During the Watergate era, the question was, What did the president know and when did he know it? With Bob Woodward back to cover a new scandal-ridden president, the question this time around seems to be, Does the president know anything? In his upcoming book on Trump, “again and again, Woodward recounts at length how Trump’s national security team was shaken by his lack of curiosity and knowledge about world affairs and his contempt for the mainstream perspectives of military and intelligence leaders.” The outtakes are shocking, but at this point, not at all surprising. WaPo: Bob Woodward’s new book reveals a ‘nervous breakdown’ of Trump’s presidency.

+ “Dowd later advised Trump: ‘Don’t testify. It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit.’ Trump insisted he would be ‘a real good witness.’ ‘You are not a good witness,’ Dowd said. He resigned the next morning.” Boston Globe: 10 things to know from Bob Woodward’s new Trump book.

+ Trump doesn’t know much about policy or international relations. But he knows when to worry. Listen in to his call with Woodward that took place after the manuscript was completed.

+ Meanwhile, Trump continues to blast the rule of law. This time, he is attacking Sessions for the charges brought against two GOP congressen so close to the election.

+ “He has, in effect, become the legal auxiliary to Trump’s Twitter feed, peddling the same chaotic mixture of non sequiturs, exaggerations, half-truths, and falsehoods. Giuliani, like the President, is not seeking converts but comforting the converted. This has come at considerable cost to his reputation.” Jeff Toobin in The New Yorker: How Rudy Giuliani Turned Into Trump’s Clown. (He’s not alone. In DC, the whole circus has come to town.)

+ All of this chaos is taking place in the shadow of John McCain’s memorial service, which (as he designed) was a critique of Trump. The New Yorker: John McCain’s Funeral Was the Biggest Resistance Meeting Yet. “McCain’s grand funeral … underscored a fact that is often lost about Washington these days. The city is much more bipartisan, in some respects, than it has ever been, more united than it may currently seem, in its hatred of Donald Trump.”

+ “It’s a politics that pretends to be brave, but in fact is born of fear. John called us to be bigger than that. He called us to be better than that.” NYT: In McCain Memorial Service, Two Presidents Offer Tribute, and a Contrast to Trump. (Here’s the key takeaway from the McCain funeral: Americans in positions of leadership behaved in a decent manner which has been universally received as a rebuke of the sitting president.)