The 5-Minute Fix from The Washington Post

Keeping up with politics is easy now

By Amber Phillips

When The Washington Post reported last week that the CIA thought Russia had intervened in the U.S. election to help Donald Trump win, one of Trump's favorite arguments otherwise was that not everybody in the intelligence community agreed, amid reports that the FBI and the CIA might have reached different conclusions about Russian intent.

Not anymore. On Friday, The Post reported that the CIA said FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper agree that Russia hacked into Democrats' emails — specifically those of members of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's top campaign aide — in part to help Trump win.

This is not good news for Trump.

U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appears at a campaign roundtable event in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S., October 28, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

(Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

He's been trying to cast cold water on the notion that Russia played a role in the election, and now the leaders of the intelligence community are nearly unanimous against that point of view.

While it seems risky, we can see why Trump is doubting the findings of his own intelligence community. For one, he's repeatedly indicated he wants to play nice with Russian President Vladimir Putin, not accuse him of cyber warfare.

And two, he's concerned about his victory being called into question. No one is saying Russia actually tipped the tables for him, but people will draw the lines regardless. Trump won in three key swing states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — by less than 1 percentage point each.

A consensus among the intelligence community about Russia also makes it difficult for Trump's own party in Congress to ignore the hacking. Top Senate Republicans are already preparing for some pretty sweeping investigations into Russian hacking. The way things are going, they should prepare for a battle with Trump, too.

Who really cares about Russia?

Good question. Turns out not everyone in this great nation is in agreement on Russia's influence in the election.

It probably won't surprise you to hear Hillary Clinton cares a lot. She is increasingly blaming Russia for her loss. The New York Times unearthed behind-the-scenes audio Friday of her saying:

HRC

President Obama seems to care a lot, too. Here's what he told NPR in an interview aired Friday, an assertion he repeated in his last news conference of the year, also on Friday:

social_card [Fri Dec 16 2016 16-04-46 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)]

But Trump has some leverage in the court of public opinion. A strong majority of Americans appear to be giving the equivalent of a shrug at all this.

A new, bipartisan Fox News poll found 6 in 10 Americans say Russia's involvement didn't help Trump win --- including 45 percent of Democrats.

The Fix's Aaron Blake says that's good news for Trump. He seems to be increasingly isolated on what Russia did, but not that it mattered. Blake: “For now, basically only partisans appear to think it truly mattered, and even many Democrats are skeptical that it did. That's telling.”

Get smart quick on a political drama everyone's talking about: North Carolina

A protester shouts as she is arrested outside the House gallery during a special session of the North Carolina General Assembly on Friday. (Ethan Hyman/The News & Observer via AP)

Democrats knocked off North Carolina's Republican governor in the fall, but Republicans aren't handing over power the same way they inherited it. The Republican-dominated legislature convened a dramatic, controversial special session this week to push through a pair of bills severely limiting Gov.-elect Roy Cooper's (D) power when he takes office in January. On Friday, Gov. Pat McCrory (R) signed the bills into law, a move widely seen as a middle finger to his successor.

And get smart on basically everything Trump says

Our next president tweets A LOT. But those tweets often rank low on the accuracy scale.

So The Fix's Philip Bump made a tool to help us decode fact from fiction. You can download this free Google Chrome extension that slips some context below his tweets. Sometimes the context will fact-check our president-elect's tweets, other times it will provide more context about who, say, Rex Tillerson is.

Screen Shot 2016-12-16 at 2.17.57 PM

“It's still in the early stages,” writes Bump, “but our goal is to provide additional context where needed for Trump's tweets moving forward.”

Our goal with this newsletter is to provide you additional context on the day's biggest political stories. Let me know how I'm doing. And while you're at it, send me your questions about this insane year in politics for an upcoming special edition of The 5-Minute Fix.

Thanks, as always, for reading!

ObamaPresser

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