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Sean Hannity managed to make news Wednesday night, entirely by accident. Rudy Giuliani, recently tapped for President Trump’s legal team, offhandedly told him that the president reimbursed attorney Michael Cohen for paying hush money to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Trump and his spokespeople had denied he even knew about the deal.

Arizona teachers again gathered in mass at the state capitol building on Wednesday in what is now the fifth day of a statewide walkout. Some stood outside to remind legislators of their presence—and of their absence from schools. Others waited inside the capitol building for news as the Legislature tried to finalize a budget that would try to subdue their anger.

The race-and-IQ debate is back. The latest round started a few weeks ago when Harvard geneticist David Reich wrote a New York Times op-ed in defense of race as a biological fact. The piece resurfaced Sam Harris’ year-old Waking Up podcast interview with Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, and launched a Twitter debate between Harris and Vox’s Ezra Klein. Klein then responded to Harris and Reich in Vox, Harris fired back, and Andrew Sullivan went after Klein.

On Thursday’s edition of the Political Gabfest, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discussed the arguments before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in Hawaii v. Trump, the case concerning what’s known as the Muslim ban. The excerpt from the show below has been edited and condensed for clarity.

In his most recent piece for New York magazine, columnist Jonathan Chait argues that Sens. Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand should stop portraying themselves as victims of sexism if they ever want to win the presidency. Chait’s argument echoes his concern about the many disparaging “cards”—woman, race—that politicians have supposedly played, with some frequency, over the past two decades of U.S. politics.

WHEELING, West Virginia—At a primary debate here on Monday night, six Republicans vying to represent West Virginia in the U.S. Senate were asked if there is any issue where they disagree with President Donald Trump. “No,” said Jack Newbrough, a trucker whose immediate reply was quickly matched by the next four candidates. Rep.

Before his Pulitzer-winning investigation into Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuse, Ronan Farrow worked in President Obama’s State Department. His new book,War on Peace, documents the department’s loss of personnel and prestige under every recent president—especially the current one.

French President Emmanuel Macron is in Washington this week, meeting with Donald Trump—the man he has been trying to woo since the French election last year—and speaking to Congress. Macron, a former Socialist minister, struck out on his own when he ran for president, creating a centrist platform (En Marche!) and triumphing over Trump’s favorite, Marine Le Pen, and more establishment figures.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, says he’s leaving politics to escape the corruption of partisanship. “I enjoy being fair. I enjoy the pursuit of fairness as a virtue,” Gowdy told CBS News in February. In Washington, he lamented, there’s no place for a truth-teller like himself.

It’s mid-April, and a reputable pollster is already declaring that the Senate race between Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas is “too close to call,” at 47 percent to 44 percent. It’s Quinnipiac’s first poll in Texas, and the first major poll of one of the most closely watched races in the country. It’s also very hard to believe.

Last Thursday, an employee at a Philadelphia Starbucks called the police on two black men who were waiting for the arrival of a business partner without having ordered anything at the counter. When police arrived, the men were arrested for trespassing. A bystander caught the encounter on video, which showed the men resigned to their fate as other white patrons protested the arrest, and the incident went viral.

Cardi B has attracted a parade of right-wing supporters over the past week for deciding to have a baby while her rapid rise to superstardom is still accelerating. Anti-abortion websites are posting gleeful recaps of an exchange the hip-hop artist had with radio host Charlamagne Tha God last Tuesday, when she said she “kinda sort of” considered terminating her pregnancy, before determining that she “didn’t want to deal with the whole abortion thing.

ALTOONA, Iowa—Eric Garcetti wanted a do-over. “Well, not a do-over,” he clarified, “but I thought of a better way to say it.” It being an answer to the question of why the mayor of Los Angeles was in Iowa. “I’m not here looking for a new job for me, I’m looking for more new jobs for Americans,” Garcetti told reporters after touring a carpenters’ union training facility in this Des Moines suburb on Friday.

A century or so in political time has passed since 2014’s Conservative Political Action Conference, but there were two speeches given over the course of that weekend that are perhaps worth remembering today. One was an immigrant-bashing midday address delivered by Donald J. Trump, then a sideshow act performing for the party fringe. The other was a speech by Paul Ryan, which became the subject of a brief media dust-up just a few hours later.

The consensus among political pundits is that the Democratic Party is poised to do well in November’s midterm elections. It seems too that Donald Trump will have his work cut out for him in 2020 as he faces what’s sure to be a crowded field of Democratic rising stars.

Randy Bryce saw the same reports everyone else did on Wednesday morning: House Speaker Paul Ryan will retire at the end of the year. “The first thought I had was, ‘I have to see him say these words for myself,’ ” Bryce told me by phone, after months of rumors that Ryan wouldn’t run for re-election.

After the feds raided the office and hotel room of President Trump’s longtime personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, on Monday afternoon, the president responded with a noticeable public escalation in his rage toward Robert Mueller’s investigation. Although the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York’s office carried out the raid, Mueller reportedly referred the case. That was enough for Trump to entertain a question about why he doesn’t just fire Mueller.

In an opinion delivered on Friday, the Texas Supreme Court offered up some strange ideas about what it means to be gay. Six of the eight justices joined an opinion finding that a former San Antonio gym teacher had no legitimate claims of sexual harassment, in part because she didn’t prove that the alleged offender, a woman, is a lesbian.

Scott Pruitt had one job. He’s done it well. As administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Pruitt was tasked with dismantling every environmental regulation imposed by the Obama administration. Alas, he’s also done so much more.

Donald Trump rode to office promising a deportation force that would arrest and expel undocumented immigrants across the country. He has done what he promised. Shortly after assuming the presidency, Trump reversed the Obama administration’s policy of deprioritizing the deportation of noncriminal immigrants. He also encouraged Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents to step up their raids and collaborate with local police.