The drama between White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, her husband, and President Trump is only getting messier.
George Conway told The Washington Post on Tuesday it's "maddening" to watch Trump's "incompetence," and his anti-Trump tweets are "just the way to get it out of the way, so I can get it off my chest and move on with my life that day" and "frankly, it's so I don't end up screaming at [Kellyanne] about it." Trump had lashed out at Conway on Twitter earlier in the day, calling him a "total loser!"
Conway also detailed a number of interactions he's apparently had with Trump over the years, despite Trump's 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, claiming the president "doesn't even know him!" Conway said Trump has, in fact, spoken with him over the phone to get his legal opinion several times and once asked him in person whether he should fire then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara. Conway also said he once rode with Trump on the way to a costume party and that Trump went "on and on" about National Security Adviser John Bolton's mustache, with this being a reason he didn't want to pick Bolton as secretary of state.
Kellyanne Conway is reportedly frustrated with her husband's tweets, and "went on a lengthy rant about her husband" during a party last month attended by several journalists. She reportedly said that she believes her husband is jealous of her and that he prefers "to spend his time in front of his computer, while she preferred to socialize," writes the Post.
George Conway, though, swears he isn't jealous of his wife at all, saying, "No one was prouder than I was that she was able to elect this man president despite his obvious flaws." Brendan Morrow
Move over, geologists: there's a new field of scientific study in town.
NASA's InSight spacecraft detected a potential earthquake on Mars earlier this month, and scientists are rejoicing over the discovery of the "marsquake."
"We've been collecting background noise up until now, but this first event officially kicks off a new field: Martian seismology!" NASA geologist Bruce Banerdt said, per NBC News.
The tremor was too small to help NASA obtain any information on the Red Planet's interior, NBC News reports, but scientists are hoping the discovery will lead the seismometer to detect bigger earthquakes.
"We've been waiting months for our first marsquake," Philippe Lognonné, the principal investigator for the seismometer, said in a statement. "It's so exciting to finally have proof that Mars is still seismically active. We're looking forward to sharing detailed results once we've studied it more and modeled our data."
Lognonné expects larger quakes in the future to help determine crust thickness and core size, per NBC. Marianne Dodson
Another Republican has hopped on the impeachment train.
After the Mueller report detailed President Trump's failure to take what Michael Gerson calls "a criminal plot by a hostile foreign government" to the FBI, the chief speechwriter for former President George W. Bush writes that "House leaders should lay the groundwork for impeachment." This move strays from politics' usual goals of "partisanship" and "endless fundraising," Gerson continues in his Monday op-ed for The Washington Post, but adds that this choice will "echo across the decades."
As Gerson describes in the Post, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report "shows that Trump and members of his campaign team were willing — actually, eager — to cooperate with Russian attempts to subvert a presidential election." Trump also "ordered subordinates to lie about their ties to the Russians," Gerson continues, going on to decry Attorney General William Barr for "provid[ing] cover for those deceptions." Yet Congress, Gerson writes, is "punting" its "responsibility" to hold Trump accountable for these actions. It's time for impeachment, Gerson finishes, because "the honor of the presidency now depends on the actions of Congress."
Gerson has previously authored Post op-eds saying Trump is a "Russian stooge" and a "danger to democracy." But it ran just ahead of another Republican's call for impeachment, this one from former Trump transition staffer J.W. Verret, published Tuesday in The Atlantic. Verret was not a "Never Trumper," but opposed Trump on several policy points. And after reading the Mueller report twice, he reached a "tipping point" with Trump's leadership and said "Republicans in Congress" should have reached it too. Kathryn Krawczyk
Steven Spielberg and Netflix seem to have buried the hatchet — if there ever even was one to begin with.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors in a meeting on Tuesday decided not to make any changes to its Oscars eligibility rules, per CNBC. Going forward, a movie will still only have to play in theaters for a minimum of one week in Los Angeles in order to qualify for the awards, Variety notes, and it's still allowed to be released on streaming immediately.
There had previously been reports that Spielberg was engaged in a full-on war with Netflix and would be proposing a rule change at this meeting that would affect the streamer, which debuts its movies online either the same day as they open theatrically or a few weeks later. For example, a rule could be implemented requiring films to play in theaters for a longer period of time to be eligible or requiring they be exclusive to theaters for some time.
This war, as it turns out, may have been overblown. Spielberg didn't even end up attending this meeting let alone propose anything, and The New York Times cites sources as saying Spielberg is actually less frustrated with streaming services than with major theater exhibitors who refuse to play films like Roma since they require a lengthy exclusivity window. In fact, Spielberg reportedly lobbied AMC and Regal to play Netflix's Roma to no avail.
Breaking his silence on the issue, Spielberg told the Times that people should be able to watch movies "in any form or fashion that suits them," whether that's on the big screen or the small screen, although did still exalt the importance of movie theaters. Ironically, reports suggest Netflix may be giving its upcoming The Irishman a robust theatrical release, meaning Spielberg may get his wish without any rules changes even being required. Brendan Morrow