Three people with direct knowledge of Roy Moore’s (R) thinking tell the Associated Press that they expect him to jump into the 2020 race for U.S. Senate in Alabama.
The formal announcement is expected at 3 p.m. ET.
A caveat: “They requested anonymity to speak before Moore’s announcement and noted the former judge has been unpredictable and could decide at the last minute not to run.”
Jeremy Hunt will face Boris Johnson in the race to be the next British Prime Minister after Michael Gove was eliminated in the latest Tory leadership ballot, the BBC reports.
Johnson, considered the favorite in the race, and Hunt will now compete in a run-off of the party’s 160,000 or so members, and the winner will be announced in the week of July 22.
Wall Street Journal: “The White House has invited top congressional leaders for a briefing on Iran at 3 p.m., according to a person familiar with the matter. Others invited include the top members of the House and Senate intelligence and armed-services committees.”
Washington Post: “Instead of showcasing Buttigieg’s ability to lead through a crisis, however, the shooting is exposing what has long been considered an Achilles’ heel of his candidacy: his frosty relationship with South Bend’s black residents. Since arriving on Sunday, Buttigieg has alienated the family of the dead man, Eric Logan, 54, skipped a vigil at the scene of the shooting, and sought advice from outsiders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York.”
“The shooting has handed Buttigieg the first significant challenge of his charmed campaign. To allies, his decision to leave the campaign trail and then hold two days of private meetings signals deliberate, considerate leadership. But to detractors, including many of South Bend’s black activists, his actions show that he still doesn’t get it.”
James Hohmann: “Hillary Clinton called half of Donald Trump’s supporters ‘a basket of deplorables.’ Mitt Romney claimed 47 percent of the country would never vote for him because they are ‘dependent upon government.’ Barack Obama said ‘bitter’ working-class people in the Rust Belt ‘cling to guns or religion.'”
“Joe Biden’s paean to a bygone era — during which he spoke wistfully about working collegially and civilly with racists to find areas of common ground — seems destined to enter this pantheon of campaign-defining gaffes.”
“The latest donnybrook illustrates why Biden has been the least directly accessible to the press of all the 2020 candidates, including President Trump. Biden has been doing fewer public events than his top-tier rivals, preferring to focus on raising money from high-dollar donors. He’s given virtually no sit-down interviews and submitted to relatively few gaggles. “
“I watched the whole thing last night. I know no one wants to waste that kind of time even looking at him, but not wanting to see the enormity of the fight ahead doesn’t make it go away. He hasn’t lost one inch of his fired-up insane base. Are u ready?”
— Michael Moore, on Twitter, commenting on President Trump’s campaign kickoff.
“The Senate passed the first in a series of resolutions aimed at blocking 22 arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, dealing another symbolic blow to the Trump administration’s close ties to the Middle East allies,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
New York Times: “While the Democratic-controlled House is also expected to block the sales, Mr. Trump has pledged to veto the legislation, and it is unlikely that either chamber could muster enough support to override the president’s veto.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Bloomberg that “he doesn’t support a bipartisan House effort to increase pay for members of Congress for the first time in a decade, likely scuttling the effort.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey in North Carolina finds President Trump with an upside down approval rating, 46% to 49%.
In hypothetical match ups with the five leading Democratic candidates for President, Trump ranges from trailing by 3 points to leading by 3 points. Trump gets 46 or 47% regardless of the Democrat he’s tested against, while the level of support for the Democrats fluctuates based on their name recognition.
The two Democrats with leads over Trump are the best known: Joe Biden is up 49% to 46% on him and Bernie Sanders is up 48% to 47%. Trump narrowly leads the lesser known Democrats: it’s a 47% to 46% edge over Kamala Harris, a 48% to 46% one over Elizabeth Warren, and a 47% to 44% one over Pete Buttigieg.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News last night that President Trump should bomb Iran if the country does more to disrupt shipping activity.
Said Graham: “He should put the oil refineries on the target list and look at sinking the Iranian Navy if they attack shipping again. My red line is: If there’s any more disruption of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz linked to Iran, take out their Navy and bomb their refineries.”
Politico: “Bennet is calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, a lifetime ban on members of Congress becoming lobbyists, a prohibition on political gerrymandering and a push for ranked choice voting. Bennet is also supporting a laundry list of long-desired Democratic reforms, including automatic voter registration, D.C. statehood and greater transparency around super PAC fundraising and spending.”
“Many of his proposals are already popular with other Democratic presidential candidates. But Bennet says he’s setting himself apart by putting these plans at the center of his campaign, arguing that reforming the American government is essential because ‘so much of what we want to get done, from climate to health care to changing the tax code, is going to require us to reform the way this democracy works/'”
Edward Luce: “The thing about freak accidents is that they do not keep happening. Donald Trump benefited from more than one lightning strike in 2016. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, offered a living, breathing picture of America’s reviled establishment. The director of the FBI, James Comey, was an unusually incompetent investigator. His last-minute intervention helped sway the election. The US electoral college managed to skew a popular defeat for Mr Trump into a victory. Finally, Facebook offered the ideal platform for Vladimir Putin’s fake news blitz.”
“None of these conditions is likely to recur in 2020 — or at least not in the same way. Yet Mr Trump is betting that history will repeat itself.”
President Trump told Telemundo that Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden look “tired crazy” and “exhausted.”
Said Trump: “Bernie, Bernie looks like he’s had it. Bernie looks crazy, but he always did. But he looks like a tired crazy right now.”
On Biden, Trump said “he looks like he’s just exhausted. I don’t know what happened to him but he is exhausted and he doesn’t do any work, he’s not working. One thing I found out about this job, to do it right, and I’ve done it right — you have to work hard.”
Aaron Blake: “Most polls have shown a majority of Americans — as many as 57 percent in one poll, but usually a slimmer majority — say they will definitely not vote to reelect Trump. It’s one thing to lack appeal to such a large segment of the population; it’s another for them to rule out supporting you entirely. If this segment of the electorate doesn’t budge, it would make Trump’s reelection very difficult; he’d have to hope these people simply don’t turn out to vote, that he could win with a plurality thanks to third-party candidates and/or that he could carry the electoral college without winning the popular vote (again).”
“As problematic for Trump is that this number seems to be bearing out in early polling — in the form of a ceiling. Most matchups in high-quality national polls have him struggling to climb out of the low 40s, no matter who his opponent is.”
President Trump has lost interest in Venezuela after U.S. support for a coup failed to produce immediate results, the Washington Post reports.
Trump has lost “patience and interest” in the issue as attempts to remove President Maduro from power have stalled. Trump reportedly “chewed out the staff” in a meeting shortly after the failed takeover at the end of April, and hasn’t really mentioned it much since.
“She’s a friend of mine and I’m not going to let anyone in this town with their little blogging fingers divide us. It’s time to be unified.”
— NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer (R-MN), quoted by Politico, downplaying reports of tension over fundraising between him and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY).
A new Pew Ressearch poll finds just 3% of Democratic or likely Democratic voters think the optimal age for a president is someone in their 70s.
Freshman Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL), who flipped a suburban Chicago congressional district in 2018, told the Chicago Sun-Times he backs launching an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
“His public call stands out because Casten is only the third in this group of 44 to support an impeachment inquiry. Casten joins freshmen Katie Porter of California and Tom Malinkowski of New Jersey – a friend whose office is down the hall from Casten’s.”
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) also on Wednesday called for a Trump impeachment inquiry, notable since she is part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team and the speaker has counseled restraint.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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