Vox Sentences: Reince Previous

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Reince Priebus is out and John Kelly is in; North Korea launches another ICBM capable of hitting the United States; the FDA is moving to cut back nicotine in cigarettes.

When it rains, it pours

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

• Happy Friday, everyone! The president just fired his chief of staff, because apparently Washington hasn’t been dysfunctional enough this week. [NYT / Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman]
• Using his favorite medium of Twitter, President Donald Trump announced the ouster of White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on Friday, and said that current Department of Homeland Security head John Kelly will be replacing him. [Donald Trump via Twitter]
• The announcement may have been shocking, but it really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, especially after the departure of press secretary Sean Spicer (a key Priebus ally) last week. [Vox / Andrew Prokop]
• In the many different factions of Trump’s fractured White House, Priebus was the guy with some of the most traditional ties to the Republican Party (he was the former RNC chair). But his power was quickly diminished in favor of others like Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner. [Vox / Andrew Prokop]
• Meanwhile, Kelly is a retired Marine general who has become one of Trump’s favorite members of his Cabinet because he’s championing Trump’s signature issue: immigration. In his tweet, Trump called Kelly the “true star” of his administration. [Vox / Dara Lind]
• Kelly is far from a political insider; he’s a military man who knows a lot about combat and the war on drugs. [Defense One / Kevin Baron]
• So to recap, we are just six months into Trump’s administration, and he’s already gone through two chiefs of staff, two communications directors, and two national security advisers. [Dan Diamond via Twitter]

McCain goes full maverick

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• Very early on Friday morning, the Senate’s third and last attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (and with it, seven years of promises to do so), ended with a literal thumbs down from Sen. John McCain. [Vox / Sarah Kliff]
• Everyone is making a huge deal over McCain’s vote to kill the bill last night (and to be clear, it was a huge deal and came as the biggest surprise of the evening). [Washington Post / Ed O’Keefe]
• But equally as important were the staunch no votes from moderate Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Both made it clear they thought the senate process was unnecessarily rushed and bad for Americans, and neither wavered. [Vox / Alexia Fernandez Campbell]
• The Senate ultimately ended up voting on three bills, all of which failed. And the final days and hours leading up to the vote were marked by complete chaos, in which no one, including senators themselves, knew exactly what they were voting on. [Vox / Dylan Scott]
• As an example, after the Senate voted down the first two health care bills, the third and final one was introduced Thursday night at 10 pm. Senators voted on it just a few hours later. That process usually takes months. [CNN / MJ Lee, Lauren Fox, Ted Barrett, Phil Mattingly and Ashley Killough]
• It’s clear that some senators, McCain included, think the health care vote is illustrating how broken Congress is. The latest has had members from both parties pleading for increased bipartisanship. [LA Times / Lisa Mascaro]
• In case you thought this means the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act is really, truly dead, think again. House Republicans are already talking about reviving the effort, but its chances are still pretty slim. [Vox / Tara Golshan]

North Korea did something else terrifying

Craig Ferguson/LightRocket via Getty Images

• North Korea made good on its promise to test another missile that could be capable of reaching the United States, according to the Pentagon. [Associated Press / Robert Burns]
• US officials warned about the potential for launch earlier this week, at the same time saying the regime’s nuclear capabilities are advancing faster than expected. [Reuters / Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and David Brunnstrom]
• The latest missile launched by North Korea is similar to the first ICBM the country launched earlier this month. That test was significant because it was the first weapon launched that was capable of reaching the mainland US. [Vox / Alex Ward]
• Friday’s missile flew for about 40 minutes before falling into the Sea of Japan. US officials had been anticipating the launch to coincide with a North Korean holiday yesterday — it was reportedly delayed due to weather. [ABC News / Luis Martinez and Emily Shapiro]
• North Korea has dramatically ramped up its nuclear program under dictator Kim Jong Un. So far this year, it’s conducted 18 missile launches. [CNN / Joshua Berlinger]
• To put that in context, Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, launched a total of 16 missiles during his 17-year rule. His son has launched 84 missiles in just six years. [CNN / Joshua Berlinger]
• Experts on North Korea say the regime is posturing to show it has developed missiles that could reach the mainland United States, as far as cities on the East Coast. [Washington Post / Anna Fifield]
• That being said, it’s still not clear what the Trump administration’s strategy is to deal with North Korea’s nuclear stockpiling. Trump has talked tough but vaguely about what he might do, and so far, his administration largely seems to be following in the “strategic patience” footsteps of the Obama administration. [Washington Post / Adam Taylor]

Miscellaneous

• Twitter’s lack of growth appears to be a persistent problem; the tech giant didn’t add any new users in its last quarter. [Recode / Kurt Wagner]
• Germany is still making reparations for a war it perpetrated in Namibia in the early 1900s, which featured some of its first concentration camps. Historians consider the little-known war to be one of the worst genocides of all time. [WSJ / Gabriele Steinhauser]
• If you cut a flatworm in half, all you’ll get is two flatworms. [Ed Yong / The Atlantic]
• Big breweries are getting in on the craft beer craze, edging out smaller competitors. In retaliation, small breweries have come up with their own label, so consumers can tell what’s local and what’s not. [NPR / Alastair Bland]
• After much internet sleuthing, it's now been determined that the 9-year-old nicknamed "Pickle" who wrote Trump a note is a real person. [Washington Post / Monica Hesse]

Verbatim

• “The modern neon restaurant sign is more than the utilitarian block text that reads ‘Open’ or ‘Bar’: It is now an inspirational or witty remark, sometimes rendered in handwritten typeface.” [Eater / Gary He]
• “What I can tell you is that there isn’t a single person inside the bureau who believes this guy got drunk, fell down, and died. Everyone thinks he was whacked and that Putin or the Kremlin were behind it.” [Anonymous FBI agent to BuzzFeed News / Jason Leopold, Ken Bensinger, Anthony Cormier, Heidi Blake, Alex Campbell, Tom Warren, Jane Bradley, Richard Holmes]
• “Financial dominatrixes, or ‘findommes,’ demand money from their male clients, called ‘paypigs,’ in exchange for time and attention, which can be as un-erotic as a simple IM conversation. And the paypig pays up, over and over and over again.” [Rolling Stone / Sonya Vatomsky]
• “Deidre Ball, who worked as a vice president in investor relations for SkyBridge Capital, the firm he founded in 2005 and sold to ascend to the White House, has filed for divorce from ‘The Mooch’ after three years of marriage after getting fed up with his ruthless quest to get close to President Trump, whom she despises.” [Page Six / Emily Smith]
• "No one knows who invented the overhead food video. Like image-macro memes or Slender Man, it most likely emerged in some primordial message-board swamp." [NYT / Farhad Manjoo]

Watch this:

On location in Atlanta, Georgia. [YouTube / Joss Fong]

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