Wiretap: The day after Trump’s fire and fury has been spent furiously cleaning up the mess

What do Trump’s generals do in response to his “fire and fury” commentary? They spent the next day cleaning up Trump’s mess, trying to normalize what sounded very much like a threat to go all nuclear on North Korea. Via The New Yorker.

There are both hawks and doves in the Trump administration when it comes to how to handle North Korea. But the two sides were united on one thing: They were all taken by surprise, and aback, by Trump’s threatening ad lib. Via The New York Times.

In their only meeting, Barack Obama stressed to Trump the danger of the North Korean nuclear threat. It looks like Trump took him both literally and figuratively. Via The Washington Post.

Whatever Trump or Kim Jung-on have said or not said, the chance for war between the United States and North Korea is actually quite low. Both sides have way too much to lose. Via The New York Times.

From The National Review: The most obvious point we should take away from the FBI’s predawn raid on Paul Manafort’s home is that the FBI doesn’t do predawn raids on cooperating witnesses.

The Trump-Flake feud gets even hotter as a top Trump donor gives $300,000 to a Super PAC that is working in support of Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake’s opponent in a 2018 Republican primary. Via Politico.

Neither Trump or Mitch McConnell must be happy about it, but both know that, like it or not, the two are stuck with each other. Via The Atlantic. And as Charles Lane writes in The Washington Post, that may be why the filibuster, despite McConnell’s protestations, may not survive after all.

Sen. Ron Johnson suggests that John McCain’s brain tumor may explain why McCain voted against the “skinny repeal” of Obamacare. Yes, he really did. Via New York magazine.

Careful politicians and scientists have always been hesitant to link climate change to extreme weather conditions, but, with the latest report on climate change from scientists at 13 federal agencies, that seems to be about to change. Via Time.

If Google’s leaders can’t explain why diversity is important, how do you expect the fragile white men who work there to understand? Via The Los Angeles Times.

Photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jette Carr for the Department of Defense, via Flickr: Creative Commons. James Mattis is sworn in as the 26th secretary of defense in a ceremony presided over by President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., Jan. 27, 2017. 
He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow.