“What Fox does is it makes money by enraging Americans, that’s how they keep them glued to the television set,” Mayer said. “It’s very much the same model that Trump has to keep his base engaged. So you’ve got a rage-based model for both of them, and what it’s doing is it’s spinning the country in an increasingly inflamed direction, and so it has a huge effect on our national politics.”

“It carries his message and it also gives him a message a lot of the time,” she said. “Trump picks up on what he sees on Fox, and I’ve got quotes from people who are very close in to the White House, people who worked in the White House, in and out of Fox, saying what you’ve got is a dysfunctional White House all of the time with no normal decision-making process, where a lot of the policy-making is the president picking up what’s on Fox.”

“Then I describe how Fox puts on what it does on the news, which is shocking in many ways,” Mayer added. “I mean, taking stuff straight off of the most crackpot blogs. Don’t take it me, take it from the people who are quoted from Fox saying so.”

Dear Mr President,

While we may disagree about the credibility of Michael Cohen, and have different views about what Special Counsel Robert Mueller will ultimately reveal, we agree on practical things—like obeying the Constitution and not letting big corporations and the wealthy run everything.

Your 35-day government shutdown was a senseless abuse of power. So too your “national emergency” to build your wall with money Congress refused to appropriate.

When you passed your tax bill you promised our paychecks would rise by an average of $4,000 but we never got the raise. Our employers used the tax savings to buy back their shares of stock and give themselves raises instead.

Then you fooled us into thinking we were getting a cut by lowering the amounts withheld from our 2018 paychecks. We know that now because we’re getting smaller tax refunds.

At the same time, many big corporations aren’t paying a dime in taxes. Worse yet, they’re getting refunds.

For example, GM is paying zilch and claiming a $104 million refund on $11.8 billion of profits. Amazon is paying no taxes and claiming a $129 million refund on profits of $11.2 billion. (This is after New York offered it $3 billion to put its second headquarters there.)

They aren’t breaking any tax laws or regulations. That’s because they made the tax laws and regulations. You gave them a free hand.

You’re supposed to be working for us, not for giant corporations. But they’re doing better than ever, as are their top executives and biggest investors. Yet nothing has trickled down. We’re getting shafted.

Which is why more than 75% of us (including 45% who call ourselves Republicans) support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed 70% tax on dollars earned in excess of $10 million a year.

And over 60% of us support Elizabeth Warren’s proposed 2% annual tax on households with a new worth of $50 million or more.

You’ve also shown you don’t have a clue about healthcare. You promised us something better than the Affordable Care Act but all you’ve done is whittle it back.

A big reason we gave Democrats control of the House last November was your threat to eliminate protection for people with pre-existing conditions.

Are you even aware that 70% of us now favor Medicare for all?

Most of us don’t pay much attention to national policy but we pay a lot of attention to home economics. You’ve made our own home economics worse.

We’ll give you official notice you’re fired on 3 November 2020, if not before. Until then, you can keep the house and perks, but you’re toast.

Respectfully,

America.

What's new: In an investigation being coordinated among six to eight House committees, Trump will essentially be on public trial for months to come, with topics that include abuse of power, obstruction of justice, conflicts of interest (including profit from the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue) and money laundering.

Why it matters: Democrats want to create a large, damning public record of testimony, documents and investigative reports.

So with huge energy in the party pushing for impeachment, leaders are using the congressional investigation to buy time.

A source close to the House leadership told me: "Many in leadership believe impeachment could help Trump get re-elected," and instead will try to "pivot the anger to defeating him on the campaign side next year. ... The last thing they want to do is help Trump like it eventually helped Clinton."

House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler told George Stephanopoulos yesterday on ABC's "This Week" that the committee will issue document requests today to more than 60 people, including White House and Justice officials, Don Jr., and Trump Organization CFO Alan Weisselberg.

Nadler said the mission is "to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power."

Nadler said that "to sabotage a fair election would be an impeachable offense," but added: "Impeachment is a long way down the road."

So expect lots of public hearings and aggressive pushes for the release of documents, most especially the Mueller report and all the investigative materials that went into it.

“Oh, please,” said Oliver. “I honestly don’t know what’s sadder there: either Ivanka is knowingly lying about her Dad forcing her and Jared’s security clearance through, or she genuinely thinks they got it on merit on their own. And if it is the latter, Ivanka, there are some things that you really should know.”

He continued: “You only became an executive vice president of the Trump Organization at 24 because you’re Donald Trump’s daughter, not because you are a 24-year-old business prodigy. You only got a book deal because you’re Donald Trump’s daughter, not because you’re a brilliant author and wordsmith. And you only hosted the Miss Teen USA pageant because your Dad owned the contest, not for your sparkling on-camera presence.”

Mike Allen: “House Democratic leaders worry impeachment proceedings against President Trump could backfire if they move too fast.”

“They plan to pursue a slow-bleed strategy with lengthy public hearings and scores of witnesses to methodically pick apart Trump’s finances and presidency.”

“In an investigation being coordinated among six to eight House committees, Trump will essentially be on public trial for months to come, with topics that include abuse of power, obstruction of justice, conflicts of interest (including profit from the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue) and money laundering.”

NBC News: House Democrats eye GOP playbook for Justice Department requests.

At CPAC Trump said, “I saw little shifty Schiff yesterday. It’s the first time he went into a meeting and he said we’re going to look into his finances. I said where did that come from? He always talked about Russia, collusion with Russia, the collusion delusion. Now we have people that lost and unfortunately, you put the wrong people in a couple of positions. And they leave people for a long time that shouldn’t be there. And all of a sudden, they’re trying to take you out with bullshit, okay?”

Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation – only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the “greatest infomercial in political history.”

He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election. The campaign – for him – was always a marketing opportunity.