Trump labels impeachment a “coup”

President Donald Trump tweeted on Tuesday night that the Democrats’ investigation into the Ukraine scandal “is not an impeachment, it is a COUP” — an authoritarian rhetorical escalation that shows how unstable American politics could become as the impeachment process goes on.

Definitionally, a coup refers to the overthrow of a leader by the country’s security forces. Obviously, that’s not what’s happening here: House Democrats are initiating a legal process for removing the president enshrined in the Constitution, pretty much the opposite of an extrajudicial overthrow of a leader by military force.

By labeling impeachment a “coup,” Trump is …

Vox Sentences: Shots fired in Hong Kong

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Former Dallas police officer convicted of murder; protests in Hong Kong escalate with police using live ammunition.


A jury agrees: shooting an unarmed man in his home was murder

Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News/AP
  • Former police officer Amber Guyger, who is white, was convicted Tuesday of murdering her unarmed black neighbor Botham Jean, when she shot him in his own home in 2018

Pompeo accuses House Dems of “bullying” State Department officials amid impeachment fight

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is pushing back against House Democrats’ effort to investigate the State Department’s involvement in the Ukraine scandal as part of their impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Last week, top House Democrats wrote to Pompeo to notify him that they had scheduled depositions of five current and former State Department officials who might have knowledge about Trump’s efforts to pressure the government of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The depositions were scheduled to take place this week and next week.

But Pompeo, in a fiery letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee …

There’s lots of Trump scandal news — but one clear scandal

It’s been roughly a week since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, and the underlying Ukraine scandal keeps spiraling in new directions. Recent reports about Trump and Attorney General William Barr’s contact with leaders in Australia, Italy, and the UK have created a sense of sprawling mess, making it seem like a tough-to-follow meta-scandal akin to the Trump-Russia morass.

But despite the new developments — which involve Trump and Barr attempting to enlist foreign leaders’ help in investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia probe — the scandal remains straightforward.

President Trump has turned …

Elizabeth Warren’s week of good polling shows she might have a path to the Democratic nomination

Last week saw some of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s best polling since she first entered the race for president. It wasn’t just because of who she surpassed in a handful of polls (former Vice President Joe Biden) but also where she surpassed him: the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

A slew of recent polls, like the Des Moines Register/CNN poll in Iowa, the Monmouth University/USA Today poll in New Hampshire, and a national Quinnipiac University poll show Warren settling into frontrunner status along with Biden (while the polls show Warren gaining, Biden hasn’t lost much ground with his …

Vox Sentences: Your play, NCAA

Vox Sentences is your daily digest for what’s happening in the world. Sign up for the Vox Sentences newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday, or view the Vox Sentences archive for past editions.

California college athletes set to receive money from endorsements; mass demonstrations in Moscow advocate the release of protesters.


California vs. the NCAA

Jonathan Devich/Getty Images
  • California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed Senate Bill 206, a measure that would allow college athletes to profit from endorsement deals by 2023 — the latest shift in a long and contentious national debate over paying college athletes.

Three big ideas for tech regulation from Senator Mark Warner

Cooperation between the US government and tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Twitter has improved somewhat in recent years, Senator Mark Warner says — but there’s a snowball’s chance in hell they’re going to be able to continue to regulate themselves.

“There have never been companies of this size and this power that haven’t had some level of oversight,” Warner said on a recent episode of Recode Decode with Kara Swisher. “The old ceiling [for regulation] is going to become the new floor.”

On the podcast, Warner — a Democrat and the senior US Senator from Virginia — told …

Trump and Barr have been urging foreign governments to help them investigate the Mueller probe’s origins

Attorney General Bill Barr has been personally urging foreign governments to cooperate with an investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe during trips abroad — and President Donald Trump himself asked the prime minister of Australia to help Barr out, several news outlets reported Monday.

Though this is being breathlessly mentioned in the same context as Trump’s request that the Ukrainian president investigate Joe Biden, it’s a somewhat different situation, one that raises its own concerns about whether Barr is politicizing the Justice Department to serve Trump’s electoral needs.

What Trump is talking about here is a …

9 questions about the Trump-Ukraine whistleblower scandal you were too embarrassed to ask

In the course of just two weeks, a previously unknown scandal sprawled to imperil Donald Trump’s presidency.

News broke that the Trump administration was withholding a mysterious whistleblower complaint from Congress on September 13. The chaotic days afterward were filled with leaks, revelations, document releases, and a new Democratic consensus in favor of an impeachment push.

So you’d be forgiven for feeling a bit of whiplash … and for having some questions.

Where did this whole thing come from? Why does this scandal, rather than so many other Trump scandals, appear to be catching on? Could it really …

Forever 21 is filing for bankruptcy. What does that actually mean?

Forever 21 is filing for bankruptcy, the company announced Sunday night. The fast-fashion retailer — which operates around 800 stores worldwide with more than $3 billion in estimated annual sales — had faced months-long speculation about its plan to pursue a Chapter 11 filing. The company was reportedly in talks with advisers and lenders to restructure its debt in June. It will reportedly close up to 178 stores in the US and up to 350 overall, according to the New York Times, and cease operations in 40 countries.

Forever 21 said it’s planning a global restructuring strategy and …