Spicer tells the press that Michael Flynn was a volunteer in the election campaign and that Paul Manafort had a very limited role. Manafort was Trump’s campaign chairman from March to August (unpaid, though).
7. It turns out that Mike Flynn worked with Turkey to try to find a way to avoid the US extradition process to transfer Fethullah Gulen (the mullah blamed for the failed Turkish coup) to Turkey.
8. Documents reveal that Paul Manafort not only received payments from pro-Russian agencies in Ukraine, he tried to hide them. Manafort says the records are a forgery.
9. Manafort apparently worked for a Russian billionaire on behalf of Putin where his role was to come up with a plan to undermine anti-Russian opposition in former Soviet republics (source: AP). His strategy was to influence US and European politics, business, and news for Putin’s benefit. He used non-profit groups and media to undercut Putin’s adversaries in eastern Europe.
10. Allegedly, Manafort’s daughter sent these two texts (among many others) about her father to her sister: “He has no moral or legal compass” and “Do you know whose strategy that was to cause that, to send those people out and get them slaughtered.”
11. Officials reveal that the FBI is investigating collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials around information that was released that damaged Clinton’s campaign. Specifically, they have information that there may have been some coordination around the timing of the releases.
12. Breitbart and Info Wars are included in the investigation into the Russian meddling in the election.
13. Devin Nunes, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, secretly receives classified information revealing that some Trump communications, or those of his associates, were incidentally intercepted as part of surveillance of foreign nationals. Without briefing committee members first, he rushes to tell the president and the press that names were unmasked (they should have been hidden), seemingly giving some credence to Trump’s wiretapping accusations. The RNCC uses this in their marketing emails saying that the wiretapping accusations were confirmed. It is suspected, and later confirmed, that Nunes received the information from someone in the White House.
14. Remember when Roger Stone tweeted that something was about to go down with Podesta right before his emails were leaked? Stone’s over-familiarity with WikiLeaks are under increased scrutiny as part of the investigations into Russia’s meddling in the election.
15. Anti-corruption protests break out across Russia, mainly protesting Prime Minister Medvedev. Hundreds of protesters are arrested, including the organizer and Putin’s primary opposition leader, Alexei Navally.
16. Polling shows 66% of Americans want an independent investigation into Russia.

Court:

1. The confirmation hearings for Neil Gorsuch begin with some scorching reminders of the year-long refusal of the GOP senate to hear Merrick Garland confirmations.
2. Some Democratic senators say they will block the confirmation of Gorsuch until the Russian investigations are complete, saying that their reasoning is similar to Mitch McConnell refusing to hold hearings for Merrick Garland.
3. A campaign in support of Gorsuch is being funded to the tune of $10 million in political spending, but we don’t know who is funding it.
4. Awkward. While Gorsuch testifies on his own behalf, the Supreme Court rules unanimously against one of his previous decisions (in a case involving rights of disabled students).
5. Later in the week, Democrats say they’ll filibuster Gorsuch’s nomination for a few reasons. One is to make a point that Democracy doesn’t work when one party refuses to hold hearings for a president’s nominations because he’s in his last year in office. They say it sets a bad precedent, and makes for a blurry line that could stretch to the last two years in a term or to election years. The second point is that the current administration is under investigation and that casts doubt on the legitimacy of any of their nominees.
6. Democrats on the judiciary committee delay the vote to send Gorsuch’s nomination to the full senate for a week.
7. Fun fact: “Gorsuch” auto-corrects to “Grouch” on my phone.

Healthcare:

If you want more detail, WaPo has a pretty good article about what went wrong with the healthcare deal.

