Jacob Heilbrunn

Nobody is banking on Mayor Mike any longer. First Mayor Pete, then Sen. Amy Klobuchar, suspended their campaigns, offering a big boost to Joe Biden as the Democratic establishment seeks to rally behind him and to prevent Bernie Sanders from pulling a Trump.Buttigieg is havering, at least publicly, about whether he’ll endorse Biden. Klobuchar, by contrast, has gone all in. She’ll appear at a rally in Dallas, Texas with Biden tonight. It’s unlikely that she will be tapped to become Biden’s vice-president, but joining him now ensures that Klobuchar would be in line for a plum cabinet post if he’s elected president.Still, it isn’t simply self-interest narrowly defined that’s prompting these moves.

The Bern is getting scorching. Bernie Sanders didn’t just defeat his opponents in Nevada — he crushed them. The bedwetters in the Democratic party are becoming ever more incontinent as Sanders notches victory after victory. But what if primary voters have it right? What if Bernie is the only one among the bunch who has the cojones to take on Trump? Trump’s whole re-election bid rests upon his skills as a branding master. The establishment Democrats would try to defeat him on policy grounds. But Hillary Clinton already tried that. What’s needed is someone who will get in Trump’s grill, day after day, week after week.

Roger Stone was well-turned out for his sentencing in a Washington courthouse, sporting a blue overcoat with a dark velvet collar and a black Homburg that was first popularized by the British prime minister Anthony Eden. Two rows of supporters showed up in the courtroom to cheer him on. My guess is that he was delighted by the 40-month sentence and $20,000 fine handed down by Judge Amy Berman Jackson. Now Stone gets to emulate his heroes in the Nixon administration such as G. Gordon Liddy, who served time in the hoosegow and were able to demonstrate their loyalty to the boss. Going to jail would be one of the best things ever to happen to Stone. It would be the capstone to his self-mythologization as an adversary of the liberal elite.

Joe Biden has blown it. His era is over. The obsequies for his campaign are pouring in. Michael Hirsh in Foreign Policy thus announced today that Biden’s vaunted experience on the foreign stage has turned out be a lead balloon: 'It appears many voters across the spectrum don’t want a restoration of anything—including, apparently, US global leadership and the decades-old status quo that Biden is identified with.'Maybe so. But to conclude that Biden’s campaign is finished may be wholly premature. For a start, Biden is in a place where voters may start to admire his gumption and grit at continuing a campaign that looks to be on life support. A comeback story, like the one Amy Klobuchar is currently enjoying, happens to be something that the media feasts upon.

It was all going so well for Donald Trump. Then came Mitt Romney. The Utah Republican stole the show. In announcing that he would vote to find Trump guilty of abuse of power, he blew up Trump’s plan to claim that impeachment was simply a partisan affair. The president, he said, was guilty of an 'appalling abuse of public trust'. One person Trump never trusted was Romney, whom he humiliated during the 2016 transition period when he forced him to eat frog legs at Jean-Georges restaurant in the Trump Tower and cursorily dangled the post of secretary of state before him. All along Romney, who denounced Trump during the campaign, has been a thorn in Trump’s side. He finally got his chance to ventilate his frustration with Trump on the last day of the impeachment trial.

Small wonder that Joe Biden skedaddled out of Iowa as fast as he could to New Hampshire. It looks like generational change, once and for all, is coming to the Democratic party. If the numbers hold up, Mayor Pete is headed toward a confrontation first with Mike Bloomberg, then Donald Trump.Even if Bernie Sanders comes in second, it has to be counted as a disappointment for him. Sanders was counting on a triumph. Instead, he will head to New Hampshire with his claim to be attracting masses of new voters looking about as hollow as Donald Trump boasting about his towering IQ. Turnout in Iowa appears to be about where it was in 2016. The socialist elixir is something that even many Democrats aren't willing to quaff.

Lamar Alexander said that Donald Trump engaged in 'inappropriate' behavior as though he had yelled at a guest at a swanky Mar-a-Lago dinner or forgotten to thank someone for a gift. Thanks to Alexander, Trump will get off scot-free for his Ukraine caper. He won’t even have to endure the indignity of watching his former national security adviser John Bolton lace into him for making goo-goo eyes at Russian president Vladimir Putin and for attempting to work over Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.For Democrats, Alexander’s refusal, or, if you prefer, failure, to stand up to Trump and vote for any witnesses was confirmation that the GOP has completely gone to POT — the Party of Trump.

What’s wrong with trying to sell books? President Trump and his janissaries are trying to depict Bolton as a disgruntled former employee out to tar Trump. Yes, he is. But that doesn’t invalidate his account. It actually means that he resembles a host of former Trump associates who were tossed aside like so much useless ballast when no longer deemed useful. Many of them have interesting things to say about Trump, whether it’s Michael Cohen or Rex Tillerson. So does Bolton. Anyway, Bolton’s motives are hardly as tangled as Trump’s, who is trying to hang on to his job in the face of a mountain of evidence that he was scheming to ease the path to reelection by leaning on Ukraine.

President Trump’s woman troubles never seem to go away. A recording aired by ABC News today indicates that Trump himself demanded the ouster of the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, during a dinner with Lev Parnas, whom he claims he never knew. He did. Trump declared at an April 30, 2018 dinner that included Parnas, 'Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it.'It took a while but eventually Trump’s paladins did. They understood that by 'take her out', the president didn’t mean ask her to go to a fine restaurant or the ballet. They had other ideas. Eventually, Yovanovitch was dismissed and replaced by William Taylor. Look how well that turned out.

