What We’re Following Today
It’s Friday, February 1. As a bipartisan group of lawmakers works to reach a deal on border security before February 15, President Donald Trump told reporters that there’s a “good chance” he’ll declare a national emergency to secure funding for a border wall. The president also celebrated the U.S. economy adding 304,000 jobs in January.
Meanwhile, in foreign-affairs news, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that he’s withdrawing the U.S. from its nuclear-arms-control treaty with Russia. “For years, Russia has violated the terms of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty without remorse,” he said. “Russia’s violations put millions of Europeans and Americans at greater risk.”
He’s Running: Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey spent Thursday night at a secret church service in Newark, where he was anointed by the church’s reverend. Twelve hours later, he announced his bid for the presidency in 2020. Edward-Isaac Dovere was there to watch it all go down. Meanwhile, as Howard Schultz, the billionaire ex-CEO of Starbucks, ponders whether he’ll launch his own presidential campaign, his many similarities to Donald Trump have become clear. The problem, argues David A. Graham, is that “neither Schultz nor any of his billionaire peers is going to be able to match Trump, because they don’t have the right views.”
The Test Is Yet to Come: In a review of The Chief, the first biography of Chief Justice John Roberts, Michael O’Donnell imagines how Roberts—who writes fierce conservative opinions, but believes strongly in…
