Vox Sentences: “A total lie”: the truth about Trump University

The scandal that might actually damage Donald Trump; al-Shabaab strikes in Mogadishu; time for a Brexit update!

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

An F for Trump U

(Thos Robinson/Getty Images)

• A bunch of internal Trump University documents have been released to the public as part of an ongoing class-action fraud lawsuit against the now-defunct, never-a-real-university investment seminar company. The documents are … a doozy.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• They include testimony from former Trump U employees who admit that the whole thing was "a total lie" — "not a single consumer who paid for a Trump University seminar program went on to successfully invest in real estate based upon the techniques that were taught."

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• They also include several "playbooks" — internal marketing guides — that basically read like the business equivalent of pickup-artist manuals (another kind of guide to preying on the weak).

  [Washington Post / Philip Bump]

• Democrats are basically licking their lips over the Trump University suit and these revelations. If they manage to spin this right, they hope it could be what Bain Capital was to Mitt Romney: a way to tie his personal wealth to his callousness toward everyday Americans.

  [The New Republic / Brian Beutler]

• This is exactly the outcome Trump has wanted to avoid, and for which he's been insulting the presiding judge in the class-action suit, Gonzalo Curiel, for months.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• Trump's been criticized for calling the American-born Curiel "Mexican." For my (Dara's) money, Trump's other attacks on Curiel are even more racist: He said that Curiel — a former prosecutor whose life has been threatened by a cartel — dislikes Trump because Trump is so "strong on the border."

• Curiel doesn't exactly appear cowed. But he did go to the extraordinary step of partially resealing some of the sealed documents Wednesday — because, he claimed, they accidentally revealed personal information that was supposed to be redacted.

  [Politico / Josh Gerstein]

Al-Shabaab is back

(Mohamed Abdiwahab/AFP/Getty Images)

• Fifteen people, including two members of the Somali Parliament, died Wednesday in an attack on a Mogadishu hotel.

  [Reuters / Abdirahman Hussein, Abdi Sheikh, and Feisal Omar]

• The attack started with a suicide car bomb, which was followed by gunmen charging the hotel. At least 50 people have been injured.

  [BBC ]

• East African terrorist group al-Shabaab took credit for the attack. Al-Shabaab has been regaining momentum in its fight against the Somali (and now Kenyan) governments in 2016.

  [PBS NewsHour / Nick Schifrin]

• But the government has been striking back — before Wednesday's attacks, the Somali government announced it had killed both the head of al-Shabaab's intelligence unit and the man believed to have planned the 2015 attack on a Kenyan university that killed nearly 150 people.

  [Reuters / Abdirahman Hussein, Abdi Sheikh, and Feisal Omar]

• The US government has also been helping — with drones, of course. The Pentagon announced Wednesday it had targeted a senior al-Shabaab leader in a Friday drone strike (though it doesn't know yet if he was killed).

  [AP / Lolita C. Baldor]

• Somalia is one of many countries where the US has quietly expanded the drone war. In early March 150 people were killed in strikes there. And, per usual, once they're dead, the US assumes they were terrorists.

  [The Intercept / Glenn Greenwald]

Mind the Brexit polling gap

(Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

• With less than a month until the United Kingdom votes on whether to leave the EU, it looks like it's going to be a tight race; staying in the EU is still ahead in polls, but supporters of "Brexit" are narrowing the gap.

  [The Guardian / Heather Stewart]

• Take all of this with a large-enough-to-season-British-food grain of salt. Polls on Brexit have been all over the place, and it's not yet clear that UK pollsters have fixed whatever went wrong with their predictions for last year's election.

  [Wall Street Journal / Nicholas Winning]

• The conventional wisdom has been that the "Leave" side has benefited from its recent pivot to focusing on immigration (and why there should be less of it). "Leave" supporters actually proposed an alternative immigration policy this week that the UK might adopt if it left the EU.

  [The Telegraph / Peter Dominiczak and Steven Swinford ]

• (This was a lot more awkward than it might sound. Remember that while the leading supporters of leaving the EU are members of the Conservative Party, so is the current government of the UK. Proposing an alternative immigration policy to one's own governing party is generally not taken as a move of detente in a power struggle.)

  [The Guardian ]

• But polling shows that, if anything, more voters around the UK are thinking about the economic impact of Brexit. The problem is that voters don't think it would be bad — and economists very much disagree.

  [The Week UK ]

• A poll of economists found alarming unanimity around the idea that Brexit would hurt the UK. And the OECD has said it would be as bad for the global economy as a "hard landing" in China.

  [The Guardian / Larry Elliott]

• Some argue that the UK can mitigate the economic impact of Brexit by making the right economic choices once it's separated. But most experts appear not to think there's much of a way to control the damage.

  [Andrew Lilico]

MISCELLANEOUS

When every album's release is a surprise, is any album's release a surprise? [The Ringer / Lindsay Zoladz]

• The UK Labour Party is appointing a shadow minister for neurodiversity, in a major symbolic victory for the autism rights movement.

  [The Guardian / Matthew Weaver]

• What it's like to be a stock photography model, or "a human emoji."

  [Medium / Andrew Kimler]

• Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad books have become children's classics. They're also, his family says, same-sex love stories that helped him come to terms with his sexuality.

  [New Yorker / Colin Stokes]

• Moore, Oklahoma, just keeps getting hit by devastating tornados, and no one really knows why.

  [FiveThirtyEight / Maggie Koerth-Baker]

VERBATIM

"When you look at Jennifer Lawrence, do you see a pretty girl, or just a walking sack of guts?" [Rachel Bloom, via NYT Mag / Susan Dominus]

• "Bad blood has run through the New York ice cream trade for decades. In 1969, a Mister Softee driver was kidnapped by rivals who blew up his truck. In 2004, a cone-selling couple in their 60s were ambushed by competitors who beat them into critical condition with a wrench. In a 2010 brawl caught on video, two drivers near Columbus Circle exchanged punches before one man pushed the other’s face into a planter."

  [NYT / Andy Newman and Emily Rueb]

• "A decade after getting out of prison, Campbell told a Trial and Error journalist that he had regrets about the bizarre violence of the ice cream gang wars."

  [Atlas Obscura / Natalie Zarrelli]

• "After the glow of battle faded, Dennis knew that he hadn’t exactly been living up to the ideals that made him believe in ice cream in the first place."

  [Epic / David Wolman and Julian Smith]

• "We had a huge fight, and eventually I just told her, 'Look, I'm not going to agree with you politically. I'm not going to be an arrow in your culture war. Can you still love me as a daughter even though I disagree with you politically?' And before answering she asked me two questions. She asked me whether or not I thought that gay marriage should be illegal. 'No,' I told her. And she asked me whether or not I thought that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. 'No,' I said again. And I'll never forget what she said next: 'All right, well no, I can't love you.'"

  [Glamour / Gabby Weiss]

WATCH THIS

Late sleeper? Blame your genes. [YouTube / Liz Scheltens and Gina Barton]

(Vox/Liz Scheltens)

Contributions are a key part of the future of Vox

Readers rely on Vox for clear, nuanced coverage that not only illuminates the issues, but poses solutions, too. And we rely on help from our readers: Advertising and grants cover the majority of our costs, but we count on contributions to help us close the gaps in our budget. In fact, we’re looking to reach 95,000 individual contributions before the end of the year. Will you make the next contribution right now? Our average gift is just $20 — and it goes a long way in helping us keep our work free. Vox is here to help everyone understand what’s shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. Join that mission by making a contribution today.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via