My kids and I like to play games at dinner together. When they were younger, we'd play word games or make up stories to encourage their creative skills. Now that they are older, we play trivia games and "Would You Rather...?". We were playing a game of posing ethical dilemmas when this came back to me from my philosophy course in college.
It occurs to me that there are multiple layers of the Prisoners' Dilemma playing out now, both nationally and internationally. The international community has to sit out and do the calculus of how the Trump administration is going to operate. The larger GOP has to do the calculus of how much support to give to Trump. The Democrats have to figure out how to calculate how much cooperation and how much resistance they can offer, given that the media will inevitably run a "Dems in disarray" story either way.
But the truth of the matter is, no matter what we choose, it relies on a rational actor on the other side. And we don't have that. So in this particular dilemma, we'll all lose.
ABC's "This Week" — Leonard Leo, outside adviser to President Donald Trump on judicial nominations; Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney; Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison, US representative to NATO; Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz; former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa. Panel: former Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J.; Democratic strategist Stephanie Cutter; Republican strategist Sara Fagen; and Patrick Gaspard, president of Open Society Foundations.
NBC's "Meet the Press" — Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; Mimi Rocah, former assistant U.S. attorney, Southern District of New York; Giuliani. Panel: Mark Murray of NBC News, Susan Page of USA Today, Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post and MSNBC and Danielle Pletka.
CBS' "Face the Nation" — Sens. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Chris Coons, D-Del.; Kay Bailey Hutchison. Panel: Toluse Olurunnipa of Bloomberg; Kelsey Snell of NPR; Reihan Salam of National Review; Mark Landler of The New York Times; and Jeff Pegues of CBS and author of “Kompromat, How Russia Undermined American Democracy.”
CNN's "State of the Union" — Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Doug Jones, D-Ala.; Giuliani. Panel: Congresswoman Karen Bass, D-Calif.; Linda Chavez, director of the Becoming American Initiative; Ken Blackwell of the American Civil Rights Union and former domestic policy adviser to Trump-Pence Transition Team; and Jeff Weaver, former campaign manager for Bernie Sanders.
CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" — “The Two Faces of Kim Jong Un” special.
CNN's "Reliable Sources" — A panel on border coverage with reporters Neena Satija of the Texas Tribune and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting; Lomi Kriel of the Houston Chronicle; and Rafael Carranza of The Arizona Republic. Other guests are Nina Totenberg of NPR; Emily Holden, reporter at Politico; Elaina Plott, staff writer at The Atlantic; and Ezra Klein, editor at large at Vox and host of “The Ezra Klein Show” podcast. Klein weighs in on “the merger of Fox News and the Trump White House,” CNN says.
"Fox News Sunday" — Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America; Hutchison. Panel: Brit Hume, Juan Williams, Fox News correspondent Gillian Turner and former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.
So what's catching your eye this morning?