1. According to the latest CBO report, more people would lose coverage under the healthcare replacement bill than if they just repealed the ACA without a replacement.
2. Ryan makes these changes to the healthcare bill:
   • Give states the option to make Medicaid recipients work.
   • Give states the option to receive Medicaid per capita or as a block grant.
   • Ban the federal government from reimbursing Medicaid funds raised by state governments.
   • Set aside $75 billion for more tax credits, but let the senate decide how to regulate it.
3. The original repeal plan reduced the deficit by about $337 billion. The above changes would reduce the deficit by half that and wouldn’t insure any more people.
4. Paul Ryan pulls the Thursday vote in order to hold further negotiations and to modify the bill. Even with the changes, it didn’t cut enough for the Freedom Caucus to support it.
5. House Republicans consider dropping the following 10 requirements. Without these, it can’t pass the senate though.
   • Ambulatory services
   • Emergency services
   • Hospitalization (like surgery and overnight stays)
   • Pregnancy, maternity and newborn care
   • Mental health and substance use disorder services
   • Prescription drugs
   • Rehabilitative and habilitative services
   • Laboratory services
   • Preventive care and chronic disease management
   • Pediatric services
6. After working into the night Thursday to make the updates, the House scuttles the rule that a bill has to be available for full day before a vote, scheduling the vote for Friday. That vote is also pulled because they don’t have the support to pass it just in the House.
7. After the bill was pulled, several ads created by the American Action Network PAC ran on CBS. The ads congratulated House Republicans for the passing of the bill. Whoops.
8. Trump blames Democrats for the healthcare bill’s failure, even though they were never approached and Republicans control both the House and the Senate. He also says Dems will be seeking a deal on healthcare within a year when Obamacare explodes, which Trump says he would not only allow but would accelerate.
9. Trump at various times blames Reince Preibus, Tom Price, and Jared Kushner for the bill’s failure.
10. Trump urges supporters to watch “Justice With Judge Jeanine” a few hours before Jeanine says Paul Ryan must step down because he let everyone down on healthcare reform.
11. Additional states look into expanding Medicaid now that the ACA isn’t being repealed.

International:

1. Five people die and 50 are injured when a terrorist drives his car onto a sidewalk on Westminster Bridge and then stabs an officer.  Trump offers our full cooperation and support and Donald Trump Jr. criticizes London’s mayor.
2. Tillerson has a scheduling conflict with the NATO foreign ministers meeting and plans instead to accompany Trump to Mar-a-Lago for a visit with China’s president. He plans to visit Russia in April.
   UPDATE: NATO agrees to change the meeting dates to accommodate Tillerson.
3. Tillerson tells Erin McPike, the journalist from IJR that he brought along on his Asia trip, that he was about to retire to his ranch in March and that he never wanted this job.

Legislation:

1. The House and Senate both passed a bill that would expand drug testing for people receiving unemployment benefits, and forwarded it to Trump to sign.
2. Mission to Mars! Trump signs Senate Bill 442 into law, authorizing appropriations for NASA.
3. In another party-line vote, the Senate voted to reverse FCC internet privacy rules from last year. With the reversal, internet service providers won’t need to get your permission to use your personal info for ads.

Travel Ban/Immigration:

1. The US and UK ban carrying electronic devices bigger than a certain size on flights from certain countries. Computers and iPads must be checked. Intel says that people have figured out how to fit a bomb inside the battery compartment. Emirates Airlines is monitoring the effects of this ban and might reduce flights to the US.
2. ICE specifically targets sanctuary cities to put pressure on them to cooperate.
3. There were no African attendees at the African Global Economic and Development Summit in Southern California. Every African citizen who applied for a visa was denied.
4. More undocumented immigrants are reportedly afraid to interact with the police, even to report a crime, for greater fear of deportation. Sexual assault reports are down 25% and domestic violence reports are down 10% among Los Angeles’s Latino population. What this really means is that more criminals are getting away with more crimes.
5. Many undocumented immigrants begin making plans in case they are deported and someone else has to care for their children.
6. Schools in Toronto, Ontario, will no longer allow school field trips to the US for fear of running into issues at the border.
7. Stories are starting to come out that the Trump administration has threatened eminent domain to take the property needed to build his damn wall.

Miscellaneous:

1. Trump gives an interview where he repeats the same debunked lines about voter fraud, immigrants in Sweden, how NATO works, wiretapping, Muslims celebrating on 9/11, and wiretapping allegations, finishing with “I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president and you’re not.”
2. The Secret Service requests an additional $60 million to protect Trump and his family next year.
3. There are several pro-Trump “Make America Great Again” rallies across the US, some of which broke out in violence (though the stories aren’t clear about who started what).
4. Eric Trump says he’ll update his father on the Trump business quarterly, though Trump has said he’s divested himself of the biz.
5. Ivanka Trump’s not technically a government employee and doesn’t have a title, but she’ll have an office in the West Wing office with security clearance to classified information and government-issued communications devices.
6. And while I don’t care how much any president has golfed during their term, Trump promised he wouldn’t golf and said he’d spend all his time working until everything is fixed. He’s golfed 13 times in 9 weeks, outpacing his predecessors, including the last president, who Trump complained about golfing the most.
7. Trump’s approval rating drops another percent to 36%.