A special adviser to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini blamed the United States for a rise in tensions between Iran and the West, Politico reports.
Said Nathalie Tocci: “This is happening for one reason that has not been cited so far, which is the fact that the United States has violated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, meaning the Iran deal. You’re not living up to your side of the bargain.”
Aaron Blake: “There is one poll question I keep coming back to when I think about President Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. It’s the one in which pollsters ask whether people would definitely not vote for him.”
“This is an especially bad number for Trump. National polls generally show a majority of people (51-56 percent) say they wouldn’t — with Fox News polls being the exception. And now a poll also shows that number is remarkably bad for Trump in a surprising place: Texas. The University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll shows 43 percent say they’d never back Trump, and another 7 percent say they’re inclined to vote against him. That’s half the state intending not to vote for a Republican president … in Texas.”
President Trump predicted that the official launch of his reelection campaign tonight will be “wild,” adding that GOP enthusiasm is “at an all time high.”
Said Trump: “The Fake News doesn’t report it, but Republican enthusiasm is at an all time high.”
Ron Brownstein: “McConnell has been the immovable object: He’s frustrated House Democrats by systematically blocking Senate votes so far on the lengthening list of bills they have passed, from gun control to additional protections for patients with preexisting health problems.”
“But McConnell’s blockade faces a new challenge as the House turns to a series of bills meant to fight foreign interference in the 2020 election. Those measures, aimed at defending fundamental American institutions from foreign subversion, may be tougher for the Kentucky Republican to portray as partisan overreach than the bills the House has passed so far. And that could make them an irresistible force that strains his overall strategy of preventing action on any House legislation.”
“Joe Biden told supporters at a Manhattan fundraiser Monday night that his presidential campaign has raised money from 360,000 donors, with an average contribution of $55 — figures that suggest he has amassed nearly $20 million so far,” the Washington Post reports.
“If so, the former vice president’s haul would eclipse that of any of the other Democratic White House hopefuls in the first quarter of the year, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who reported taking in $18.2 million from about 500,000 donors.”
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to draw attention away from the politically explosive topic of impeaching President Trump by putting health care back at center stage for Democrats,” Bloomberg reports.
“Pelosi said more than 140 House Democrats held home-district events on health care over the weekend. This focus is especially important for moderate Democrats eager show voters they’re trying to deliver on their campaign promises even as some of their colleagues push ahead with investigations of Trump’s business, associates and administration.”
Facing twin challenges in the Persian Gulf, President Trump told Time that he might take military action to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but cast doubt on going to war to protect international oil supplies.
Said Trump: “I would certainly go over nuclear weapons and I would keep the other a question mark.”
Trump described recent attacks on oil tankers as “very minor.”
President Trump tweeted last night that the State Department’s identification of “multiple security incidents” surrounding the handling of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails is “really big.”
Said Trump: “Wow! The State Department said it has identified 30 Security Incidents involving current or former employees and their handling of Crooked Hillary Clinton’s Emails.”
He added: “This is really big. Never admitted before. Highly Classified Material. Will the Dems investigate this?”
Indiana State Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon (D) and three other named statehouse employees will fill a new federal lawsuit against Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill (R) on Tuesday morning, the Daily Beast reports.
“The 11-count complaint against Hill and the state of Indiana alleges sexual harassment, retaliation, gender discrimination, battery, defamation, and invasion of privacy.”
“Jamaal Bowman, a middle school principal from the Bronx, will announce on Tuesday his plans to challenge Rep. Eliot Engel, the New York Democrat who leads the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, in the 2020 race,” the New York Times reports.
“The contest could serve as a key test of whether liberal insurgent groups can convert a surge of energy on the left into successful challenges of members of the Democratic Party establishment.”
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock “will not be one of the 20 presidential candidates who will appear at the first Democratic presidential debates in Miami next week,” CBS News reports.
“Instead, his campaign announced Tuesday that Bullock will hold town halls in Iowa and New Hampshire on both nights of the back-to-back debates.”
CNN: What the Democrats who didn’t make the debate stage will be doing instead.
“Sen. Amy Klobuchar has outlined actions she will take to address climate change and health care atop a long list of wide-ranging priorities for her first 100 days in office if she’s elected president in 2020,” CNN reports.
“According to an 18-page list obtained by CNN, on day one the Minnesota Democrat would have the US reenter the international Paris Climate agreement, which President Trump withdrew the US from in 2017. Her first outlined goal says she would work to ensure the US ‘maintains global leadership to address the climate crisis.'”
Freshmen Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) came out in support of impeaching President Trump in a video she posted online.
“President Trump said in a tweet Monday night that U.S. immigration agents are planning to make mass arrests starting ‘next week,’ an apparent reference to a plan in preparation for months that aims to round up thousands of migrant parents and children in a blitz operation across major U.S. cities,” the Washington Post reports.
Tweeted Trump: “Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in.’
“Large-scale ICE enforcement operations are typically kept secret to avoid tipping off targets… U.S. officials with knowledge of the preparations have said in recent days that the operation was not imminent, and ICE officials said late Monday night that they were not aware that the president planned to divulge their enforcement plans on Twitter.”
Orlando Sentinel: “With tents, sleeping bags and coolers of water in tow, Donald Trump supporters began lining up early Monday for Tuesday’s campaign rally in Orlando, nearly two full days before the event.”
“The line had grown to about 50 as of 3 p.m. By 9:30 p.m., the line ballooned to about 250, with people snaked around to Central Boulevard. Around the same Trump tweeted there were ‘thousands of people already lined up.’”
CNN: Trump seeks 2016 magic as he kicks off 2020 bid.
New York Times: “As President Trump kicks off his campaign for a second term on Tuesday with an eardrum-pounding, packed-to-the-rafters rally in Florida, no one doubts that he is the dominant force in the arena today, the one defining the national conversation as no president has done in generations.”
“But the coming election is shaping up as a test — not just of the man but of his country. Was Mr. Trump’s victory the last time around a historical fluke or a genuine reflection of America in the modern age? Will the populist surge that lifted him to the White House run its course or will it further transform a nation and its capital in ways that will outlast his presidency? What kind of country do Americans really want at this point?”
“President Trump is at a make-or-break moment with Iran,” Politico reports.
“Tehran said Monday it will soon take steps that likely violate the 2015 nuclear deal Trump himself abandoned, an announcement that came just days after the U.S. accused the Islamist-led country of sabotaging international oil tankers. The Pentagon announced Monday that it is sending 1,000 more troops to the Middle East for ‘defensive purposes.’ In Europe, meanwhile, leaders are starting to acknowledge that they may have to walk away from the nuclear agreement or devise a new one.
“The confluence of events will test Trump’s weak appetite for military action, his ability to rally allies he has frequently snubbed and his seriousness about actually striking the better deal with the Iranians that he once promised. Along the way, Trump must win over officials well-aware of his history of misstatements and uneasy about relying on U.S. intelligence when a potential new Middle East war could result.”
“As President Trump prepares to formally launch his reelection bid Tuesday, his allies are trying to tamp down headlines that depict his campaign as trailing top Democrats, beset by withering leaks and unable to keep internal tensions from spilling into public view,” the Washington Post reports.
“The 2020 drama intensified over the weekend, as Trump’s campaign abruptly fired three of its pollsters, including one polling firm formerly owned by Kellyanne Conway, the president’s adviser and former campaign manager.”
“Privately and publicly, campaign advisers fumed over the leak of internal polling data that showed Trump far behind former vice president Joe Biden in key states — a pattern that has touched a nerve with the president.”
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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