Sunday morning talking heads

Usually there’s one major news story that dominates the weekly Sunday shows but today brings two running on parallel tracks. Track one: Russiagate, of course. Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow will be on all five shows this morning, the so-called “full Ginsburg,” trying to clean up the giant mess made by Don Jr. Opposing him to push the Democratic message are the two top Dems on intelligence in Congress, Mark Warner of the Senate Intel Committee and Adam Schiff of its House counterpart. Warner will follow Sekulow on “Meet the Press,” “Face the Nation,” and “State of the Union” while Schiff will follow him on “This Week.” One obvious question: Should Don Jr testify before Congress about his meeting with the Russian lawyer? You know what Warner and Schiff will say. Sekulow may have no choice but to agree for reasons both legal and political, even though Junior’s poor judgment in accepting the meeting last June doesn’t bode well for him avoiding damaging missteps in his testimony.

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Track two: Health care. The two current Republican “no” votes on the new GOP bill, each representing a different pole within the caucus, are booked this morning. Rand Paul will be on “Face the Nation” and “Fox News Sunday” to argue that the bill isn’t conservative enough in cutting spending while Susan Collins will appear on “This Week” and “State of the Union” to make the case that it’s too conservative in scaling back Medicaid. Collins is the more important of the two: Paul seems to be isolated on the right wing of the caucus, with Ted Cruz voting yes and Mike Lee momentarily undecided, but Collins may have lots of company soon in opposing the bill from the center depending on how Dean Heller, Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman, and Shelley Moore Capito vote. Collins has pushed a plan that would let each state decide whether to keep ObamaCare in place or lift its regulations in the name of letting insurers offer a greater variety of plans to consumers. Is that the way out of this mess for the GOP?

The full line-up is at the AP.

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