First Read: “In the United States, President Trump’s push for a border wall has now partially shut down the federal government for 26 days and counting.”

“And in Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May ‘suffered the biggest parliamentary defeat of any British prime minister in history Tuesday as lawmakers of all stripes crushed her plan to leave the European Union,’ per NBC News.”

“These developments — plus the instability in France and Germany — show just how politically crippled the West is right now. And, oh by the way, guess which country meddled in the 2016 elections in Britain and the United States?”

James Hohmann: “We don’t know exactly how much Moscow spent supporting influence operations to impact the U.K. and U.S. elections in 2016, but it seems hard to overstate how good the Kremlin’s return has been on what Western intelligence agencies believe was a relatively modest investment.”