2019
March
01
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

March 01, 2019
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Peter Grier
Washington editor

Last year, President Trump ordered his staff to grant son-in-law Jared Kushner a top-secret security clearance. That’s perfectly legal – presidents are the top rung of the classified-information ladder.

But some top White House officials were very concerned about the president’s move. That’s because the CIA was worried that Mr. Kushner’s business ties to foreign governments and leaders might make him vulnerable to manipulation.

How do we know this? The short answer is that first The New York Times, and then The Washington Post, reported the story. But the longer answer is that someone from Mr. Trump’s inner circle probably wanted us to know. It’s no accident the Times and Post produced similar pieces. And behind that is a larger point that bears repeating: The sheer amount of stuff we’ve learned about the workings of the Trump administration is extraordinary. Journalists and historians will mine this record for decades to come.

Add it up. First, it’s the daily reporting from a White House that leaks like an aged FIAT’s water pump. Then there are all those tell-all books, from journalists and former White House officials. Finally, there are the investigations. This week’s public testimony from Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, is but a taste of what empowered House Democrats aim to produce.

Nixon’s Watergate tapes were a granular record that is still producing bestsellers. Similarly, a vast archive of Trump material will be a gift to political scientists and historians into the next century. Which college will first offer a major in “Trump studies”? It’s coming, sometime soon.

Now on to our five stories for the day.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Leah Millis/Reuters
President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pose before their meeting during the second US-North Korea summit at the Metropole hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam, Feb. 27.
SOURCE:

Polaris, US Census Bureau

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Briefing

Goran Tomasevic/Reuters
People in Belgrade, Serbia, attend a protest rally marking one year since moderate Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanović was killed.

Defending the Keys

Difference-maker


The Monitor's View

Reuters
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukrainian actor and candidate in the upcoming presidential election, waits backstage before a comedy show in Kiev Feb. 22.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Juan Carlos Toro
David Díaz Moreta, Lucas Díaz, and Manuel Díaz, three generations, stand (from l. to r.) in one of the corrales de pesca – fishing pools – in which they trap fish in Chipiona, in southern Spain. Residents have built such pools here for thousands of years, piling rocks that are then held together by the ostiones, or large oysters, that attach to them. As the tide falls, fish are left stranded, becoming an easy catch. By the 1970s the privately owned pools had nearly disappeared because of a 1969 law prohibiting private ownership of the country’s beaches. However, owing to the effort of the 500-member association of tide pool fishermen, known as Jarife, this cultural and historical activity has been preserved for future generations. (For more images, click on the blue button below.)
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Come back Monday, when we'll have a story from California on efforts to use new digital tools to track and fight homelessness. 

More issues

2019
March
01
Friday
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