The Atlantic Politics & Policy Daily: A Barr Walks Into Congress

What We’re Following Today

It’s Tuesday, April 9.

Barr Some: At a congressional budgetary hearing, Attorney General William Barr told lawmakers that they’ll receive a copy of the Mueller report “within a week.” But the copy they get will be heavily redacted—and Congress isn’t too happy about that, reports Russell Berman.

A Crossroads for Israel: Israel’s general election on Tuesday was a tight race between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his challenger, the former military chief Benny Gantz—both of whom are claiming victory. During the run-up, Netanyahu’s opponents accused him of damaging the relationship between Israel and diaspora Jews, and recent events have exposed the depth of those fractures. Under Netanyahu’s government, discontent among liberal and middle-of-the-road Jews will likely escalate, writes Emma Green, and “marks a pinnacle in the fracture between Israeli and American Jews.”

A man in Jerusalem walks past a Likud campaign billboard depicting President Donald Trump shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Ammar Awad / Reuters)

Raising Cain: Trump wants to nominate the former presidential candidate Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve Board. Cain isn’t exactly “taken seriously” by the political establishment, but his potential nomination shows that Trump is moving to strengthen his grip on the central bank—just in time for 2020, reports Peter Nicholas.

Invisible Middlemen: Before the heads of five pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)—often known as pharmacy “middlemen”—testify before Congress this week about high drug prices, Olga Khazan examines the outsize role PBMs play in how patients receive care. They handle rebates and payments between drug manufacturers, health insurers, and pharmacies, and their role as middlemen can slow down the delivery of crucial medicine, which sometimes proves deadly.

— Madeleine Carlisle and Olivia Paschal

Snapshot

Demonstrators protest against Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi near the White House, as President Donald Trump meets with el-Sisi. (Jose Luis Magana / AP)

Ideas From The Atlantic

Troubled Countries Can’t Keep People From Leaving (Eliza Willis and Janet Seiz)
“The same factors that lead to outmigration—crushing poverty, widespread crime and violence, and weak government institutions—also limit these governments’ ability to entice residents to stay.” → Read on

Elizabeth Warren Had Charisma, and Then She Ran for President (Peter Beinart)
“Warren’s troubles … are being compounded by journalists who analyze her image without recognizing how bound up it is with her gender. The media aren’t responsible for the fact that many male, and some female, voters demand that women presidential candidates work so much harder to prove their competence—and then react negatively once they do so. But journalists do have an obligation to explain what’s going on.” → Read on

Democrats Need to Emphasize Responsibility, Not Just Rights (Rahm Emanuel)
“We can begin by issuing a simple but powerful call: a policy that requires all 18-year-olds to give at least six months of their life to national service. People from different walks of life, with different backgrounds, would serve with one another as a rite of passage.” → Read on

It Wasn’t ‘Verbal Blackface.’ AOC Was Code-Switching. (John McWhorter)
“Ocasio-Cortez’s critics seem to assume that since she is not black, her use of Black English must be some kind of act. This, however, is based on a major misreading of the linguistic reality of Latinos in America’s big cities.” → Read on

Obama’s Presidential Library Is Already Digital (Dan Cohen)
“As the highly anticipated Obama Presidential Library in Chicago morphed into the Obama Presidential Center—without a place to hold the records of his administration—reactions ranged from slight confusion to rote dismissiveness … Is a digital library a library?” → Read on

What Else We’re Reading

‣ The Democratic Electorate on Twitter Is Not the Democratic Electorate in Real Life (Nate Cohn and Kevin Quealy, The New York Times)  (? Paywall)
‣ Will Congress Leave the Colorado River High and Dry? (Naveena Sadasivam, Grist)
‣ Congress Is About to Ban the Government From Offering Free Online Tax Filing. Thank TurboTax. (Justin Elliott, ProPublica)
‣ ‘Beto’ and Other Names in Politics and Life (Jay Nordlinger, National Review)
‣ I Worked as a Bail Bond Agent. Here’s What I Learned. (Joshua Page, The Appeal)

And One More Thing …

‘We Can Do This’: The documentary Community Patrol, which premiered today on The Atlantic, depicts a crime-ridden area of Detroit attempting to police itself rather than report offenders to the police.

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