Yet another dubious figure whom Donald Trump barely knows. This time it’s Lev Parnas, the Michael Cohen of 2020. 'I don’t believe I’ve ever spoken to him,' Trump said on Thursday. He added, 'I don't know him at all. Don't know what he's about. Don't know where he comes form. Know nothing about him. I can only tell you this thing is a big hoax.' Whether Parnas spoke directly with Trump about the Ukraine caper, remains a matter of dispute.But it was commencement day for the impeachment trial as 100 senators swore an oath to carry out impartial justice, an act that was somewhat vitiated by Martha McSally’s petulant outburst at CNN reporter Manu Raju.

So Lev Parnas is now swanning about with Rachel Maddow? It seems that Maddow scored an exclusive interview with Parnas that will air this evening. She’s going to #letlevspeak, as he seeks to complete his transformation from Trump accomplice to aggrieved accuser. Is this finally the bombshell that Trump detractors have been waiting for lo these many years, the interview of interviews, the revelation that can prompt even the recalcitrant see-no-evil, hear-no-evil Republican senators to blanch?For all its claims that the Senate impeachment trial is supposed to vindicate Trump, the administration seems to be practicing an oath of omerta at the moment. The State Department canceled two scheduled appearances on Capitol Hill today, one featuring Brian Hook, its point man on Iran.

P.G. Wodehouse once described a character as so crooked that he sliced bread with a corkscrew. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s behavior on the Sunday morning television shows brings to mind Wodehouse’s description. No, Pompeo wasn’t toting a corkscrew or a loaf of bread, but he offered a study in deceit. Pompeo didn’t merely reiterate the wafer-thin claim that Iran was about to pose an 'imminent' threat to American interests in the Middle East, but also claimed that President Obama and his aides had essentially been in league with the mullahs of Tehran.In responding to Jake Tapper of CNN, Pompeo was unable to explain how blowing Qasem Soleimani to kingdom come would enhance the safety of America.

Talleyrand once commented that Napoleon’s execution of the Duke of Enghien in 1804 was worse than a crime. It was a mistake. Something similar could be said about President Trump’s liquidation of Maj. Gen Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. No one will miss the villainous Soleimani, but killing him was the equivalent of stepping on a landmine to cure a headache. What on earth could Trump have been thinking — if he was thinking at all? Trump has in effect ceded his foreign policy to the hawks. So much for Trump the restrainer. Hello, Donald Trump neocon. Trump has launched America into the path of a war with Iran that it can win but only at a cost that is disproportionate to the terrible cost it will pay.

It’s starting to dawn on Democrats that Donald J. Trump might stand on the steps of the Capitol in January 2021 to swear his oath of office for the second time. A new Gallup poll indicates that he and Barack Obama are tied as the most popular men in America. So what are the four things that might help further smooth Trump’s oath to reelection? First, despite the preposterous pearl clutching of Freddy Gray on this website, Trump’s hardline against Iran could pay off. He’s steadily raising the military and economic pressure on Tehran. Contrary to all the naysayers, Trump could end up showing that Iran, not America, is the paper tiger.

What are the four things that can go blooey for President Trump in the next year? First, he can get mired in a new Middle East war — the very thing he promised to avoid. The much-ballyhooed pullout from Syria turned out to be none at all. Now turmoil in Iraq, not a North Korean nuclear launch, turns out to be the Christmas present Trump didn’t want to receive. American strikes against the Kataib Hezbollah militia have got Iraq and, by extension, Iran, in a hugger-mugger. Trump could be on a slope toward further escalation with Iran that is as slippery as an oil slick. The hawks in Trump’s administration will exult; his nationalist followers, blanch. Second, there’s the economy. So far it’s humming along on a sugar high of tax cuts and deficit spending.

President Trump paraded his latest acquisition, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a defector from the Democratic to the Republican party, at a meeting in the Oval Office this afternoon. Van Drew, who wore a dark blue three-button suit, crimson red tie and white shirt with gold cufflinks, not only dressed in Trump regalia but pretty much sat by mutely — other than to proclaim his 'undying loyalty' — as his new master bragged about poll numbers that he claimed showed him clobbering his Democratic rivals. Kellyanne Conway and Vice President Mike Pence were on hand as witnesses for the induction ceremony.Though he may be simmering about impeachment, Trump continues to make an outward show of bravado. All he needs, if a Washington Post report is accurate, is a 7 percent solution.

Donald Trump just got another spot of good news. The Supreme Court has cut him a break by taking up three cases directly relating to his financial records and will not resolve them until June 2020. So much for the prospect of his congressional invigilators quickly obtaining his records and embarrassing Trump or worse over his past financial transactions, including with Russia.The Court’s decision offers a reminder that Trump, for all his shenanigans, has a well-oiled machine behind him that is determined, in one way or another, to ensure that he ends his term as he began it — unchallenged, unmolested and unbowed. In two weeks, when he kicks up his heels at Mar-a-Lago, his Southern White House, he should be able to golf and chill to his heart’s content.

Is it time to bag impeachment? That may have been the subliminal signal that GOP counsel Steve Castor was trying to send when he showed up at the impeachment hearing with a Fresh Market reusable bag instead of a briefcase. 'Live, eat, shop, reuse,' was the message emblazoned upon his shopping bag. The North Carolina grocer has wholly embraced Castor, declaring that it is his 'official briefcase maker.'Castor may have wanted to live and let live, but it wasn’t a message that Democrats or Republicans were eager to embrace. Instead, the hearing ground on in the usual furrows, with Louie Gohmert calling the inquiry a 'kangaroo court' and threatening the impeachment of Joe Biden if he wins in 2020. Meanwhile, Democratic counsel Daniel S.