This Week in Political Poo... Trump, Xi, Lawsuits and an Overflowing News Cycle

Welcome to another edition of Political Poo, where we look at the news, stare at it for several seconds, and eventually ask the question every reasonable human being is thinking: How the hell did we get here?

President Donald Trump currently has enough going on to fill several news cycles, a congressional hearing, three group chats and at least one extremely uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinner. This week includes international conflict, trade negotiations, immigration policy, lawsuits involving White House press access and an upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Apparently, somebody looked at September and decided it needed more plot twists.

Trump and Xi are preparing to meet in Washington while trade, technology, Taiwan and the broader U.S.-China relationship remain major issues between the two countries. There is something uniquely modern about two nuclear superpowers discussing global economic stability while millions of people online argue underneath the news story using cartoon frogs and GIFs.

Meanwhile, CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued the Trump administration after losing access to White House grounds. The news organizations argue the restrictions violate constitutional protections, while the administration has been fighting with parts of the press over access and coverage. In other words, journalists covering the White House are now also producing news stories about whether they are allowed inside the White House to produce news stories. The political poop has officially become self-recycling.

Then there is Yemen. Reuters reported that Trump spoke with Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi as Houthi forces advanced around strategically important territory, while separate reporting said planned U.S. strikes against the Houthis had been called off at the last minute. This is considerably more serious than our usual poop jokes, but it also demonstrates the bizarre range of issues sitting on one president's desk on any given Monday.

Immigration is still producing its own mountain of paperwork. Trump recently extended restrictions connected to the H-1B visa program, including a disputed $100,000 fee on new applications that remains tied up in legal challenges. Somewhere in America, an immigration attorney just opened another browser tab and quietly whispered, “Of course.”

The fascinating part isn't whether you love Trump, hate Trump, voted for Trump, protested Trump or simply want politics to stop appearing while you're trying to watch cooking videos. It is how incredibly strange American political communication has become.

Presidents communicate like influencers. Journalists become part of the story. Foreign policy develops in real time across television, social media and push notifications. Every political announcement immediately creates twelve interpretations, forty-seven arguments, six conspiracy theories and a guy named Kevin explaining international monetary policy from his truck.

That is precisely why we call this Verbal Poo.

Not because every opinion is crap, and not because everyone needs to agree. Quite the opposite. Politics is complicated, people disagree, and sometimes the healthiest response to an absolutely ridiculous news cycle is to understand what happened, argue about what it means and occasionally laugh at how completely bizarre modern life has become.

At this point, Washington doesn't need another spin room.

It needs a really good plunger.