On Sunday, USA Today ran an editorial arguing that “Both Steve Bannon and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi share similar world views. Both harbor apocalyptic visions of a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West.” It took Tucker Carlson a couple days, but on Wednesday evening he came up with the definitive response:

That’s real, by the way. That actually ran on Fox News. And it may have worked for that audience. For Fox News viewers, “didn’t behead any journalists or employ child soldiers” may be the bar a Republican White House adviser needs to clear.

Here’s a crazy thought, though: Maybe one can have neither used chemical weapons on Kurds nor carried out mass executions of a specific religious group and yet still not be who we want pulling the strings in the White House and, say, doing what he can to ban members of a different religious group from entering the United States. Or generally bringing white supremacist ideology to presidential decision-making.

But! But! But … he didn’t behead any journalists! Surely he is above criticism for all time.

Today’s stupidest idea:

Did McConnell Put Warren Right Where He Wants Her?

Senate GOP boss elevates left‘s hero, maybe because she‘s not strongest 2020 Democratic option

Elizabeth Warren has made zero indication that she’s interested in running for president. Quite the opposite, in fact.

And is this anything like Barack Obama manipulating Donald Trump into running for president by mocking him publicly, because maybe he wasn’t the strongest 2016 Republican option?

So let’s stop pretending that this is some grander strategy beyond “shutting that bitch up,” or like Republican asshole Lindsey Graham said, “The bottom line is, [shutting her up] was long overdue with her.” Republican senators hate her. She is a thorn on their side. The fact that she is a woman makes them even angrier. Remember: Sens. Tom Udall, Jeff Merkeley, and Bernie Sanders all read the same letter from Coretta Scott King on the floor of the Senate, and how many of those guys were silenced? Zero. The answer is zero.  

They simply hate Warren. It’s that simple. 

As it turns out, we do know some of the contents of that Trump — Putin phone call. Though … it might be better if we didn’t.

During the conversation, Vladimir Putin brought up the idea of extending the New START treaty. And Donald Trump responded with … what's that?

When Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty, known as New START, Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was, these sources said.

Where’s that entirely appropriate Twitter account? Ah. Here it is.

But despite not knowing what the START treaty was about, there was one thing that Trump knew down in his tiny orange bones.

Trump then told Putin the treaty was one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration, saying that New START favored Russia. Trump also talked about his own popularity, the sources said.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals hasn’t yet ruled on Donald Trump’s Muslim ban, but the legal scene isn’t quiet while we wait for that decision. There are around 20 other lawsuits challenging the ban in different courts, taking a wide range of approaches:

“People wanted to protect their clients,” [ACLU attorney Lee] Gelernt said. “We could not, especially in the early stages, guarantee we would get nationwide relief or that there wouldn’t be gaps, so we encouraged and helped coordinate other lawsuits. I don’t think at this point anyone would tell you you can fit all the cases together like a puzzle. Cases are being filed very, very quickly and there is overlap in some of the cases.”

Immigrant rights lawyers said they’re hopeful the 9th Circuit will leave in place the broad national order the states of Washington and Minnesota obtained blocking Trump’s directive, but the other suits could help buttress that effort if the appeals court or the Supreme Court lifts or curtails Judge James Robart’s order by limiting to whom it applies or perhaps where it applies.

“The Washington order could get reversed,” Gelernt said. “No one can be sure until the administration changes the executive order that it won’t again be applied. There’s been no definitive ruling, so I don’t think that any one particular case settles it for everyone.”

If there isn’t one decision that suspends Trump’s ban altogether, a patchwork of cases addressing different aspects of it could provide substantial, if incomplete or overlapping, protections. A suit in Seattle addresses people with work or student visas. One in Greenbelt, Maryland, addresses refugees. And new lawsuits continue to be filed, with one filed Wednesday in Washington, D.C., that asks for an order to “promptly reissue any and all physically cancelled visas.”

Whatever the 9th Circuit decides, this issue will continue to be fought in courts around the country unless and until Trump changes his executive order or the Supreme Court makes a final decision.

