Texas Republicans: Harold Meyerson; Suing Trump: Rob Weissman; Elmore Leonard's Rules

The big picture of national politics: Trump is not just sinking in the polls, he's accelerating into the most unpopular and toxic parts of his presidency. People are focused on the economy, they want the war in Iran finished – instead, Trump is pushing his billion-dollar ballroom and his slush fund to pay-off the white-supremacist insurrectionists – Harold Meyerson comments.Also: Trump’s Billion-Dollar Ballroom is a familiar kind of corruption, but his slush fund to pay the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name is an unprecedented attack on democracy. Rob Weissman of Public Citizen explains, and also talks about the immense, and immensely unpopular, proposed Arc d’Trump.Plus: I met Elmore Leonard, who died on August 20, 2013 at age 87, only a couple of times, but he was a memorable guy, totally unpretentious about his massive accomplishments: 45 novels, including many best-sellers, almost a dozen made into movies and TV shows, and a reputation among the literati as one of the great writers of dialogue in our time. When I spoke with him in 2000, he had just published Pagan Babies, a comic novel on the unlikely subject of genocide in Rwanda. (Originally recorded in October, 2000 and later published in LARB on August 20, 2013.)