For the Record: 'The Benghazi Hearing,' a new film by Michael Bay

Jessica Estepa | Paste BN

It was a long Thursday, but Hillary Clinton, the House Select Committee on Benghazi and we made it through. And now we have a Lincoln Chafee announcement to look forward to! Happy Friday, everyone. The best weekend present to your friends: getting them to subscribe to For the Record. We will only fill your inbox with interesting things, we swear.

'The #Benghazi Hearing,' a new film by Michael Bay

The setting: A brightly lit congressional hearing room, crowded with staffers, media and your average political junkies

The characters: former secretary of State Hillary Clinton (played by Megan Fox, obviously), Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. (Bruce Willis), and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. (Samuel L. Jackson). Other committee members to be cast at a later date. We look forward to the moment when the tension explodes between Gowdy/Willis and Cummings/Jackson.

The outcome: The hearing appears to be mostly political theater, likely to leave Clinton's standings in the 2016 presidential race unharmed (and may even have helped, says Paste BN's Heidi Przybyla). The film will have an ambiguous ending, with people from both sides of the aisle claiming victory and leaving it up to the audience to decide on what actually happened.

Lincoln Chafee has something to say

Is another Democratic candidate about to bite the dust? Lincoln Chafee, Mr. I'm-Not-Scandalous/I-Only-Voted-For-That-Because-I-Just-Got-There, announced Thursday on Twitter that he plans to address the future of his campaign while addressing the DNC Women's Forum on Friday morning. Given that presidential campaign announcements are in vogue this week (see Jim Webb, Joe Biden), we'll see how it goes.

The Donald on the record

The Man, the Hair, the Donald sat down with Paste BN's Susan Page in Iowa on the 100th consecutive day he's led the polls (yes, it's been that long). What's on Trump's mind? You name it, he's probably thought about it: possible running mates, the Federal Reserve, Joe Biden and the fact that he's going to "tone it down a little bit." What does a toned down Trump look like? Maybe we'll get a taste of that at next week's #GOPDebate Pt. 3, the one before everyone and their mother started to drop out.

Paul Ryan to the GOP: You're welcome

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., announced Thursday that he begrudgingly will run for speaker of the House, reports Paste BN's Deirdre Shesgreen. "I never thought I'd be speaker," wrote the man who has spent much of his adult life working on/nearby the Capitol campus (Tortilla Coast is, after all, just across the way from the House office buildings). Bully for him, though, and the ability to unite a fractured GOP for his leadership election. We'll drink some swirl margaritas while he tries to get the debt limit situation under control.

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