Politics & Polls #44: A Disastrous Week in Washington




Politics and Polls show

Summary: Washington has been hit with a trifecta of catastrophic events in the past week. First, President Donald Trump fired Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, justifying his decision by pointing toward Comey’s mishandling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Trump later changed course, admitting he fired Comey for continuing the investigation about Russia’s role in disrupting the 2016 election. Just days later, news broke that Trump shared classified information about the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) with Russian diplomats in the Oval Office — a decision defended by Trump and Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, Trump’s national security advisor. Now, Comey has returned to the spotlight following media reports that he wrote a memo about a conversation in which Trump told him to end the Michael Flynn investigation. (Flynn was forced to resign his role as national security advisor after just 24 days, due to his secret communications with the Russians.) How have the dramatic events of this week changed Washington? What’s next in the ongoing saga of the Trump presidency? Is an investigation or impeachment possible? Professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang discuss this and more in episode #44 of Politics and Polls.