Black people in the United States have long believed that education is the great equalizer. Despite persistent stereotypes and media portrayals to the contrary, black parents routinely encourage their children to aspire for degrees (whether they be high school, college or beyond) in order to improve their chances in life. This is a common value which reaches across political ideology.

Given that, it’s interesting (to say the least) to read Omarosa Manigault’s Black History Month take on blacks and education—specifically how, because of the president’s commitment to education, blacks will do better than they ever have.

I am proud to serve under a president who has made it clear that the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no more, including — and I would argue especially — African Americans.

...His desire is for every disadvantaged child in the United States to have an opportunity to attend the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of the parents’ choice. He believes this is the great civil rights issue of our time, and African Americans all over the country agree, as does our new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.

Access to quality education is most certainly a critical civil rights issue and school choice is worthy of debate. But it simply makes no sense to support the idea of sending kids to private, magnet or charter schools without addressing how we fix public schools. The Senate just confirmed an education secretary that has worked most of her adult life to funnel money away from public education. So any suggestion that this administration will prioritize improving public schools ignores facts and history. 

If Mitch McConnell’s explanation of Senate Republicans’ silencing of Elizabeth Warren—“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted”—hadn’t become such an instant classic, this one from Lindsey Graham would be getting a little more attention. But, just as Lindsey languished in the shadows during his ill-fated presidential run, so too is his obnoxious crowing about silencing Warren not getting the (negative) attention it deserves:

“The bottom line is, it was long overdue with her. I mean, she is clearly running for the nomination in 2020.”

Man who ran for president and had to drop out because he had no support assails the presidential ambition of woman who refused to run for president despite a major campaign begging her to do so. Seriously, if we didn’t have “Nevertheless, she persisted,” would this not be a memeworthy encapsulation of the sexism of the moment?

And seriously, if it was “long overdue” to silence every senator with presidential ambition, the Senate floor would be silent except for that woman who reads the roll calls. Nope, there’s something special about Elizabeth Warren—specifically, about the way she gets under Republican skin.

When you hear a certain phrase come up three, four times in less than 24 hours in Washington, you know there are some talking points circulating and everyone is on script. Today's phrase is "demoralizing and disheartening." That's what popular vote loser Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee says about his benefactor's attacks on the judiciary, and he wants everyone to know it. So he told Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal that, Blumenthal reported it, and now the Republican spin machine is reinforcing it.

Former New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Gorsuch's designated handler in the Senate, released a statement saying that Gorsuch "finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing." For good measure, she added that Gorsuch "has also emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary." Uh huh.

Then Republican Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse steps up to make sure everyone connects the dots. "Judge Gorsuch and I actually talked about that," he said on Morning Joe Thursday, "and frankly, he got pretty passionate about it." The obvious conclusion, says Sasse, is that this nomination shouldn't be politicized, because "people all across the political spectrum should love the fact that he's going to be a warrior for a constitutional system of executive restraint and limits."

See! He says he's demoralized and disheartened and that makes him totally independent of Trump. There's no excuse now for Democrats to oppose the nomination!

Democrats might have cottoned to the game, however.

Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the President of the United States, took to Fox & Friends this morning to plea for Fox viewers to go out and buy Ivanka Trump’s clothing line. With the White House emblem in the background, she said, ‘Go buy Ivanka’s stuff!” Here is a brief clip, jump below for the full jaw-dropping clip, transcript and outline of the federal law she appears to have violated this morning.

Trump’s program of increased deportation of immigrants cranked up on Wednesday when an Arizona woman was taken away in front of her crying children and put in a van for Mexico after more than two decades of living peacefully in the United States.

An ICE spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday evening that Garcia had been detained. It's the first public sign in Arizona of President Donald Trump's executive order expanding his priorities for deportation.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos is a convicted felon, but her felony was being caught in a workplace raid more than a decade ago and being charged with “working in the country illegally” — not exactly what most people had in mind when Trump said he would first go after “criminal” immigrants. 

