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Trump Watch: Obamacare, Oscar roasts, and immigration

  1. As Congressional Republicans continue to debate how to repeal the Affordable Care Act and what to replace it with, President Trump is set to meet today with major health insurers. The Washington Post reports that the road to repeal-and-replace will be a tricky one, with Democrats marshaling a furious base, and the president's aides divided on the best approach.

  2. Unlike almost everyone else with a Twitter account, the president was not moved to tweet about the Oscars last night. But before the big Best Picture flub, the Academy Awards did get pretty political, with Jimmy Kimmel slinging a few barbs at the president and presenters and award-winners addressing the Trump administration's policies. The winner of Best Foreign Film, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, boycotted the ceremony over Trump's executive order banning travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal said he was "against any kind of wall that separates us" and Moonlight director Barry Jenkins, wearing a ribbon supporting the American Civil Liberties Union, told those who "think there's no mirror for you, that your life is not reflected," that "for the next four years, we will not leave you alone."

  1. Immigration enforcement agents say morale is high since Trump signed several executive orders on illegal immigration, the New York Times reports. Under Trump's more wide-ranging deportation priorities, officials say some agents are more "gung-ho," talking about how their job has become "fun." But several high-profile actions of immigration agents have drawn criticism, including an instance in which Customs and Border Patrol agents checked the documentation of every passenger disembarking from a San Francisco-to-New York flight last week.

  1. With Trump addressing Congress on Tuesday, linguists examined how the president speaks, and concluded he uses fewer words associated with democracy and more associated with "crisis and decay."

  2. For Democratic party leaders in the area, the first line of attack against Trump and a Republican agenda might very well be municipal: liberals are lining up to run for office in unprecedented numbers. But Republicans say they're seeing increased engagement on a local level, as well.

  3. Trump's proposed budget will call for increased military spending and billions of dollars in cuts to domestic agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department -- but not entitlement programs like Medicare or Social Security, the New York Times reports.