Mark Landler at NYT:
President Trump has long claimed that he puts “America first” overseas. But in two remarkable statements on Thursday, Mr. Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, explicitly favored foreign autocrats over elected American leaders.
Mr. Pompeo chose Cairo, the site of President Barack Obama’s 2009 address to the Islamic world, to deliver a caustic, point-by-point repudiation of Mr. Obama’s message. He paid tribute to Egypt’s repressive president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, for his courage in supporting Mr. Trump’s alternative approach.
About an hour later, on the South Lawn of the White House, Mr. Trump said that China’s Communist Party bosses negotiated in better faith than the Democratic leaders in Congress, with whom the president is in a bitter standoff over his border wall that has shut down much of the federal government.
“I find China, frankly, in many ways to be far more honorable than Cryin’ Chuck and Nancy. I really do,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “China is actually much easier to deal with than the opposition party.”
Khorri Atkinson at Axios:Lou Dobbs now using explicitly authoritarian language - says Trump should "declare a national emergency and simply sweep aside the recalcitrant left. They have obstructed, resisted, and subverted for far too long." https://t.co/FBnzSGghJk— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) January 11, 2019
In addition to being one of Trump's favorite cable news hosts, Lou Dobbs is also a close confidante of the president. The Daily Beast reported last year that Trump has, on several occasions, patched Dobbs into Oval Office meetings so the Fox Business host could "give his two cents" via speakerphone. Later Thursday night, Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity that he would "most likely" declare a national emergency if he couldn't strike a deal with Congress on his border wall.
