May 18, 2017
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.