On Friday, President Trump leaves Washington for a 12-day journey to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines, with a brief stop first in Hawaii. He is scheduled to return to the U.S. on Nov. 14. Trump's goals, according to his advisers, are to show a hard line on North Korea's nuclear threat and what he views as Asia's unfair trade practices with the U.S., and signal his commitment to open Asian seas in the face of Chinese maritime aggression.
This will be the longest trip a U.S. president has taken to Asia since George H.W. Bush visited in late 1991 and early 1992, a visit mostly remembered for Bush getting sick and throwing up on Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa at a Japanese state dinner, Reuters notes. When Trump arrives in Japan on Sunday, he will join Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a round of golf, The Japan Times reports, then in the evening, go out to a dinner including "beefsteak, a favorite of the U.S. leader, at a high-end Tokyo restaurant" chosen by Abe himself. Presumably, well-done Wagyu beef with ketchup will sit better with Trump's digestive system than whatever Bush ate. Peter Weber
The Republican Party is at a turning point, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) writes in an opinion article published in The Washington Post on Wednesday evening, and members must "decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution."
Cheney is receiving backlash from the GOP for voting to impeach former President Donald Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, as well as pushing back against his false claims of election fraud. Trump, she writes, is "seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that makes democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this."
Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, called herself a "conservative Republican," and said the "most conservative of conservative values is reverence for the rule of law." The Electoral College "has spoken," she added, and "more than 60 state and federal courts have rejected the former president's arguments, and refused to overturn election results. That is the rule of law; that is our constitutional system for resolving claims of election fraud."
Republicans now have to decide whether to join "Trump's crusade to delegitimize and undo the legal outcome of the 2020 election, with all the consequences that might have," Cheney said. He has "never expressed remorse or regret for the attack of Jan. 6 and now suggests that our elections, and our legal and constitutional system, cannot be trusted to do the will of the people," she continued. "This is immensely harmful, especially as we now compete on the world stage against Communist China and its claims that democracy is a failed system."
The path forward is clear, Cheney said. Republicans need to back the Justice Department's criminal investigations of the Jan. 6 attack, support a bipartisan review by a commission with subpoena power, and "stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality." Trump is trying to "undermine the foundation of our democracy," Cheney said, and with history and our children watching, "we must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process." Read more at The Washington Post. Catherine Garcia
Your favorite pandemic hate watch is back for season two.
The first time around, Netflix's Emily in Paris was met with disdain for the titular character, confusion around the title itself, and a real-life scandal involving the Golden Globes and an alleged trip to Paris for Hollywood Foreign Press Association members. The show's creator, Darren Star, claims season one was not a faux pas, but the first step in character development. In season two, "Emily will embrace the city a little bit more," Star told Variety. "I think she will be more assimilated, in terms of living in Paris and stepping up to the challenges of learning the language," he said.
Whether viewers are ready or not, Emily in Paris is back — filming began Monday in France. À bientôt! Taylor Watson
This is a case for the FBI: The government wants Kim Kardashian to forfeit an ancient Roman sculpture that was smuggled out of Italy, but she claims innocence.
Fragment of Myron's Samian Athena, a limestone statue from the 1st or 2nd century, was purchased in Kardashian's name and detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2016, and is still in their custody, reports ArtNet. In 2018, Italy's Ministry of Cultural Heritage determined the statue was "looted, smuggled, and illegally exported from Italy."
A civil forfeiture complaint was filed Friday, but a Kardashian rep told Page Six she did not purchase the sculpture and this is the first time she's heard of it (though it definitely matches her decor). It might be time for Kim to put her law school skills to the test.
Read more at Page Six and ArtNet. Taylor Watson
The cast of Succession's next season just keeps getting better.
Adrien Brody has joined the HBO show's third season, The Hollywood Reporter revealed on Wednesday. The Oscar-winning actor will reportedly have a recurring guest role as Josh Aaronson, a billionaire activist investor "who becomes pivotal in the battle for the ownership of Waystar," the Reporter says.
Brody's casting comes just days after it was reported that Alexander Skarsgård is also joining the new season of Succession. Skarsgård, according to Variety, will be playing a "successful, confrontational tech founder and CEO."
The third season of Succession, which follows the Murdoch-esque Roy family and has been off the air since 2019 thanks to COVID-19 delays, is set to involve "a bitter corporate battle" that "threatens to turn into a family civil war," HBO says. The show picked up a whopping 18 nominations at the 2020 Emmys, scoring the top prize of Outstanding Drama Series — and based on the casting unveiled in the last two days alone, it may have an even stronger showing next time. Brendan Morrow