United States

In the press conference that followed Putin and Trump’s roughly two-hour one-on-one meeting (only translators had been present), Putin once again denied Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In response to a reporter’s question, Trump indicated that he trusted Putin’s denial more than the conclusions of his own intelligence service. Moreover, Trump refused to take the opportunity to condemn other transgressive Russian actions. Politicians on both sides of the aisle were deeply critical of the president’s statements and comportment. When he returned to Washington, Trump attempted to “walk back” some of the comments he had made in Helsinki. He expressed his support for U.S. intelligence agencies and claimed that he had misspoken during the press conference, saying “would” when he meant to say “wouldn’t” in the statement “I don’t see any reason why it would be [Russia that had interfered with the U.S. election].” Trump also said that he had forcefully warned Putin during their meeting against any further Russian intervention in U.S. elections, but he then made the surprising announcement that he would be inviting Putin to a summit in Washington in the autumn.

The USMCA trade agreement, the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford, and the Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh

At the end of August 2018 Mexico and the United States announced their agreement on the terms of a new trade agreement that preserved much of NAFTA while also introducing a number of significant changes. On September 30 Canada also agreed to join the new accord, which was branded the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). Most of the agreement, which still required approval from the countries’ legislatures, was not set to go into effect until 2020.

In October the Senate confirmed Kavanaugh as the replacement for Kennedy but not before the confirmation process was interrupted by accusations that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted childhood acquaintance Christine Blasey Ford when they were teenagers in Maryland. Two other women also came forward with accusations: a former classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale University accused him of a separate act of sexual assault, and a third woman declared in a sworn statement that Kavanaugh had attended parties at which gang rapes took place. Following impassioned testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by both Kavanaugh (who denied all three allegations) and Blasey Ford, a supplemental investigation of Blasey Ford’s allegations and those of Kavanaugh’s Yale classmate was conducted by the FBI. Limited in duration and scope (dozens of witnesses recommended by the accusers were not contacted), the investigation produced a confidential report that the Judiciary Committee’s Republican chairman declared had found “no corroboration” of the allegations. The Senate then narrowly confirmed Kavanaugh’s appointment.

Central American migrant caravans, the pipe-bomb mailings, and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting

This episode of instant American history was starkly reminiscent of the accusations of sexual impropriety made by Anita Hill during the Senate confirmation hearing of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991. Riveted and riven by the Kavanaugh confirmation, the country headed into the 2018 midterm elections suffused in partisan rancor. Trump emphatically embraced the election as a referendum on his presidency as he stumped for Republican candidates. Rather than emphasize positive developments on the economic front (including an unemployment rate that had fallen to 3.7 percent by September 2018 and GDP growth of 4.2 percent in the second quarter and 3.5 percent in the third quarter of 2018), the president instead chose to refocus attention on immigration, which remained a “red meat issue” for his core supporters. In particular, he repeatedly raised the alarm against the supposed threat of violence posed by the imminent “invasion” of several thousand asylum-seeking Central Americans in a caravan that was slowly making its way northward toward the United States.