Today in 5 Lines
The Congressional Budget Office projected that the House Republicans’ new health-care plan would result in 24 million Americans losing their health insurance and lower federal deficits by $337 billion over 10 years. Iowa Representative Steve King defended a comment he made on Twitter about restoring “our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” The Justice Department has until the end of the day to provide evidence to the House Intelligence Committee to substantiate President Trump’s allegations that former President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer attempted to soften Trump’s accusations, saying Trump wasn’t using the term “wiretapping” literally. Spicer also said Trump plans to donate his $400,000 salary to a charity at the end of the year and would “let the press corps determine where it should go.”
Today on The Atlantic
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City of Spies: In Washington, D.C., everyday encounters between government officials, lobbyists, and diplomats could be innocent—or they could be sinister. Molly Ball takes a look at the “spy game always being played below the capital’s surface.”
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Tell Me No Lies: Julie Beck unpacks the science behind why facts can’t fight false beliefs. “The inherent contradiction of false knowledge is that only those on the outside can tell that it’s false,” she writes. “It’s hard for facts to fight it because to the person who holds it, it feels like truth.”
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The Ascent of Steve King: The Iowa representative has a history of making “controversial, blatantly false, or outright racist” comments. Republican leaders once condemned King and cast him as an extremist outsider. In the age of Trump, however, his unchanged views have moved toward the mainstream. (David A. Graham)