“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,” he said in the interview, to air on “60 Minutes” on CBS.

That’s what Donald Trump said. But that’s not the instructions that have been given to ICE. What’s happening in the world outside Donald Trump’s speeches is that good people voluntarily reporting their status, are being punished for their cooperation.

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Leading Off

● NV-Sen: Sen. Dean Heller is one of the few Senate Republicans whom Democrats can realistically target next year, but so far, no credible candidates have stepped forward to face him. In fact, until this week, no Democrats even publicly expressed interest in challenging Heller at all. However, Rep. Dina Titus tells The National Journal that she's considering. However, Titus would need to give up her safely blue Las Vegas House seat for a risky bid against Heller, a well-funded incumbent who won a very difficult race in 2012 even as Obama was decisively carrying Nevada.

Democratic insiders mention a number of other names to the National Journal. They name-drop ex-Secretary of State Ross Miller, who narrowly lost a race for attorney general during the 2014 GOP wave; ex-Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones Blackhurst, who left office in 1999 and currently works for Caesars Entertainment; ex-state Treasurer Kate Marshall, who narrowly lost the 2014 secretary of state race; state Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford, who is reportedly considering running for governor; ex-Rep. Steven Horsford, who lost his seat in 2014 after one term; and freshmen Reps. Jacky Rosen and Ruben Kihuen.

A source close to Kihuen told National Journal that the congressman is "focused on his current job," but the source didn't rule out a bid. However, none of the other prospective candidates have done anything to indicate what they're thinking. Over at the Nevada Independent, Jon Ralston takes a look at the potential field. Ralston writes that local insiders doubt Titus will give up her safe seat in the end, though Titus will take a look at the political climate is blowing. But he adds that Kihuen could leave behind his light blue House seat and run for the Senate "[i]f Trump's numbers are terrible, and Heller seems weak." There's no word if Rosen is at all interested, though Ralston notes that she'll be a GOP target anyway in 2018 in her swingy seat, and she may just decide she has a better shot against Heller.

Blackhurst and Marshall at least seem to want to return to office, though Ralston believes that Marshall "may not be the party's first choice here." He doesn't elaborate, though national Democrats may have unhappy memories of Marshall from her 2011 special election bid for the 2nd Congressional District. Marshall raised a ton of money but lost to Republican Mark Amodei by a brutal 58-36 margin. The 2nd is Nevada's most conservative seat and Obama had weak approval ratings at the time, but Marshall made a few avoidable mistakes. Rich guy Steven Cloobeck has reportedly already said he'll run for governor but Ralston mentions him just in case he decides to switch races. However, Ralston believes that Horsford and Miller are happy at their new jobs, while Ford seems far more interested in running for governor or attorney general.

The National Journal also notes one other big question for Nevada in 2018. Now-former Sen. Harry Reid built a formidable Democratic voter turnout machine over the years that helped Team Blue win across the board last year on an otherwise awful election night. However, no one's sure what role Reid will play in 2018, or how well the machine will work in a non-presidential cycle without Reid on the ballot.

If you’re Donald Trump, you spend your evenings wandering around in a bathrobe, mumbling the names of your enemies. It’s what you do. And as the sun rises, the fevered imaginings of the night burst out to start another day of delusional rage.

Actually, Blumenthal served six years in the Marines during the Vietnam War, though he was never in combat. Meanwhile, Trump, the “healthiest candidate ever to run for president” was down with a case of bone spurs—one that lasted just long enough to net him a medical deferment, before never bothering him again. But of course, Trump did fight in his own war by having a lot of sex.

"It's Vietnam," added Trump. "It is very dangerous. So I'm very, very careful." 

But that’s just the first part of Trump’s morning attack. How did Blumenthal “misrepresent” Gorsuch? He quoted Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court as saying that the Muslim ban is both "demoralizing" and "disheartening." A lie … right? No. The truth.

A member of the Supreme Court nomination team escorting Gorsuch through the get-acquainted meetings also confirmed the remarks to NPR's Tamara Keith.